Mobile is a way of life for many of us. It’s not surprising that many of us cannot imagine a time when we didn’t need our mobile devices. We’re constantly online, receiving streams of data, content, messages, and alarms, all for the sake of “staying connected.” No matter what industry you are in, when we’re on the go, in between meetings, or home at night, the apps on our phone keep us moving through our day seamlessly. There’s little that we can’t do nowadays. There are apps to update presentations, Excel files, write blogs for your website, edit photos, etc. Being digitally connected and savvy enough to maneuver these apps can lead to personal and company success.
As a digital agency, our team is constantly connected to the pulse of our industry. For the sake of our clients, as well as our own professional development we are constantly exploring ways to learn and become more efficient with what we are doing while not behind a desk. That being said, here are some top apps that we recognize as great resources to add to your phone if you’re considering looking for ways to keep your day going while you’re moving in the world.
Top Productivity Apps
All of the apps mentioned below are both on iOS and Android.
Evernote (iOS / Android)
Chances are you’ve heard of Evernote in some capacity. We’ve personally known people who have started with it, left it, came back to it, loved it. But we also know people who have started it and hated it. Evernote is one of those services that is a blank canvas in terms of how you choose to use it. The service is very robust, has a strong following of power users who constantly share ways to make Evernote work for all types of needs. The blank canvas aspect may intimidate some people, but our team has harnessed some of the capabilities into our processes. We use it for everything from capturing links, bookmarking websites, receipts, creating editable shared notes for multiple people, to planning for events.
Give Evernote a try for one of your projects, whether personal or professional, and take a look at some of these links for other ideas on how to make Evernote work for you.
- 10 Tricks to Make Yourself An Evernote Master
- 20 Creative Ways to Use Evernote for Productivity and Marketing
Dropbox (iOS / Android)
Storage on our devices is limited, and that is frustrating. Dropbox is one of the most well known cloud storage services that offers users the ability to upload video, documents, and photos—all free up to a certain point—with different pay upgrades available. Dropbox is accessible via your desktop and mobile, and files sync across platforms. Additionally, it’s a great way to share files with people that can’t otherwise be sent via email. Dropbox allows users to share folders and files with a simple link that can be emailed. The receiver will then click on the link to access the individual file you shared without having seeing the rest of your Dropbox files. It’s very user friendly and has become an indispensable way of doing business for our office.
7 Things You Never Knew You Could Do With Dropbox
Feedly & Flipboard (Feedly on iOS / Android – Flipboard on iOS / Android)
For those of us looking to stay up to date on what is happening in the world, these two apps serve up the best news for your interests. Feedly works very similar to the old Google Reader, which Google decided to discontinue support for and eventually pulled the plug on. This RSS reader is clean, simple, and you upload the pages you want to follow and the latest updates are right there for you to read. No more wasting time going from site to site, the information is aggregated and there for you.
Flipboard on the other hand is a fun, visual experience where you input preferences based on interests and broad topics, and Flipboard will show you the latest news based on those selections. You literally flip through the news like you would a book, only with a swipe of the finger. The pages turn with that swipe and you see the next news story, and so on. You can update your preferences and even refine the news that is shown. It’s not as compartmentalized as Feedly, but it’s a good way to encounter stories from sources you otherwise would have never found.
Slack (iOS / Android)
Nothing is more important than communication with your team. That communication can be hindered when team members are not in the office. Calling is not always convenient, and texts and group texts are not necessarily the best ways to conduct business. Slack is an app that we use both on mobile and desktop and how our team communicates internally. The app allows you to save an archive of conversations, share files, and have dedicated channels for specific projects. This app couldn’t be more effective for what our team does and we highly recommend it. The app itself is free, but there is a paid version that allows you to do much more.
Expensify (iOS / Android)
If you’re job requires you to constantly travel, then this app is for you. Inc. Magazine has recently rated this as one of the best business and productivity apps and for what it does, we can see why. Nothing is more frustrating than traveling and trying to remember to save all your receipts. We put them in our pockets, our wallets, our purses, you name it, and then when we reconcile the trip we’re scrambling to find all the receipts. Some of us are better at keeping receipts than others, but to eliminate the problem, Expensify makes it easy to snap a photo of the receipt and let the system autofill. Once it does, and it’s been saved, you can throw the receipt away.
There is a small fee starting at $5/month per user, but if you’re a frequent traveler, that cost will come back tenfold when it comes time to reconcile the trip and turn everything in. If you give this one a try, we’d love to hear your experiences.
So there you have it! These are just some of the top apps that we recommend. There are so many apps out there, some more specific to particular jobs and industries, but these apps are general enough that they can help with any position you might be in.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on what apps you use the most. We love sharing these apps with our community as we all look for ways to make the most of our time and effort.
We also have published a blog post about Top 5 Mobile Apps for Business.
Read our post about the launch of Youtube Music App.
Check our client – Al Jazeera Children’s Channel App
