Save time and money: shop smarter with your iPad or iPhone

Shop smarter with your iPad or iPhone

Refuelled? Good. Fancy going to a gig tonight? The Ticketmaster UK (Free, iPhone and iPod touch) app lets you easily see what concerts are scheduled nearby, and allows you to buy last-minute tickets, if there are any available.

StubHub Tickets (Free, iPhone and iPod touch) does a similar job in both the UK and US.

And EventBrite (Free, iPhone and iPod touch), which also works in both the US and UK, allows you to store tickets in Passbook.

If there are no tickets, Seatwave Tickets (Free, iPhone and iPod touch) is one of the biggest on both sides of the Atlantic, and its app allows you to access its network of sellers. Its clever dynamic seating maps allow you to see exactly where in a venue you'll be sitting.

Screen time

Shop smarter with your iPad or iPhone

If you'd rather take in a movie than a concert or a play, Cinema Times, UK (Free, iPhone and iPod touch) allows you to see what films are showing in the cinemas closest to you. You can search for specific movies, read reviews, check times and buy tickets.

In the US, Showtimes (Free, iPhone and iPod touch) does a similar job, and will also give you directions to the cinema.

And if you're in Australia, My Cinema (Free, iPhone and iPod touch) has details of films showing at independent cinemas all over the country. Alternatively, both Hoyts and Event Cinemas have their own apps: Hoyts Movie App (Free, Universal) and Pocket Cinema (Free, Universal).

If you're in the UK and you know that you want to go to a Vue (Free, iPhone and iPod touch), Odeon (Free, iPhone and iPod touch), or Cineworld (Free, iPhone and iPod touch) cinema, you can download their own app. And if you're an Orange customer, you'll want the Orange Wednesdays (Free, iPhone and iPod touch) app, too.

Finally, if you've been shopping all day and then had a quick bite to eat before the cinema, you might find yourself having to answer a call of nature during the movie (yes, you should have gone in the foyer; no, not literally in the foyer; you know what we mean).

RunPee (Free, Universal) is an ingenious app that has details of the latest cinema release and tells you the best time during the movie to visit the bathroom. That way you'll never miss any action because you had to, well, run pee.

Shop smarter with your iPad or iPhone

Did someone say lunch? If it's a restaurant you're after, Urbanspoon (Free, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch) will do the job. Whether you're in the UK, US, Canada or Australia, just fire up the app, shake your iPhone, and it will suggest a restaurant near you. You can then make a booking on the spot.

If you'd rather be more involved in the decision-making process, you can search local eateries and filter the results by type of cuisine, locality or price. And, of course, you can read reviews from critics or other diners.

Rather eat somewhere a little less formal? McDonald's (Free, iPhone and iPod touch)? PizzaExpress (Free, iPhone and iPod touch)? Nando's (Free, Universal)? There are apps for all of those, each of which will tell you the location of your nearest restaurant and, in the case of PizzaExpress, give you the option of booking a table and accessing special offers.

If you can't decide what to go for, Fast Food UK (69p, Universal) will point you to your nearest McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, Subway, Pizza Hut or Domino's.

When it's time to go home and you wish you'd brought the car rather than taken the bus, you might decide to treat yourself to a cab. If you're in London, Black Cabs (Free, iPhone and iPod touch) will allow you to hail a cab and pay for it using PayPal.

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