One peril of getting a smart phone is becoming addicted to it – there’s a reason BlackBerry users call their devices “CrackBerries.”
A quick path to addiction is getting hooked on games and puzzles. Another is shopping for applications (or “apps” for short). There are thousands, some a great deal more fun and interesting than actually useful. One for the iPhone, BowShot, helps you take better pictures of your dog by having the phone emit a sound, like a human whistle or a squeak from a toy, to make the dog look your way while you aim the phone/camera.
Of course, that’s not going to make your business more efficient, unless you obsessively demand a perfect picture of your pet every day before you leave for work.
Then there’s FaceGoo, which lets you contort photos of people’s faces: Make a friend look fat, or give your spouse a pointy chin – hours of fun, for sure.
Going shopping
But there is room for serious app-shopping, because a number of tools have clear benefits to business life and to personal well-being. Here are just a few popular applications. You can visit the application store for your device to browse many more.
Productivity
CardSnap. You’re at a trade show or a local business group meeting – collecting lots of business-card contacts. This utility lets you quickly and easily convert the business card information into contacts on your phone. The tool uses the high-resolution camera of your device to capture an image of a business card and processes it through an optical character recognition engine and an algorithm that identifies contact data elements, such as name, address and phone. (BlackBerry)
To-Do First. This tool combines a simple to-do list with an intelligent prioritizing feature – it actually calculates which task is most crucial to get done on a given day. It automatically generates a priority rank, one to 100, for each to-do, using a built-in formula based on profitability, pleasure, importance and urgency. (iPhone)
BugMe! This note-taker and reminder lets you enter notes, ideas and errands as you go and set any note as a reminder. An alarm will sound and an alert will pop up when a task is due. The note-taker recognizes Web addresses, e-mail addresses and phone numbers, so you can reach out from your notes to Web sites or make contact with people from the note. You can flag notes as urgent or mark them off when done. (BlackBerry)
Travel
TripIt. Headed for a trade show? Meeting people there from around the country? TripIt puts all your travel information right on your phone. You can share your itinerary with colleagues via TripIt or social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. With an upgrade to TripIt Pro, you can get features like mobile travel alerts and alternate flight suggestions, and track frequent flyer miles. (iPhone)
Mocha Remote Desktop. You’re at a customer’s office and you’d love to show him a document – which just happens to be on your office computer. With this application, you can connect to your computer and see files, programs and resources, just as if you were sitting at your desk, except the screen is smaller. (iPhone)
Contact management
Copy2Contact. With this tool, you no longer have to write down contact information from messages on your phone, or flip back and forth to your calendar to create appointments while reading e-mail. Instead, you can save any contact information to your phone address book or put new events on your phone calendar from everyday messages, such as “Staff meeting at 12:30 tomorrow for 1/2 hour.” The tool automatically enters contact and appointment information from sources of plain text, such e-mail signatures, text messages and search results. (BlackBerry)
Collaboration
Cisco WebEx Meeting Center. You don’t have to be in your office to attend a meeting via Internet. Just connect by way of your phone and be a participant, sharing the same files on your screen that colleagues see on their desktop computers. (iPhone)
Ifbyphone Voice Broadcast. Your business has just had a great week. You want to thank all your employees – but they’ve gone for the weekend. You can use this application to send a voice mail of thanks and congratulations – to their cell phones, landlines, or any other type of phone. (iPhone)
Health and wellness
Calorie Counter. This application will help you find nutritional information for the food you eat and to keep track of your meals, exercise and weight. It includes a food quick-pick to find calorie and full nutrition information, a food diary to help you plan and keep track of what you’re eating, an activity diary to record the calories you burn, a weight chart, and a journal to record your progress. (BlackBerry)
iFitness. This exercise database provides clear pictures, videos and instructions for a wide variety of exercises to help you tone up specific parts of your body. You just choose a target and tap on an exercise, and up comes a picture of the exercise. Double-tap the image and it flips over to show you complete instructions. For more difficult exercises, a tap on a video icon brings up video instruction. (iPhone)
Personal finance
Simple Payment. You’re looking to buy a new truck or other piece of equipment. How will it cash flow? Where’s the break-even point on monthly revenue? This tool is a simple payment calculator. Enter the loan amount, the interest rate, and the number of years on the loan, and the program tells you the monthly payment. It can also show you the payment schedule (interest, principal and balance) for each payment. (BlackBerry)
Check out the applications available for your smart phone. You’re sure to find some that will make your life easier, more productive and (let’s face it), more fun.
