SuiteLife's Top 10 Barcelona Apps for your mobile

Coming to Barcelona with a smart phone in hand, your thinking, is there any Barcelona apps I need to make my life easier in this dynamic city? If you ever questioned that yourself, Suite Life has the answer you’re looking for. These 10 necessary Barcelona apps will be categorized by transportation, city guides, sports and shops. All of them are available for both iOS and Android operated phones.  To download the app, simply scan or click on the relevant QR code.

Transportation apps Barcelona

Whether you arrive to Barcelona by train, ship or airplane: the first question will always be: how to get to places? Grab your internet- connected smartphone and let the transportation mobile apps Barcelona do the rest for you.

TMB – Barcelona apps for Metro and other public transports

This is the official mobile app from TMB, the main public transport management company in the Barcelona metropolitan area. It provides information about metro, bus lines and stops around the city’s urban area. You can track any bus or metro stations around you with GPS. The most important feature is real-time search for travel directions from place to place by metro and bus. Each route will have estimated time of arrival, means of transport and designated station so you can plan the journey easily.
Small tip: check for service alert to see any change or cancellation of the lines. TMB apps Barcelona is available in English, Spanish and Catalan [caption id="attachment_43637" align="alignleft" width="200"]
For Andoid[/caption] [caption id="attachment_43638" align="alignright" width="200"]
For iOS[/caption]

Renfe ticket

This is also official app created by Renfe, a middle and long distance train operator in Spain. The app also provides users with route planning, time table, and schedule change, however for middle and long distance trains, which is useful when you want to travel to Barcelona’s suburbs or other cities in Spain. Moreover you can conveniently buy your train ticket directly through your phone and show it to train conductor without having to print it out. The option of change or cancelation is also available within this app
Available languages at the moment are English and Spanish [caption id="attachment_43649" align="alignright" width="200"]
For iOS[/caption] [caption id="attachment_43648" align="alignleft" width="200"]
For Android[/caption]

Bicing

Bicing is the bicycle sharing system in Barcelona introduced to help daily users cover the small and medium distance commutes within the city in a greener way. The main purpose of bicing app Barcelona is to give bicing users real-time information about station maps, which station is close to your location and number of available bikes at that time.
Although the available language is only Spanish and Catalan it is still easy to use for non-Spanish speaking users, with friendly interface and mostly graphic icons. My personal tips for you when using this app is to hit the refresh button frequently, as the number of bike in each station can change very fast, especially during rush hours. Once I was coming to get a bike, the mobile app showed only 2 bikes left at that station. When I arrived, I desperately watched a guy who arrived just a few seconds earlier than me took the last one. [caption id="attachment_43657" align="alignleft" width="200"]
For Android[/caption] [caption id="attachment_43658" align="alignright" width="200"]
For iOS[/caption]

Local guide

Tripadvisor BCN

Fans of traveling probably know about Tripadvisor already. But do you know about their city guide app? Basically its purpose is to provide users with vast information about attractions, hotels, bars restaurants etc. of the specific city, just like its website, but in offline mode and there are only specific numbers of cities available. Luckily Barcelona is included. Tripadvisor’s city guide Barcelona app is one of the best city guide app in Barcelona. In my opinion it is the best.
The app is totally in English and very easy to use. You can either find the place by categories like Food & drink, Hotels, Attractions, and Shopping etc. or use the interactive map to locate yourself and find points of interest around you. Moreover you can find and book a tour around the city in Tickets/tours section. However the feature I find most useful is the offline self-guided tour, where you will find the direction to and read the general info of the most famous places in Barcelona, on your own and it’s totally free! As I mentioned above, this app is awesome and there are many other useful functions like check-in, review and so on, but I will leave it for you to explore on your own! [caption id="attachment_43662" align="alignleft" width="200"]
For Android[/caption] [caption id="attachment_43663" align="alignright" width="200"]
For iOS[/caption]

BCN visual

You might wonder how Barcelona looked centuries ago. Check out this cool app. BCN Visual contains many photos of buildings and street in Barcelona decades or centuries ago. Each photo has its own description and is marked on the app’s interactive map.
The coolest feature IMO is Augmented Reality mode. Once arrived at the photo’s destination you can use Augmented Reality mode to “scan” the area and check for example how a building or a street has changed over time. Here are some of my results, the quality's not so good as it was taken by phone camera and i'm not a professional photographer, but it's fun to try out :)



[caption id="attachment_43729" align="alignleft" width="200"]
For Andoid[/caption] [caption id="attachment_43730" align="alignright" width="200"]
For iOS[/caption]

Ibeach

This app will let you enjoy the beautiful beaches in Barcelona even more. Ibeach offers list of beaches in Barcelona and allover Spain. After you choose one particular beach, iBeach will display information about temperature, waves, wind and other weather indicators. One thing I find very useful is the jellyfish alert function. When you come to the beach and see jellyfish you can put an alert to warn people, and other users would do the same so you can know. You wouldn’t want to go to the beach full of those squishy venomous animals, would you?
Besides that, in each beach you can find nearby restaurants/bars/supermarkets in case you need some refreshment during hot days, or some activities to do, or nearby public toilets and medical services. At the moment the restaurant lists isn’t complete, but developers are cooperating with local business and hopefully it will be filled up soon. [caption id="attachment_43680" align="alignleft" width="200"]
For Android[/caption] [caption id="attachment_43681" align="alignright" width="200"]
For iOS[/caption] Also like swimming pool? Here you go

Sports

FCB World

If you are football fan or FC Barcelona in particular then you won’t want to miss this app. With this app you can get the latest results and league tables, view the player profiles and stats or the club’s history etc. Furthermore you can follow the match live with the photos and videos, when you cannot go to the stadium or watch it on TV.
This official app of Fútbol Club Barcelona is your direct communication channel with the club and the place to find all the latest information, photos, videos, news, live match commentaries, tweets, interactive games and other innovative services, all related to your favourite players. ~Description on Google Play~ [caption id="attachment_43683" align="alignleft" width="200"]
For Android[/caption] [caption id="attachment_43684" align="alignright" width="200"]
For iOS[/caption]

Barcelona Corre

One of the best sport activities you can do in this magnificent city is running. Barcelona Corre offers you 23 exciting routes around Barcelona. Each route has its own information about length, terrain differences, difficulty and so on.
When you first logged in the app will ask your age, height and weight for the profile. It is said that everyone who finishes all 23 route will be rewarded with a digital medals. I really doubt my possibility to do that, but if you want to try and find out, I would love to see those “medals” in comments section! [caption id="attachment_43687" align="alignright" width="200"]
For iOS[/caption] [caption id="attachment_43686" align="alignleft" width="200"]
For Android[/caption] In case you need sport apparels and equipment, check out these stores.

Grocery shopping

In this section I will mention only the Barcelona mobile apps of grocery stores as they are pretty darn important. Beside Spanish fashion and apparel brands like ZARA or Bershka and their apps are already well known, it would be insignificant to bring up here. In case you are totally new here and don’t know yet about grocery stores in Barcelona, my advice is to check out these tips first

Folletos Carrefour

Folletos Carrefour provides its users current offers and brochures of all Carrefour supermarkets. Within those interactive brochures, you will be able to see each item’ details, image, price; share to friends or add to your shopping list. It is especially useful when your Spanish is not good enough to ask the staff where each items is located. Instead show them your shopping list and save time for both sides.
This app also offer interactive map to help you find nearest store by distance and by type of stores. The app is only available in Spanish, but with comprehensive pictures and symbols, good chance to learn Spanish then. [caption id="attachment_43706" align="alignleft" width="200"]
For Android[/caption] [caption id="attachment_43707" align="alignright" width="200"]
For iOS[/caption]

Dia

Another big grocery chain in Barcelona is Dia. Their app's feature is pretty similar to the above Folletos Carrefour, but it requires you to login. In return it offers management of your discount coupons.
[caption id="attachment_43709" align="alignleft" width="200"]
For Android[/caption] [caption id="attachment_43710" align="alignright" width="200"]
For iOS[/caption] More  Barcelona mobile apps by the City Council can be found here. If you have other interesting Barcelona apps feel free to introduce it to us in comment Peace! T.Vu