Our world of apps
I don’t even think we realise how much we rely on the apps on our phone. Research says we spend about 90% of our time on our smartphones on an app. It just shows how few phone calls we now get. Who looks at their phone like something strange had happened when it now rings.
I have to admit that I am a bit of an app addiction, I am always looking for some new app that is going to blow my mind, make my life more efficient, help me to make my images spectacular, a new way to save all the research I do and it goes on and on and on.
So, I wanted to put together a series of posts about the apps that I love and use on a daily basis for different reasons. Part one of these series is for the apps that help me in practical ways and to be a little more efficient on a day to day basis.
The stats
The stats for mobile usage and apps are quite phenomenal.
- 197 billion apps downloaded in 2017
- Facebook comes out as the most popular app with 81% of users
- 9 is the average number of apps people use daily
- 96% of mobile search is via Google
- 80% of social media time is spent on an app
- 78% of consumers, in 2016, made a purchase via their mobile phone
- YouTube videos on mobile have a greater reach, even in prime time than TV
Gary Vaynerchuk is quoted as saying “Your mobile phone has become your TV and your TV has become your radio”.
CityMapper
I can not tell you how much I love this app. (Sad I know). I am pretty good when it comes to getting around London but CityMapper has made it even better.
An app that gives you excellent travel advice for 39 countries from Birmingham to Berlin. It is brilliant.
Type in where you are and where you want to end up and City Mapper will give you every single option on how to get there. Whether it is via bus, tube, walking, cycling or driving. It will tell you how much time it will take and how much it will cost, including estimated Uber costs. If you are taking the bus you can set it to tell you when to get off. It will even give you the rain safe options are or where the closest cycle hire options are available.
You can save your preferences for those regular journeys and switch the app to the relevant countries when you need to.
I use this app constantly, it is the reason I use the buses more than I ever did and it is so easy to use there is no reason to get lost in a big city again.
Free app. Download today.
Dropbox
Dropbox, if you don’t already know, is a file sharing cloud app, that allows you to store your files and access them from where ever you are. Dropbox is free up to the first 2GB and you can earn free space when you refer others to Dropbox or if you are active in the apps forum.
I love this app because I share apps backwards and forwards from my Mac to my phone. This is especially important for images because I use a ton of apps on my mobile for editing images and it makes it so easy to upload these to Dropbox and then use the app on my phone to them edit and then do the exchange the other way.
It has an easy file system, so you can create folders, move your files around and keep yourself organised.
So if you are looking for ways to help you become more organised then this is a perfect start.
Clear ToDos
This is one of the simplest apps that can help you so much with your efficiency. It is a simple todo list structure, that you can easily add actions to. The beauty of the app is you can create different lists and once the actions are on the list you can move the actions up and down the list to change the priority. The beauty of the app is that you download the app for online and it will sit on your desktop. As I write this post I can see it in the corner of my screen. You can then download the app to your phone and tablet.
Once you add an action or a list to your account it syncs on all devices so you are always up to date.
This app will cost you £4.99 and it sits in a tough category where there are a ton of ‘todo’ apps but I really find this one the best because of it’s simplicity.
I can’t even count on a daily basis how often I use this app. We are bombarded with information from all corners, most of it is crap, but there is a lot of information I want to refer back to or read and make notes in more detail. Pocket is perfect for this. It does what it says on the tin you take the URL and save it to Pocket.
You can download the app on your mobile and tablet and then you can add plugins to browsers that you use such as Chrome and Firefox so if you are on a page you want to save you can use click on Pocket to save. That page is then available on all your devices.
To enable easier use you can tag what you are saving to make searching back again easier.
There is not a lot to write about this app, it is free to download and so easy to use but it is a really powerful tool to ensure that you keep up to date with your knowledge.
Evernote
This is the powerhouse of the organisational app clan. There is not much that you can’t do with this add. It is for organising notes, research, images. You create notes and to organise further you can create them into notebooks. There are Evernote plugins for the browers so they have created a smooth and immediate way to save to Evernote.
When in the app there are a number of templates and your notes are very editable. You can change fonts, add bullet points, add a table, voice note, images and attach files that you have stored in other areas such as Dropbox.
There is a free option but if you pay for their premium offering you get more space and more features to use.
It easy to use but there are some tips and tricks that can help you to really make the most of them so I would really recommend you watch one or two of the thousands of videos that currently reside on YouTube.
Again like most of the apps I have shown you in this post, you can access Evernote from all your devices and it syncs seamlessly so you are always up to date. So whether you love organising or you are trying to get better at it this is the go to app.
To end Part 1
As a female entrepreneur, it really helps your life, lifestyle and business to really utilise apps. So this post is just part 1 of the series so I hope you enjoy. Part 2 will be coming up soon.
