Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Tech Time ::: My Top 10 (Mobile) Apps


I am consistently asked for a "top 5" and "top 10" of various things I use everyday. Be it apps, gadgets, skincare, haircare, makeup, whatever. I thought I'd start answering those requests with a tech related post about mobile apps I am a regular user of.

I will admit, when I was making this list to write this post, I thought "Oh, this should be pretty easy, I use the same 5 pretty regularly." Except, I use the same 10 for the most part...and narrowing it down to 5 was so not gonna happen.

My Top 10 Mobile Apps for 2013
::: Dropbox
::: Fantastical2
::: Google Voice
::: TurboScan
::: 1Password
::: Mint
::: Evernote
::: MyPantone
::: Instagram
:::GSN Casino



1Password is an app that became a fast favorite and (disturbingly) heavily relied upon. I have trust issues, apparently, and am really overly cautious with logins, passwords, and pincodes, and will turn on 2-step authorization for almost any sensitive app I can.  This app keeps track of my constant changes to all of the above, and allows secure logins and secure browsing through the app.  When I got my new phone, it was the second app I downloaded (seriously!) after Dropbox, and since they interplay, the two of them obviously are on this list.




So with that lead in, aside from the obvious, mail, messaging and phone iOS-stock apps, the most frequently used app on my phone is Dropbox. I reviewed it a while back, and I literally use this app constantly. I back my photos up to it, and I have it synced to my computers to move files around between them and to vendors I am working on projects with. I cannot even imagine life without it anymore.  And having my 1Password syncing to it keeps everything securely backed up and locked up. 




I was pleasantly surprised with Fantastical2 when I bought it earlier this month, and I have not stopped using it. I find I love it more than the stock app, lack of updating icon and all. It's clean but totally functional, and has all the features that I missed from the stock up when Apple redesigned it with iOS7. It's a serious win, and I can see myself actually getting my shit together with scheduling between this, my Whitney English Day Designer and my Sugar Paper for Target desk calendars. (yes I know that 2nd one says wall, my desk space on the other desk doesn't allow for a much larger calendar, this fits PERFECTLY)




Another that has become a huge player in my "daily use" rotation is Google Voice. I reviewed it a few weeks back, and as I have gotten back into the habit of using that number more regularly, I have been relying on this app more and more. Obviously, because it's a phone number I get a lot of business related calls on, I get a ridiculous amount of spam. But thankfully, with the ability to block harassing numbers and spam callers (cold calls, for example), it's become so much less of an issue.





Turboscan is an app I use pretty consistently as well, to "scan" documents for emailing or backup. Of all the scanner type apps I've tried (GeniusScan and ScannerPro among them), it's provided the crispest images, and has the ability to send a PDF vs just a JPG, which has been the most vital feature and the one that sets it apart above the others in the app folder they reside within.




Mint is a fabulous budget aggregation app, and with it's absolutely fantastic recent updates (not shown above, but trust me, even better!) the app gives more details in line with the website, with more in-depth budget breakdowns and transaction information.  And, have I mentioned that it's FREE??? 



Evernote is a great "collection" app for me, though I am not using it as much as I hoped I would. It's become an idea collector for posts, but I still do most of my postwriting in Blogger. I need to stop doing that, because I keep losing great posts when Blogger decides it's done for the night. 



MyPantone--great for getting a ballpark read on a callout when I don't have a PMS callout fandeck with me. It gets me in the vicinity of where I need to be, and when I get back to the office I can confirm the final callout number.




Instagram--obviously. But I am not a power-user of this or any social media platform. I love Tweetbot but I am really not active enough on social media.




::: GSN Casino. Totally frivolous. I just love the Tiki Slots. I don't do casinos, but this app is a few minutes of entertainment here and there in a waiting room. I log in every day to get my "free tokens" and only occasionally actually play a few spins. If I haven't won in 3-4 spins I quit, and I am a low better. 

::: And a stock-app addition to this list, which I guess brings me to 11, is Find My iPhone (or iPad...). The updates that came in iOS7 to beef up security make this an absolute dream. It's accuracy was improved significantly, and the act of tying a device to an AppleID added even better ability to make sure your phone remains your phone, with abilities to recover it. That was, for me, one of the best features of iOS7 when it launched this year, and each update to this app that is rolled out just make it better. 

What are your top 5 or top 10 mobile apps? Can you even pick 5 or 10?  

Be sure to follow according to ame on 
Twitter ::: Facebook ::: Instagram ::: Pinterest  ::: Bloglovin'

2 comments:

  1. Nice! I didn't know about 1password, will check it out!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love that app so much, I use it every day. And it was still on sale last I checked, so grab it now if you want it!!!

      Delete

What do you think?