8 Apps To Make Your Day Better

With both Apple and Google each offering more than 1.5 million apps a piece, chances are you might have missed one or two that could come in handy.  A smartphone in your pocket is an amazing tool, made even more powerful when equipped with the right apps.  Better yet, most of the basic apps are free. While most apps offer Pro or expanded versions for a price, the free versions usually give you everything you need.  So, the investment in most apps is in taking the time to learn how to use them. 

Whether you work with an iPad, iPhone, or with an Android/Google platform (or some combination), you’ll find most of these apps are available no matter which operating system you prefer. The apps on this list might make your day-to-day life easier (or more complicated, depending on your technological prowess).

1. Waze. If your first order of the day is trying to get to work this app may come in handy. Waze is the world’s largest community-based traffic and navigational tool. Information is shared by all drivers in an area to alert you to road conditions, traffic jams, speed traps, and accidents. It’ll even tell you where to find cheap gas. Available on Apple, Google, and Microsoft.
2. Evernote. Evernote is a primo tool for keeping organized. You can take notes and share them with your staff and colleagues. They can be used as part of presentation and can sync info between your phone and your computers. Evernote also includes a handy task manager. Evernote is available on almost all platforms – including Blackberry. Another app to achieve the same results is Notepad.

3. Remember the Milk. If you’re looking for a full-featured (but relatively simple) task manager, then Remember the Milk might be your best option. Remember the Milk features apps that integrate your task manager with Google calendar, Siri, Gmail, Outlook, and even Twitter. It can easily create task reminders and lists. And it’s available for both Android and Apple.

4. Poll Daddy. This competitor to Survey Monkey helps you create easy online surveys. The free edition allows for a 10 question survey. One slick idea might be to have a customer survey right at your point-of-purchase on a mounted iPad and let your customers can provide feedback immediately.

5. Drippler. For Android users, Drippler is the ultimate tool for getting the most out of your Galaxy smart phone or Galaxy Note (although many of the tips on Drippler will be valuable to any smartphone user). Drippler informs you about the latest apps, news and tips and games. These updates come to your phone every day the form of “drips.” This free app is a “best of” what’s available for your smartphone.

6. TrueCaller. TrueCaller is quickly becoming my favorite app. With my cell phone becoming the target of every scammer and phisher in the country I need a way to separate the important calls from those waste of time calls. TrueCaller is a great way to screen calls. It’s a free app that uses crowd sourcing to identify potentially dangerous, or at least, intrusive and unwanted calls. A pop up on your screen identifies the history of the caller and whether or not they’ve been tagged as spam. Available for both iPhone and Android.

7. Inshorts. If you’re a news junkie, inshorts may be your app Nirvana. This free app provides you with a 60 word synopsis of the latest news stories. If you’re interested in politics, sports, international news, business, and entertainment, then inshorts will provide you a quick and easy overview. News from India is heavily featured – very international. Available for both iPhone and Android.

8. Where’s my Droid. Now that your smart phone is full of fabulous apps, the last thing you want to do is to lose it. Where’s my Droid is an easy to set-up phone finder and, if necessary, phone destroyer. The free version of this app provides you with the ability to find your phone if you’ve misplaced it. It can remotely ring your phone at full volume, even if your phone’s ringer is turned off. It can give you a GPS location and tie it to Google maps. If you have $3.99 Pro version and you don’t have any luck finding your phone, it can remotely wipe your phone’s memory or lock your phone so that it can’t be used. Of course, it’d be cooler if it self-destructed ala Mission Impossible. Maybe we’ll see that in the next in the next version.

Patrick Mulcahy is the Director of Marketing for MSA