The 50 Best Apps For Getting Business Done (Part 2)
The Cream Of The Crop In Mobile Apps
Whether it's a smartphone phone or a tablet, the bread and butter of any mobile device are its apps. The CRN Test Center has assembled 50 of the year's leading smartphone apps in the areas of administration, communication and collaboration, contact management, navigation, productivity and security. These apps represent a cross section of powerful tools to keep workers productive, secure, informed, in control and in touch.
For more reviews of mobile apps running on the Google Android OS, Apple iOS, Windows Phone and BlackBerry OS platforms, check out the CRN Daily App blog.
Contacts For Android
Developer: Contapps
Category: Contact management
Platform: Android
Cost: Free
Contapps' Contacts for Android brings phone info and recent exchanges in Facebook, LinkedIn, SMS and Twitter to a single screen for all your contacts. It also can replace Android's default dialer and messaging clients.
My Blacklist
Developer: Mark Schumann
Category: Contact management
Platform: iOS
Cost: $0.99
Mark Schumann's My Blacklist lets you rate people according to negative or positive interactions. Based on grades, the app either places people into a Blacklist, Greylist or Whitelist. This one's on our whitelist.
Gas Up Free
Developer: xcellersoft
Category: Navigation
Platform: Windows Phone 7
Cost: Free
Gas Up Free for Windows Phone 7 displays gas prices of all grades (plus diesel) with station names, addresses, maps and directions, plus control over sorting favorites, custom searches and price alerts.
Developer: Facebook
Category: Navigation
Platforms: Android, iOS
Cost: Free
The value of a location snapshot cannot be understated. Instagram is Facebook's free app for iPhone and Android that adds aesthetic and sharing features to the device's camera app.
QR Droid
Developer: DroidLA
Category: Navigation
Platforms: Android, iOS
Cost: Free
Ever wonder about those blocky squares on posters, products and peridicals everywhere? QR Droid uses an Android device's camera to scan those quick response (QR) codes and steer you toward product information they represent.
Turn By Turn Navigation
Developer: GPS Turner
Category: Navigation
Platform: Windows Phone 7
Cost: $4.99
Turn by Turn Navigation for Windows Phone 7.5 speaks directions to the driver and accepts input by touching points of interest on a map after an address search. A data connection is required.
Waze
Developer: Waze
Category: Navigation
Platforms: Android, BlackBerry, iOS
Cost: Free
Helping define social trafficking, the Waze GPS navigation tool helps avoid traffic jams by asking other Waze users why they've slowed down and guides you around their problems. Just don't text and drive.
YPmobile
Developer: Yellowpages.com
Category: Navigation
Platforms: Android, iOS, Windows Phone 7
Cost: Free
More than static data, YPmobile brings business listings, menus, business hours, directions and user reviews to smartphones or other mobile devices. It can even help you find the lowest gas prices in the immediate area.
AL Voice Recorder
Developer: ANDLABS
Category: Productivity
Platform: Android
Cost: Free
The AL Voice Recorder is a free app for Android that's simple to use thanks to its great-big buttons, and with a tweak here and there, would be darn near perfect.
ClipSwap
Developer: Lost Minds
Category: Productivity
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free
ClipSwap for iPad is a free app that provides a "pasteboard" for saving up to four copied items for pasting at any one time. These can include photos, images, links or text.
Drippler
Developer: Drippler
Category: Productivity
Platforms: Android, iOS
Cost: Free
Drippler searches for news, tips, rumors and software updates about the device on which it's installed and sorts its tasty tidbits by "latest" news, stories, reviews, rumors and info, and those it deems "popular."
Evernote
Developer: Evernote
Category: Productivity
Platforms: Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Windows Phone 7
Cost: Free
The modern elephant's best friend is Evernote, a free app that its namesake developer says "turns your Android device into an extension of your brain." It's also on BlackBerry and iOS.
Graffiti For Android
Developer: Access
Category: Productivity
Platform: Android
Cost: Free
Pining for Palm? Graffiti for Android works the same way as the Palm of old and supports toggling to the Android keyboard. An option disables it when a hardware keyboard is plugged in.
JotNot
Developer: MobiTech 3000
Category: Productivity
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free - $1.99
JotNot for iOS is like a pocket-sized copy machine. It turns an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch into a document camera for easy storage, sharing and distribution of papers, receipts and general documents, and even whiteboards. Thanks to integration with other iOS apps, pictures can be printed, shared or OCR'd.
Money & Bills
Developer: PageOnce
Category: Productivity
Platforms: Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Windows Phone 7
Cost: Free
Money & Bills provides a simple, secure interface for paying bills from thousands of vendors and financial institutions. Once it's linked with your bank account(s) and creditors, it can provide bill-pay alerts and reminders.
Pulse
Developer: Alphonso Labs
Category: Productivity
Platforms: Android, iOS
Cost: Free
Pulse by Alphonso Labs delivers a summary of the latest articles-presented as tiles with graphics and text-from your favorite or most important websites to any mobile device running Android or iOS.
Tasks
Developer: Team Tasks
Category: Productivity
Platform: Android
Cost: Free - $0.99
Google Tasks users should also use the Tasks app. The free tool keeps Google Tasks in sync between desktop, laptop and all handheld devices, delivers due-date reminders and integrates with Google sharing.
ToDo List
Developer: Any.DO
Category: Productivity
Platforms: Android, iOS
Cost: Free
Launch ToDo List and it immediately starts recording tasks, adding them to the list of other tasks and sorting by the categories of today, tomorrow, this week and later. Reminders are gentle but persistent.
Totes M' Notes
Developer: The Incredible Minotaurs
Category: Productivity
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free
The beauty of the Totes m' Notes note-taking app for iPad and iPhone is that it adapts to individual user preferences, organizes notes and is simple and fun to use.
Visionboard
Developer: Robb Research
Category: Productivity
Platform: iOS
Cost: $1.99
Visionboard is a digital cork board for organizing life's goals. Sticky-note reminders and goal-tracking photos and postcards that you can pin to the cork board can contain notes that let you update and track progress.
WorldMate
Developer: WorldMate
Category: Productivity
Platforms: Android, BlackBerry, iOS
Cost: Free - $5.00
WorldMate provides travel information to BlackBerry, Android and iPhone users. A $5 gold version adds alerts of flight delays, cancellations and gate changes, and synchronizes with Google and Outlook calendars.
Avast! Mobile Security
Developer: Avast Software
Category: Security
Platform: Android
Cost: Free
Avast! Mobile Security is a free app that protects against infected URLs with realtime alerts and can remotely lock, wipe or track GPS or audio, or activate a siren through SMS commands.
File Locker Free
Developer: Kyle Buttress
Category: Security
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free
The appropriately named File Locker Free will lock files on an iPhone into a separate folder and require a security code to get them back. The free version protects as many as five files.
VirusBarrier
Developer: Intego
Category: Security
Platform: iOS
Cost: $2.99
VirusBarrier scans email attachments sent to an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, determines whether they'e infected and tries to strip the malware. If it cannot, it offers the option of deletion.
Vtrace
Developer: Vlad Alexa
Category: Security
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free
VTrace is a free app for iOS that performs an IP trace between source and destination for security analysis, performance analysis or planning purposes. And it does so quickly with a nice graphical user interface.
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