Our Top 18 iPhone Apps for Productivity

Collaboration is something that I have been enjoying lately.  If you remember I had fun writing an article with @mistygirlph about our Top 10 Twitter Clients To Help You Tweet Better. Aside from our love of tweeting one thing we found out is that we both love our iPhones and the way it has helped us stay connected with our family, co-workers and friends and has helped us with our productivity.

In one of our many conversations,  we saw that at one point in a day, one will encounter people that when  you ask them how they are, they would  always reply with  "I am busy".  It looks like people are always on the rush.  So in today's post we have decided to come up with a list of iPhone apps that we have used.  We hope that the tools below will allow you to boost your productivity.

To Do/Task Management Apps

 Omnifocus - is a comprehensive GTD (Get It Done) system with task and project manager. OmniFocus is relatively expensive at 19.99 but it packs a lot of power into an iPhone app. It's great for those who need to track and manage complex projects and tasks. It uses the concept of the "In Box" to sort and organzine tasks and bits of information into projects. Along with the "context" view, OmniFocus allows you to view and sort your projects and tasks by multiple criteria such as task owner, due date, location and task type. Another great feature is the ability to sync across all your devices with the companion desktop and iPad apps.

 ToDo - is another task/list manager. I think of it as a simple and less expensive version of OmniFocus. You have all the expected features of a task list manager with ToDo including the ability to create projects and tasks, add notes and share tasks with other ToDo users, drag and drop sorting and repeating tasks. ToDo also integrates nicely with your contacts, email and SMS. It also fully supports TextExpander. Full over the air syncing vis Wifi and 3G across all your devices is available as well as an iPad version and Mac OS X desktop app.

 Remember The Milk - has been around for quite some time and has developed a loyal user base. RTM's best feature is it's simplicity and integration into many other apps and services. While there is a free version, we recommend the pro upgrade to add full real-time syncing across all your devices. While RTM is simple to use, it is also powerful. You can sort your tasks by due date, priority and context and even add notes and location information.

Cloud Based Apps

 Simplenote - is just that, a simple and elegant note taking app. Besides it's simplicity, the best feature of Simplenote is it's cloud syncing of your notes across all your devices. Back-up versions are also created and synced of each note. There are also several desktop text editors that seamlessly integrate with Simplenote. While the app is completely free to use, there is a premium version that adds some valuable features such as: no ads, Dropbox syncing, versioning up to 50 per note, ability to create notes via email, and access to your notes vis RSS feed. I've been a loyal Simplenote Premium users for a couple of years and it's my go to app for all types of "simple" notes.

 Evernote - is the Swiss army knife of note/information apps. The cool thing about Evernote is it's ability to store any kind of note, image, audio, PDF, email whatever you need to keep. A really neat feature is the search function. Not only can it search key words in any text file, Evernote also searches text in images! You can even create "notebooks" to group notes together. While Evernote is completely free to use, going "premium" definitely has its advantages. Premium adds some key features such as: increase upload space up to 1GB/month, syncing of all file types, full read/write capability of notebooks, searching within PDFs, offline access via iPhone, iPad and Android devices, and increased individual note size. Evernote has changed the way I organize and archive all kinds of information and data and is one of my most used apps.

 Dropbox - is like a virtual documents folder for your iPhone. A cloud based data storage and back-up service, Dropbox gives you 2GB of storage for free. There are premium plans available that add more storage, up to 100 GB. The great thing about Dropbox is it's simplicity. To use Dropbox, you simply "drop" files in your Dropbox folder and the app automatically syncs with your virtual folder in the cloud. Dropbox also has an iPad as well as a desktop app available for true seamless, synced experience. Another cool feature of Dropbox is that it fully integrates with a bunch of other iPhone and desktop apps to provide true real-time syncing of your date across all your devices. 

Clock/Alarm/Reminder Apps

 Due - I love apps that do what they are designed to do in a simple and elegant way and Due is no exception. I wrote about this app back in May and it is one I use everyday and has a prominent place on my iPhone home screen. Due is a alarm/timer/reminder app and does what it does very well. You simple enter the date, time and name of your reminder and Due takes care of the rest. The interface is slick, fast and intuitive and gets out of your way quickly. Cool features include, auto snooze, reusable reminders, push notifications, time zone shifting, recurring reminders, multiple alert sounds and full syncing with the iPad app vias Dropbox. Even through Due is not free, it's worth every penny to me because it just works better.

 PlaceClock - is a very cool alarm/reminder app with a unique feature among similar apps. PlaceClock is designed to reminder you of a task based on arriving at a location. A good example of this is say you need to buy a gift for someone and its only available at a particular store but your not sure when you'll be there. With PlaceClock, you simply set-up a reminder to notify you to buy that gift when you arrive at that particular store. Working with the built-in location services on your iPhone, you can set it to go off immediately upon arriving at your location or delay notification for a set amount of time. Other features include adjustable snooze, create places via address search, map browsing or from your current location and recurring reminders. This app is genius and has been a lifesaver to me on multiple occasions where location and more important than time. 

 Clock Pro - is a beautifully designed and verities clock/alarm app and is also packed with features!! This app has an array of clocks, timers and alarm clocks including an analog clock. stopwatch, sleep timer and countdown clock to name a few. It even has an egg timer and metronome. One of the qualities of Clock Pro along with it's many features and that it's just looks good. Clean, visually pleasing design is a big part why this app makes our favorites list.

Voice/Video Communication Apps

 Skype - is a cool app that you can download on your iPhone, iPad and iTouch.  Video call, instant message and text and call are the features you can expect from Skype.  Downloading the app is free.  You can call Skype to Skype for free over 3G and wifi.  For international calls that are cheaper there is Skype credits available for purchase.  If you have offices from around the globe having Skype allows you to connect with your colleagues and client for presentation purposes, anywhere anytime.  

 Fring - This app is cool for group video calling because you can have your friends who have downloaded Fring and enjoy unlimited free video calls worldwide.  This instant messaging client allows you to save on SMS messaging.  

 Google Voice - You get your own number with this app. Now you can make calls and send text messages from your Google Voice number. You can also make low-priced international calls directly from your phone. Google Voice integrates with your phone's native address book or Google Contacts. Send and receive text messages through the Google Voice app for free.

Travel Apps

 FlightBoard - turns your iPhone or ipad into an arrivals and departures board for any of thousands of airports worldwide. I love beautiful and clean user experiences and this app is not exception. The graphic look of the board mimics the look of the arrivals and departures board at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. See real time flight and gate information which updates every five minutes. You can even share flight information with friends via Twitter, Facebook and email.

 TripIt - is an ingenious app that allows you to access your travel arrangements on the go. It's designed as a champion app to TripIt's web based service that aggregates your travel itinerary information in one handy place. To use the service, you simply forward your airline, hotel, car rental confirmation emails to your TripIt accept and they automatically appear in your travel plans. It takes the hassle out of keeping track of your travel plans and keeps everything at your finger tips. You can also add maps, directions and notes too and share your plans with family and friends online or via email.

 Kayak - Make travels plans on your iPhone with Kayak. Compare flight, hotel and car rental prices to get the best deals all right from your iPhone. Other features include flight status tracking, viewing and managing your itinerary access airport information. It even comes with a currency converter and multiple packing lists. You can even look-up badge fee information. Unlike other services, there are no booking fees with Kayak and you can even set-up price alert notifications based on criteria you set.

Financial Apps

 Mint - is an comprehensive financial information and management app from the makers of Quicken. Using bank level security, Mint acts as a financial information warehouse, gathering all your data and presenting it to you in an elegant and easy to view format. All your information remains anonymous to Mint and is encrypted. The app offers several types of push notification alerts, reports and useful budgeting tools to keep you on track with your spending. Mint particularly excels in terracing your credit card charges and will notify you when any unusual activity occurs.

 Pageonce - is another all-in-one finical information manager. Once you create your account, Pageonce automatically organizes and tracks your bank accounts, credit cards and investments. Pageonce uses the latest bank level security and your account information remains anonymous. Other cool features include bill tracking and reminders, detailed reporting and real time credit card tracking. You can also set-up real time push notifications to alert you when certain activities occur regarding any of your accounts. 

 American Express - is one of the many credit card apps available for the Phone. The American Express app allows you to track your account charges and balance, and view recent activity. You can pay your bill straight from the app and view your payment history. Most other major credit card issuers over similar apps as well. Simple and straightforward, the American Express app is a great example of a specialized financial app doing a few things really well.

BONUS: Apple's Productivity Suite - iWork

 iWork - has been the core Apple productivity suite for years and positioned as a Mac alternative to Microsoft's Office apps. Apple now has gone one step further by making versions of the popular Pages, Numbers and Keynote for the iPhone and iPad. These are not just copped desktop version put completely redesigned for the small touch screens and the iPhone and ipad. Once of the knocks against the iOS versions had been the lack of an elegant syncing solution to keep your documents up to date manor all your devices and Macs. The introduction of iOS5 this fall should remedy that with integrated syncing at the app level using iCloud, the new cloud data storage and syncing service from Apple. For the price and feature set, the iWork suite is a great option for all Apple users.

There you go.  That is our list of our favorite apps, if you have other recommendations please feel free to share them here with us.  We would love to know and try them out.  

Why I Said No To Unlimited Data On My iPhone

You maybe thinking, "has Marty lost it?" Why on Earth would I say no to unlimited data on my iPhone? After all, AT&T has eliminated the "all you can eat" data plan in favor of a capped offering which tops out at 2GB. Well for the past year, ever since I got my iPad 3G and subscribed to the unlimited data plan, things were humming along quite nicely. I was loving having all the data I could use on both devices without the worry of limits or caps. Total per month data expense for both devices: $60. Not a bad price to pay for "all you can eat" data with no caps of any kind. I thought this was great until AT&T started offering the ability to turn your iPhone 4 into a mobile 3G "hotspot." This would allow me to use my 3G data connection on any of my WiFi enabled devices including my iPad and new MacBook Air. I would essentially be able to share the one data connection among multiple devices insetad of having to buy separate plans.

This had me intrigued so I did the math. Originally when I got my 3G iPad, I was happy to be getting unlimited data and not have to worry about caps or overage charges. As it turns out, I use A LOT less 3G data than I originally thought, well below the 2 GB limit of the new plan. The new plan is priced at $25, five dollars less than my existing unlimited plan. On my iPhone 4, I also had a $30 unlimited data plan, separate from my iPad. I found the same usage patterns. I was using well below the 2 GB limit. The new hotspot feature, while costing an extra $20 per month, includes 2GB of additional data. So if I went with the hotspot feature, I would essentially be getting a total of 4GB of 3G data to share among any of my WiFi enbaled devices for a total of $45 per month. This would be a savings of $15 per month over what I was currently paying. The only cavet would forfeit the option to go back to my old "unlimited" data plan. I must confess I did hesistate a little before mmaking the plunge. After all, there is something rather appealing about "unlimited." In the end, I made the switch. Even if I went over 4GB in any month, each additonal GB of data is only $10. For what I was paying previously, I would have to surpass the 6 GB of data in a month to exceed the $60 I was paying before and I'd still get the benefit of a shared data "hotspot" to share among all my devices. Done deal.

So far, the hotspot feature had been working flawlessly. It is especially handy now that I can use my MacBook Air without having to find an available WiFi connection. Great when traveling and as a back-up data source in case my primary home broadband goes out. Definitely a good deal in my opinion. Anyone else take the plunge? Would love your comments.

Posted via email from Marty McPadden

Create Your Own Mac WebApps With Fluid

With the ever increasing number of applications designed to run in a web browser, it's not unusual to have many, many browser tabs open simultaneously. How many times does one of those sites hangs and crashes causing the whole browser to go down. If you had, say GTalk open in one of the tabs, there goes your chat session. Fluid is a free site specific browser solution for the Mac. Using Fluid, you create individual SSBs (site specific browsers) to run your favorite web apps as separate desktop applications. Fluid give each webapp a desktop and dock icon, menu bar, tabbed browsing, userscripting (aka Greasemonkey,) a JavaScript API, Growl notifications and more.

How does Fluid work? Upon launching the app, Fluid will display a small window as pictured above. You simply type in the URL of the webapp you'd like to create and a name for your app. Next specify a location and icon by using the drop down menus provided. Below is a Fluid application window filled out to create a Google Voice webapp as an example.

You can use Fluid to run many of the web based apps you use everyday such as: GTalk, Twitter, Flickr Google Docs and many more. Anything that runs in the browser can be turned into a separate webapp. Below is a screen grab of the Google Voice app I created.

As an alternative, you can also covert any Fluid webapp you create into a MenuExtra SSB which is a site specific browser that resides in the status bar much like the clock and Spotlight. Simply select "Covert to MenuExtra SSB" from the main menu of the app you want to convert. This is a very handy feature for sites you access frequently such as mail clients. 

Let me know what you think. Is Fluid something you find useful? I invite your comments.

You can download Fluid here: http://fluidapp.com

Posted via email from Marty McPadden