Essential iOS Apps

Late last year my lovely wife replaced my iPod touch she lost a year earlier. Wahoo. So now that 2011 has kicked off I figured I better get my digital life organised. I’ve spent a bit of time looking for apps that will help organise everything in the best possible way, however there is a huge number of apps and services available making this task quite daunting. So I figured I’d share with you my findings. Now I realise there’s a few productivity apps that come with the device; Mail, Calendar, Notes, Address book, etc. and they all work well enough, so what else could you possibly need?

1. To do list. I have no idea why Apple doesn’t have this on the device. It’s on the desktop so why not my iPod touch? I did a lot of reading and searching and the winner is [insert drum roll here] 2DO. It does cost $10 but I figured that I wanted a quality app and free ones often disappear or stagnate over time (no surprise really, I wouldn’t spend hours developing an app that I saw no reward from). 2Do is really well designed and feature rich. I could go on about it but you may as well just check it out. www.2doapp.com
2. A better note book. Although the Notes app that comes with iOS devices is good its a little limited feature wise. Check out Evernote. It also has a desktop client and a web interface too, so you can access your notes, pics and audio recordings where ever you are. Again it’s got heaps of features that you can read about on there site http://www.evernote.com/.
3. Files. Now this isn’t just good for the iP___ its also fantastic for your desktop/laptop or browser, its DropBox. This gives you 2GB of storage (actually 2.25GB if you click on this link) and seamlessly integrates with your desktop. Really good for sharing those big files that wont attach to an email too. Highly recommend it.
4. Remember passing notes around at the back of the classroom? Well the iApp equivalent is bump. This little app is fantastic at sharing files, pics, music and even chatting with people you just met, just open the app then bump your devices together.
5. Twitter. I’ve finally come to understand the purpose of Twitter. It makes much more sense when you see it on a iDevice esp the saved searches and # (hash) tags. I might write more about twitter soon but for now sign up at twitter.com and grab the twitter app. (also available for your desktop) hit search and type in a key word. You can save these searches and reuse them later. Really good for finding the latest trends (as apposed to googling, which often returns rather dated content) http://twitter.com/.
6. This ones for the iPad only, Flipboard. It basically takes twitter, facebook and rss feeds (via google reader) and turns it into a magazine, very cool.

Thats it for now, but if you have better sugestions please drop a comment.

Z.