Australian airports are starting to jump on the iPhone/iPad popularity wave by releasing their own official airport apps.

Avalon

Geelong's Avalon Airport is the latest entrant into the space, with its self-titled app, Avalon Airport.

It can give you information on bus services from Melbourne and Geelong, car hire outlets, and driving instructions. One particularly useful feature is the parking cost calculator.

It also has a flight radar to show you the progress of inbound and outbound flights plotted on a map.

Darwin

The official iPhone app for Darwin Airport is primarily an airport departure/arrivals board ported to your handset's screen.

It also has a parking cost calculator, and a taxi fare comparitor (which amusingly will calculate a fare from anywhere in Australia to Darwin.)

Finally, there's a direct link to Darwin Airport's Twitter news feed.

Alice Springs

From the same software house that developed the Darwin Airport app, the Alice Springs Airport app provides similar info.

However, it also has airline contact information which is a handy addition.

Unfortunately the airport has added copious information about the airport's solar power generation - something we can't really imagine too many passengers caring about so much that they want a permanent reference in their iPhone.

What about Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Launceston, Hobart, Canberra...?

The other capital city airports don't yet have an official iPhone app, though Sydney Airport did provide a beta test version of an app in September last year, which has still not been released.

Australian Business Traveller's enquiries to Sydney Airport about the progress of this app went unanswered.

That's not to say that there aren't good apps for monitoring Australian airports, of course. We've previously looked at TripIt, which can even advise departure gates for flights in some cities.

Also, don't miss our roundup of the best iPhone apps for booking taxis across Australia. With one of these, you can book a taxi as soon as your plane touches down, and skip the taxi queue at the airport curb!