COMMENT: Making the most of best Apple apps

Jul 23 2009 by Herb Kim , The Journal

IT’S been an excellent year for Apple's App Store, which turned one-year-old last Saturday.

Already iPhone and iPod Touch users have downloaded more than a billion applications, enabling them to do everything to check the latest news, and the market for apps only looks set to grow.

There are some great ones available that make it easier for business users to save time and money. So here’s my rundown of some of the best.

OmniFocus by The OmniGroup (£11.99). Expensive compared to the other apps, I’ll recommend, task manager OmniFocus is worth every penny if you want to keep on top of those 101 things you need to do. The Apple Design Award-winning app keeps your goals and tasks in an ordered, easy-to-use fashion.

Spreadsheet by Softalk (£4.99). Most businesspeople rely on spreadsheets to track how things are going. Softalk’s Spreadsheet app – one of the best such apps on the iPhone – lets you view, edit and even create spreadsheets on the go. Despite the limitations of a small screen it works well.

reQall by QTech (free). One thing you can almost guarantee about a great business idea is that if you don’t jot it down, it will disappear into the ether – along with all those millions of pounds it could have made you. But speak or type whatever you want to remember into reQall and it will send you a reminder by voice, text, IM, calendar alert or email.

Air Sharing by Avatron (£5.99). Need to move documents around? No problem. Air Sharing lets you turn your iPhone into a wireless hard drive, so you can drag-and-drop files between it and your computer, and view documents in many common formats.

iXpenselt by FYI Mobileware (£2.99). Perfect for any self-respecting MP, this app lets you track all your business expenses accurately. You can create different categories for your expenses, track mileage – and even take photos of receipts.

WiFiTrak by Bitrino Inc (59p). WiFriTrak enables you to find free and open wi-fi hotspots near you. It scans for all available networks in the area and tests each one for usability, before listing them in order of how easy they are to access.

So there are my recommendations. Given that there are more than 50,000 apps to choose from, it’s by no means exhaustive, so if you’d like to find out more I have one final suggestion for you: App Miner. Also by developer Bitrino Inc, it helps you find exactly the right app for what you need.

Herb Kim is CEO of Codeworks, a centre for digital innovation in North East England.