Spend just a few moments in the Apple or Android app store and you soon come to one conclusion: There’s an app for almost anything. Apps are quickly changing the way we do business, making it easier to connect and revolutionizing some common tasks.
I share five of my favorite business apps in the January edition of Minnesota Business. Here are a few others that you may not know about and could make your life easier in 2012:
1. NOTESHELF
If you are like me, you carry your iPad everywhere. It’s become the new notepad. This highly customizable handwriting-based app allows you to write with a stylus or even your finger on your iPad like you would with a traditional pen and the text appears on the screen and can be saved as a document on your device. You can zoom in, embed and annotate photos, choose from 450 icons to organize your notes and choose from 17 different notebook design templates to fit your fancy. ($5; For iPad)
2. FIREFOX HOME
Much like the Evernote app I featured in Minnesota Business’ January edition, this tool allows you to synchronize your desktop and mobile devices. You can view your browsing history, bookmarks and any online documents you were viewing. (Free; For iPhone, iPad and Android)
3. KAYAK
This app, designed with the business travel in mind, started in 2005 as a way to find deals on plane tickets, rental cars and hotels before becoming a flight booking service. The latest upgrade, released in December, allows you to also reserve a car through popular providers like Avis and Alamo and use an itinerary tool to manage your flight departure and arrival details, lodging and check-in times. (Free; For iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry)
4. QUICKOFFICE MOBILE SUITE
This app eliminates the compatibility issues that arise when trying to open a Word, Excel or PowerPoint document from an email on your mobile device. With this app, you can open it, make edits and even create files (although somewhat cumbersome) from your phone or iPad. ($5; For iPhone, iPad, Android)
5. REDLASER
This scanning application allows you to take a picture of a bar code (QR,UPC or EAN) and retrieve product information, including prices and availability in nearby stores. You can even scan a book’s bar code and search for it in a nearby U.S. library or a product to review food allergens. (Free; For iPhone and Android)
6. PHOTOGENE
Today’s smartphones are beginning to replace the everyday camera. With this tool, it just got easier to edit and share your shots. This photo editing tool allows you to enhance your photos with multiple adjustment options, a cropping tool and other fun effects like text balloons, frames and special filters. You can edit images in your library as well as ones taken with the built-in camera. ($2; iPhone or iPodTouch)
It is certain that 2012 will bring even more apps to the marketplace to help satisfy our growing hunger for them and increasing reliance on our mobile devices. ABI Research, a technology market research firm, released a report in early 2011 projecting that 44 billion apps will be downloaded by 2016. As far as I can tell, we won’t have any trouble hitting that mark.
What’s your favorite business app? I’d love to know.
