DMV Test Prep

A study just released by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety finds that the overall crash rating of a vehicle for side impacts have a significant effect on survivability during a driver-side crash. It’s not just whether a vehicle has side-impact airbags that matters, but the overall rating based upon the institute’s crash tests. Other factors such as strong side support structures influence the overall safety of the vehicle.

The study includes only passenger vehicles with side airbags, demonstrating that airbags, while crucial, are far from the whole story in side crash protection.

So don’t forget to consult the IIHS’s ratings before buying a vehicle.

The report can be found here.

Tracking the gas mileage of your car is a great way to detect maintenance problems, and to improve your own driving habits towards economical driving. That’s important because it saves you money. Pen and paper is how I tracked mileage as a young driver, and still it was worth the effort. But today we have iPhone apps to transform tedium into simple, fun, and powerful.

Gas Pump [itunes, $4.99] for iPhone is super-easy to use and has built-in graphics to visualize your mileage log. But what’s really cool is cloud sync. Your mileage log and car info can be shared with other iPhones (or any iOS device). Great if more than one person is driving the car.

If you’ve got an extra moment it’s worth checking out on the App Store now.

This week we’ve been rolling out updates to the localized versions of DMV Test Prep, which updates the apps to universal with support for both iPhone and iPad. Now that iPad support is coming to all apps there’s no need to maintain a separate iPad-only version. Therefore the standalone DMV Test Prep for iPad app has been removed from sale. The same content, iPad UI, and StudyBox support can now be found in selected localized state versions, and eventually all state versions.

DMV Test Prep apps for the United States have been downloaded more than 150,000 times. Our customers are thrilled with the results they get. Now, we’re pleased to announce that we’ve been hard at work producing a version for Canadian provinces.

Our first release is for the Ontario Level One (G1) driver test. It comes with over 200 practice questions and answers, along with nearly 100 road signs, all in multiple-choice format. This test is designed specifically for Ontario with targeted questions directly from the manual. The initial release is for iPad only but soon we’ll be updating this to a universal binary which works on both iPad and iPhone/iPod touch.

[iTunes link]

If iPhone makes a good platform for mobile education, then iPad makes a great platform for learning. To really take advantage of what iPad can do we built a new app from the ground up especially for iPad. This isn’t just a blown up version of the iPhone app, but a complete rethink of how we’re doing things.

The most exciting change is LessonsMob, a cloud services platform we built which allows content updates on your device with just a simple sync. We can update existing practice questions and add new ones as state laws change.

We’ve also added the ability to bookmark questions which you’d like to review later. You can even write your own notes.

The biggest feature is how we took advantage of iPad’s larger screen. We were able to eliminate all navigation to different screens. The smaller size of the iPhone screen required moving around different screens to get things done, which is a significant distraction when you’re focused on learning.

In fact, the redesign is entirely focused on reducing distractions while you’re studying. The subdued white metallic theme, no ads, lack of hyperlinks in study material, annoying popups urging you to write a review, and the hyper-clean single screen design are all intended to help you study better… without distractions.

And one more thing… the price is still the amazing low at just $2.99.

[App Store link]