I’m amazed by the amount of people I know with a Smartphone but who don’t use apps (whether through ignorance or just by choice). My iPhone and more recently iPad apps have become indispensible in making my life, work and personal, more manageable and more enjoyable.
Yes, there is a fair amount of useless dross out there but there are also some fantastic apps to really help. Here is a roundup of my personal favourites:
To keep me organised
Evernote – I LOVE this app. I create notebooks for almost everything and love the fact that whether I’m at my desk, at home or on the go, I can access Evernote on all my devices. It is almost like a virtual filing cabinet/scrap book where you can house ideas, scans of documents, webpage clippings, photos etc. With the keyword and tag tool it’s easy to find things too (much better than jotting things down on scraps of paper that get lost in the depths of your handbag!)
Toodledo – there are so many ‘to-do-list’ apps out there. I find this one easy to use but also good for personalising to your own requirements and way of doing things.
To make work life easier
Drop Box – a useful tool to store and share files via cloud storage with others. Negates the need to keep emailing files back and forth!
Cam Scanner+ - converts your iPhone into a portable scanner so that you can scan almost everything; so useful when you’re out and about or need copies of important documents. You can scan business cards, whiteboards, receipts and invoices and even create PDFs. You can email, fax, upload or send to other apps such as Evernote or Dropbox.
Instapaper – It’s a tool for saving web pages to read later offline as it strips out all the fluff leaving you with just text. With so much content out there this app takes away a lot of the stress; you can file the useful stuff away and then read it later ensuring you don’t get distracted.
Percentages – need to work out the percentage of a part value, work out how much a value has increased by, work out what the original value after a percentage was deducted? This app makes percentages a breeze!
TweetDeck – enables to you manage multiple social media network accounts such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn via an easy to use dashboard. You can schedule updates, monitor trends/topics and lots more.
To make home life easier
Momento – a journal app that allows you to tag contacts, attach photos and even link to social media feeds. An easy way to record those precious moments that can easily be forgotten.
Ocado – I’m a big advocate of Ocado. This app makes doing your grocery shopping a cinch!
To entertain my daughter
My daughter is coming up to four and the following have proved invaluable particularly when trying to keep her quietly occupied when out in a restaurant!
Pocketphonic – fantastic interactive learning. It has certainly helped both me and my daughter ensure we form our letters correctly.
Postman Pat SDS – good value considering how many games there are. A really nicely designed app that is both fun as well as utilising different skills.
To de-stress
LoveFilm – rent DVDs/Blu-rays by post (and also watch online). A fabulous service and a great little app to manage your rentals and search for films to watch.
Camera+ – there are dozens of camera apps out there. This one is a good all-rounder enabling you to edit photos and add some funky effects. The crop function is really useful to resize your photos ready for printing.
Yoga Free – a great reference to practice those difficult yoga poses.
I like these apps because almost all of them are true applications, not just mobile versions of websites. The functionality of some of these apps is quite astounding and for minimal expense you can arm yourself with some great tools to improve your effectiveness and efficiency both at work and at home.
Tell us what your favourite apps are – we’d love to know!
