21 Popular Smart Phone Apps
The key to maximizing the use of your smart phone capability is choosing wisely from among the vast array of mobile applications available today.
We’ve consolidated for your review several of the most popular applications that can help you make the best use of your smart phone. These are just a few examples of the many apps available and you don’t have to use these specific ones. However, they’ll give you a good idea of ones whose mastery will impact the future of your efficiency on-the-go.
Social Media/Communication Apps
Mobile phones were designed to give people a phone away from the home or office. Smart phone has taken that philosophy and multiplied it exponentially. You now have the power of a phone, a camera, a desktop computer, a beeper, a watch, and a GPS unit all wrapped up into a beautiful piece of technology. Get familiar with these apps and expand your communication horizons with your smart phone.
WhatsApp is a mobile messaging application that allows you to send and receive individual or group text and voice/video messages for free without getting nailed with SMS fees from your data provider. It’s a great way to share a quick thought with a friend, or send a friendly reminder to your team.
As you probably already know, Facebook is a social networking application that allows you to keep up with your friends, family, businesses, and business associates via access to interconnected web pages. Facebook has quickly evolved into a platform for businesses to market themselves to consumers and to sell their products and services. Businesses now routinely market to their key demographics within Facebook, and it only makes sense for you to install and use the Facebook app on your phone to stay current.
Twitter was designed for people on-the-go to send very short messages quickly to the people who follow them. Twitter has been accepted by users as basically a free texting service where information you desire to share about yourself can be accessed by anyone. Business leaders, actors, and athletes use this social media portal as an emotional bonding experience with their existing and potential customers and fans. If your own market is on Twitter, install the app and start connecting on the go.
Use the LinkedIn app to quickly update and connect with your business contacts on the LinkedIn social network. You can post updates about yourself, share interesting news, see what’s going on with your network, or quickly look up information about a business lead. Check out LinkedIn’s Pulse app too, which is a great way to find and share interesting news with your network.
Skype’s smart phone application allows you to send and receive voice calls, conference calls, real-time video chats, and digital messages across your phones regular data plan, up to 25 people at a time for free. In addition to it’s free services, Skype offers premium services which allows you to make calls to landline phone numbers. Facetime, an Apple app, is very similar.
Content Creation Apps
WordPress was created as an open-source blogging tool. Created in 2003, WordPress has evolved through the availability of plug-ins to become among the most widely used website platforms in the world. By January 2015,
WordPress was installed in almost 24% of all websites in existence, representing a 60.3% market share of websites utilizing content management systems. (Source – W3Techs.)
In addition to content creation, users can create storefronts for retail or service companies and complete online transactions through point-of-sale interfaces and shopping carts. WordPress has revolutionized how websites can be created and maintained.
If you use Tumblr or Blogger, then take a look at their apps too.
If you need to edit your Excel, Word, or PowerPoint documents and you don’t own Microsoft Office 365, this is the app for you. You’ll need the paid version to be able to do any editing though. Otherwise, it’s free for viewing your files and pdfs.
Vine allows you to create short, looping videos with your smart phone that you can then easily upload to your favorite social media platform, including Vine’s own social network. It was founded in June 2012 and existed privately just four short months before being acquired by Twitter. Vine is perfect for lead-in video teasers or quick comedy clips.
WordSwag is an app which you can use to create beautiful ‘word’ images. It’s only available for iPhone and iPad, but once you see how easy it is to create beautiful images, you may be happy to part with the few dollars the app costs.
Flickr was born out of a gaming project. Today, it is essentially a photo and video hosting website, but has evolved into a social network of their own. The major benefit of Flickr is that users can upload their photos and videos to Flickr, and then share those clips to their other social network platforms. This allows users to then free up their local memory storage.
Pixlr Express is a photo editor designed for easy use in both Android and iOS platforms. The app has a lot of features for editing – text, filters, effects, themes, overlays, etc. However, that can make it a little complex to use if you’re not a pro. It’s free, so it can’t hurt to try it and see how you like it.
Productivity Apps
2Do is literally a to-do list application that allows you to enter multiple new tasks quickly and efficiently. It’s applicable to chores, tasks, and greatly improving productivity.
Remember the Milk is a cross-platform solution that combines your to-do lists and tasks with Google’s calendar. You can get email reminders inside of the app and share your tasks with others, which is useful for delegating.
Asana allows teams to collaborate online in a web-based platform. Asana allows users to share tasks and assign responsibilities without the use of e-mail. Each user can see who among the team is doing which tasks, and they can follow each other for each specific task, allowing them to draw on each other’s knowledge base in quick messaging communications back and forth.
Sync all your files across all your devices, including your phone, with Dropbox. Dropbox stores your documents in their cloud storage, and then your different devices will sync to the cloud. So, if you created a document on your desktop computer and need to review or make a quick edit, you can also do that from your phone! You can even share links to Dropbox files from anywhere, including your phone.
LastPass is the ultimate way to manage all your passwords. All you have to do is remember one master password, and LastPass will store the rest for you. Use it on your computer, laptop, tablet, and phone. It will sync passwords across all of them. With some new phones, you can even use the phone’s fingerprint scanner instead of a master password.
Evernote is a lot more than a simple productivity app. It started as a virtual notebook for keeping track of all your ideas/images/pdfs/notes etc across multiple devices. But it’s also used by many as a complete project management platform with checklists, team chat features, sharing of notebooks, ways to capture contact details, and more. Definitely worth your attention!
Rather than wasting precious minutes right now reading that article that looks interesting, save it for later in your ‘Pocket’. You’ll even be able to read things when you’re offline.
Financial
Square makes accepting credit or debit card payments via smart phones easy with their mobile payment technology. Users receive a small device that plugs into your phone’s audio jack, allowing your smart phone to read credit cards. That credit card information is then uploaded securely into Square’s merchant services portal and the transaction can be completed.
Purchasers can then elect to receive their Square invoice electronically via their e-mail, which allows your business to capture your customer’s information. Square technology is compatible with both iOS and Android mobile devices.
PayPal was initially launched as an online electronic alternative to traditional payment methods. Users could upload real cash to their PayPal account, and then purchase merchandise on eBay instantly.
Today, PayPal has evolved into a full merchant services portal outside of eBay, used as a shopping cart payment solution on many independent websites and even allows retailers to offer financing on major ticket items. PayPal is more of a behind-the-scenes plug in to your company website that can be useable in a mobile platform if your website is designed with mobile use in mind.
Expensify allows mobile users to simplify expense reporting. You simply take a snapshot of your receipt. Expensify then imports the receipt into your account and auto-populates the database fields, easily categorizing your expenses in real time. It is useful for both front line employees as well as management.
Learning Activity:
- Explore the apps listed in this module and note the pros and cons of each for you.
- Pick at least one that you want to try and download it today.