App Review: iSurvival

By Brian Davidson, Uncharted Staff

The time hasn’t come yet that an iPod Touch is the first item I think of when I’m compiling a list of wilderness survival essentials, but a friend of mine recently recommended a survival app that just might change my mind.

It’s called — maybe this won’t win points for originality — iSurvival. But as I mock the name, I have to say that for an occasional wilderness wanderer like me, it’s got some handy stuff, though I’m hard-pressed to way when, in the future, I envision myself becoming lost at sea. Published by Utah-based Fishington Studios, the app is billed as a “military grade” wilderness survival manual. And considering the friend who recommended the app worked as a paramedic and in California and follows military minutia as he has a son who is a soldier, I have to believe that this app lives up to its billing.

There are small tells throughout the manual that reveal the text in iSurvival wasn’t originally written for the leisure wilderness crowd — the chapter on shelters, for example, advises that you choose a place to build your shelter that “provides concealment from enemy observation” — but, in general, the tips therein echo those I’ve read in more expensive manuals, including a few I’ve got lying around the house because I haven’t yet gotten around to getting lost.

Though I’ve poked fun at the manual a bit, it’s certainly something I’d have at my side if I were wandering off into the wilds. The app’s clear textual presentation, accompanied by clear, useful illustration of survival techniques ranging from shelter-building to identification of edible wild plants.The link provided above says the app is available for $1.99. I searched iTunes and got it for free, though perhaps the “free” was a short-time promotional price.

The only fault I can see in this app is obvious — run out of power for your handheld device and the app is locked away forever. Perhaps they’ve included a chapter on locating current bushes . . .