We’re the suburbs. We love our malls—and we love them big. But these labyrinthine behemoths are often impossible to navigate—good luck finding a directory!—and the parking lots are even worse.
Enter FastMall, the free iPhone app that will help you zero in on the best route to your favorite store, your car, or the bathroom, with its interactive maps. Once downloaded, it even works when your cell signal goes kaput, as it often does in the mall (Palisades Center, we’re looking at you). “This is turn-by-turn navigation without using GPS,” says Sam Feuer, FastMall’s CEO. “There’s nothing else in the world that’s like it.”
FastMall’s 1,650 maps include The Westchester, the Palisades Center, the Cross County Shopping Center, and even Woodbury Commons. Just tap where you are and where you want to go, and it’ll calculate for you the fastest path (avoiding escalators for you if you’re stroller-bound). Gotta go? Just shake your phone to find icons for the nearest bathroom. (You might already be shaking anyway.) And, when you pull into the lose-yourself lots, the app will make note of your car’s position and let you record a message to remind you where you parked. Keep an eye out for future features, including an app for the Droid, deals for Foursquare-style “check ins,” and interactive maps of other places like hospitals or amusement parks.
You can find FastMall at fastmall.com or in the iTunes Store.
