Need a taxi or chauffeured car? There's an iPhone app for that!

There are few less enjoyable things about travelling than standing in airport taxi queues.

So why not pre-book a cab to pick you up -- or, if you forget, book a cab the moment you touch down at the airport?

There are a bunch of great apps to make it possible to do just that.

Melbourne taxi apps

13CABS is the official app for Black Cabs. The "Where's my cab" function saves you the trouble of ringing the call centre to find out where your errant taxi is -- you can see its last position plotted on a map.

There's also a "shake to whistle" feature which makes the loudest possible whistle come out of your tiddling iPhone speaker -- more for novelty than practical use, we'd suggest.

Download: iTunes (Australia | US)

Silvertop is the official app for the other major taxi network in Melbourne, Silvertop Taxis. If you're travelling to Melbourne, don't assume this will book you a Silver Service cab -- it won't; you'll just get a standard cab from the Silvertop ranks.

A great feature of this app (which really should be a standard feature in all app) is a record of all the past addresses you've ordered taxis to/from, for easy reuse in later bookings.

Download: iTunes Australia | US

Silver Service lets you book one of the nicer "Silver Service" cabs in Sydney, Newcastle or Melbourne. It's a re-skinned version of mTaxi, so it works the same way, but you'll hopefully get a slightly nicer cab arriving to pick you up.

Download: iTunes Australia | US

Delux lets you book a chauffeured car in Melbourne -- one of the Holden Caprice, Mercedes S-Class or BMW 7-Series pictured below.

The great part is you can get a fixed price quote (typically 30% more than cab prices, the makers of Delux claim) and pay for the trip via the app.

Of course, as with all chauffeured cars, if the driver has to wait due to delayed flights or whatever, you'll end up paying additional surcharges.

Sydney taxi apps

Mtaxi for iPhone is Taxi Combined's Sydney taxi booking system, including the Newcastle area.

It works well enough, though the app store description of the app acknowledges that it "seems slow, because you are focused on the app, but it is comparitively faster than booking via the website."

It also notes that the app doesn't guarantee that a taxi will arrive, as that's up to the taxi fleet -- but it will book the taxi for you. (Drats, and here we were hoping an iApp would fix Sydney's taxi problems...)

Download: iTunes Australia | US

Taxi Pro is a free taxi booking app that links in to Taxi Combined's systems and provides a faster user interface for booking cabs.

It saves your address details for future use, and one fantastic feature is the ability to rebook a past trip (from one pickup location to a specific destination) -- ideal for home to city or home to airport runs, for example.

Download: iTunes Australia | US

Silver Service lets you book one of the nicer "Silver Service" cabs in Sydney, Newcastle or Melbourne. It's a re-skinned version of mTaxi, so it works the same way, but you'll hopefully get a slightly nicer cab arriving to pick you up.

Download: iTunes Australia | US

Perth taxi apps

Swan Taxis lets you book a taxi and watch your driver's progress, with the position of your allocated cab plotted on Google Maps. (Unfortunately, the app does nothing to alleviate Perth's chronic taxi shortage... so allow 15-20 minutes extra on top of the booked time for the taxi to actually arrive!)

Download: iTunes (Australia | US)

Brisbane taxi apps

Yellow Cabs Brisbane app allows taxi bookings for Brisbane, including Redcliffe, Ipswich and Caboolture, Toowoomba and Warwick (and Hobart in Tasmania for good measure!)

You can book a taxi using the iHail function, which uses the iPhone's GPS to figure out where you are, and then lets you fine-tune the location details before booking. It also saves favourite locations for future use.

Two nice features of this app are that it can give you an estimated fare, and once a cab is dispatched, the taxi's progress can be tracked live on a map.

Download: iTunes (Australia | US)

Canberra taxi apps

CanberraElite is the official app for the taxi fleet of the same name, offering some neat features such as SMS confirmation with estimated time of arrival and taxi number, and the ability to cancel bookings or enquire on their progress without having to ring the company.

Download: iTunes (Australia | US)

SilverService Canberra is much the same app, but instead of ordering a regular taxi, you'll be ordering a nicer silver service cab.

Download: iTunes (Australia | US)

Hobart taxi apps

Yellow Cabs Hobart app allows taxi bookings for Hobart (as well as Brisbane, QLD and surrounds).

You can book a taxi using the iHail function, which uses the iPhone's GPS to figure out where you are, and then lets you fine-tune the location details before booking. It also saves favourite locations for future use.

Two nice features of this app are that it can give you an estimated fare, and once a cab is dispatched, the taxi's progress can be tracked live on a map.

Download: iTunes (Australia | US)

Adelaide, Launceston and Darwin?

There are no taxi booking apps for iPhone for these cities for now. If you know of one, please let us know!

danwarne