Chapter 10

Useful Productivity Apps

In This Chapter

• Choosing your ideal productivity apps
• Navigating with Maps
• Keeping yourself in the loop
• Playing nice with Office
• Traveling like a pro
• Tracking your finances
• Educating (and entertaining) the kids
• Ready to read
• Watching the weather
• Using alternative browsers
• Finding more great apps

Apps. They make the world go ‘round. And no matter the problem you have, “There’s an app for that.” It’s pretty astounding to think that when iOS launched originally as iPhone OS, there was no App Store whatsoever. Trying to envision a successful iPhone today sans a market place for apps is nigh impossible, and it’s clear that Apple’s mobile stable of devices has seen skyrocketing adoption largely due to the creativity and determination of its third-party developer community. Today, apps aren’t just a part of iOS, they are iOS. Apple has done a phenomenal job making beautiful, desirable hardware, and it has also done a laudatory job optimizing its hardware and software in order to provide a world-class, rock-solid user experience. But the rest of the equation is filled in by people who aren’t even employed by a company in Cupertino. Apple’s biggest strength in the smartphone and tablet market is its App Store. One of the first questions that people ask me upon purchasing an iPhone is this: “Which apps should I download?” With well over 300,000 apps on the App Store, it’s a huge chore to wade through those in order to find a worthwhile handful. In this chapter, I cover a wide array of genres and categories, dishing out my favorites and a few off-the-wall inclusions that you may not normally hear about through the proverbial grapevine. Everything from reading to traveling to learning is covered, and even if you’re not a bookworm, there’s no harm in using your iPhone to increase your productivity.

Calendars, Maps, and To-Do Tools

When it comes to being productive on the iPhone, there are few tools more essential than a solid, trustworthy calendar. Apple has improved its built-in Calendar app quite substantially with the introduction of iOS 5 and 6—and those new notification options go a long way to making it more useful. But with hundreds of thousands of apps at your disposal, you can rest assured that more options are out there.

Keeping those appointments tied to the cloud is an even wiser move. Self-contained calendars haven’t been useful for years, but a shocking amount of people still have their events tied to one single device, inaccessible to any other device (or even to a web browser). In the age of dumbphones and PDAs, that was forgivable; in today’s world of hyperconnectivity, your calendar can be everywhere at the same time.

Benefits of Using Apple’s Calendar App

I have to imagine that folks eying a brand new vehicle ask themselves a similar question—do they opt for the built-in factory navigation system, or do they simply pick up a $99 Garmin unit to serve that purpose? The former is sleek, form-fitting, and beautifully integrated. Every morsel of it is able to interact with the vehicle’s buttons and triggers, and no aftermarket tinkering is necessary. The latter, of course, is inexpensive. It’s also more customizable—you can opt for any size or shape, with just about any feature set to serve your needs.

Two highly compelling options that, in the end, will serve the core need. But both options will get you there in very different ways. I recommend giving Apple’s built-in option a go, at least initially. Not only is the layout quite pleasing to the eye (judge for yourself in Figure 10-1), but it’s also fairly easy to tweak it so it works with any existing Google Calendars you have.

Figure 10-1: Calendar: making an impossible schedule seem a bit less daunting.

Referring back to the “well-integrated” bit, there’s no calendar in the App Store more tightly integrated than the one Apple provides. In fact, this aspect is the strongest selling point for it. What does integration entail? Three things, primarily.

Spotlight Searching in Calendar

First off, the Spotlight Search feature I detailed earlier only works with Apple’s built-in Calendar app; no third-party calendar app can be added. It’s unfortunate that Apple doesn’t provide Spotlight APIs to developers in order to add that, but as of now, it’s just the way it is.

If you’re wondering why this matters, allow me to queue up an example. Let’s say you know you have a meeting with Alexander at some point this month. Your mother asks if there are any evenings coming up that wouldn’t work for a surprise house-warming party. You immediately remember that you’ve blocked out a Thursday evening with Alexander, but you’ve no clue as to which Thursday it is. Instead of glancing at every Thursday in your calendar, you can simply double-tap your iPhone’s Home button and type “Alexander.” So long as Alexander’s name is in that meeting notice, Spotlight will pull up the exact date and time in mere seconds. If you use any other calendar app, you won’t get this kind of quick-search capability. Have a look at the results in Figure 10-2.

Figure 10-2: Lookie there—finding an appointment is just a search away.

Furthermore, Spotlight works frighteningly well. Even if you can only remember the first couple of letters in someone’s name, it’ll do its best to locate upcoming events that match whatever letter combinations you can muster. In many cases, it’ll pull up invites that you were searching for with a shockingly low amount of information. It works so well, in fact, that it has become my go-to way to search through my calendar events.

If you’re already inside the Calendar app, head over to List view to search from within. As you can see in Figure 10-3, it’s also pretty elegant.

Figure 10-3: A look at Calendar’s built-in Search function

Notifications and Drop-Down Reminders

Apple is giving developers the tools they need to add notifications to apps within iOS 6. In other words, third parties can now create programs that allow for notifications to be pushed to users, and for those alerts to even show up in the new notification pull-down menu. Of course, just because the APIs are there, doesn’t mean developers will use them.

As it stands, Apple’s built-in Calendar app supports push notifications (which can be tweaked and customized in Settings Notifications). Whenever you set an iPhone event or a synced Google Calendar event (as examples; other calendars work, too) to ping you before an appointment, you’ll get a note that appears in and remains in your pull-down menu until you tap it away. It’s a fairly beautiful way to stay abreast of what’s coming up; just glance at the pull-down bar, and anything you’ve asked to be notified of will be sitting there.

On top of all that, there’s no extra cost to using Calendar, and as easy as it is to chide Apple on this, you can’t delete it, either. In other words, it’ll be hanging around on your home pane regardless, so you’ll need a really good reason to use something else.

Third-Party Calendar Apps

Wouldn’t you know it? There actually is a good reason to try something else. If you fit a certain set of criteria and you’re willing to spend a little cash, that is. Apple’s built-in Calendar app may be superb, but it’s hardly a one-size-fits-all solution—particularly for hardcore Google users. As I’ve stated before, the iPhone and Google’s suite of applications don’t always get along, and neither company is particularly inclined to help the other in making the compatibilities seamless. Thankfully for us all, there’s a market outside of Silicon Valley that actually yearns for tighter integration, and they have the apps to prove it. The following list describes calendar apps that are worth looking into, and the reasons behind them. Just search for each within the App Store to pull up their information and purchase pages.

• Readdle Calendar ($6.99; also works with iPad)—What makes this option special is the even tighter integration with Google Calendars. It allows you to manage your calendars online and offline, and it supports the “drag-and-drop” functionality that has become a staple of using Google Calendar in a conventional web browser. In fact, the biggest selling point here is just how much the entire thing mimics the actual Google layout; if you’re more comfortable with the Android environment, this is a great option. The real kicker is the support for Google Tasks; for those who make constant use of Tasks, losing them in Apple’s default Calendar can be a serious buzz kill. In addition to all that, this app supports SMS alerts to upcoming events, the ability to search events/tasks, and the ability to undo additions you accidentally make.
• Pocket Informant ($9.99)—Calling this “just a calendar” probably does the app a disservice. This is one of the most elaborate, sophisticated calendars available for the iPhone, and indeed, it does far more than just keep track of events in nondescript squares throughout the year. It’s more of a digital datebook, with pages to flip and sections to comb. You can view year and month views simultaneously, with a detailed task and filter system helping you to keep tabs on which events and duties are coming due, which are overdue, which are in progress, and which are completed. It’s more like a life organizer, but the calendar function alone is truly exceptional.
• Calendar+ ($1.99; also works with iPad)—It’s drop-dead simple and not nearly as full-featured as the others mentioned here, but it’s also among the cheapest in the App Store. The primary selling point here is the multi-colored view and the automated syncing with built-in calendars that you’ve already set up. It also accepts new events while you’re offline, and then syncs them back to the cloud as soon as you’re connected.
• Agenda Calendar ($0.99; also works with iPad)—The apps described so far generally add something more to what Apple’s built-in Calendar app offers. This one strips features away. It’s aimed at consumers who don’t want extras cluttering up their calendars, although there’s a surprising amount of advanced functionality hidden just underneath. It’s designed to give you “at a glance” views at what’s hitting you next—during your workday, that’s the most important, anyway. It works best if you set everything up in Apple’s Calendar first, and then allow Agenda to pull things in from there. This app also supports notifications in the pull-down (“Notification Center”) and on the Lock Screen.

Navigational Guidance

Things have changed a lot on the navigation front from iOS 5 to iOS 6. In iOS 5, the factory Maps app relied on data from Google, and while it did give you routing instructions from one place to another, it wasn’t a turn-by-turn solution. To fill that void, apps from Garmin, TomTom, Navigon, and a host of others emerged in the App Store. With the introduction of iOS 6, however, vehicular turn-by-turn guidance is included for free.

As the tensions rise between Google and Apple, Apple chose TomTom to provide the mapping data used in the new Maps application present in iOS 6. Because it’s TomTom, turn-by-turn guidance for automobile transportation is included in select regions (the USA is obviously accounted for). This means that Google will now be able to submit its own standalone Maps app on the App Store, much like it has done with YouTube. Of course, the question now is this—because Apple throws in a free navigational app with iOS 6, do you need to look any further? The answer is “yes.”

The new Maps app on iOS 6 currently supports turn-by-turn directions only with personal vehicles, as well as walking instructions. If you need mass transit directions, train directions, or bus directions, the app becomes less useful. That said, it’s still my go-to app when using a car; I can simply speak my destination to Siri (for example, “Directions from current position to the Empire State Building in New York City”) and it will automatically begin the routing. This hands-free approach is brilliant, and will no doubt be safer than hunting and pecking to input a destination while trying to dodge traffic.

Speaking of traffic, the new Maps app also shows accidents and takes traffic flows into account when routing you, all for free. If you’ll be actively using a navigation app while on motorcycle, bicycle, foot, or mass transit, I recommend a combination of apps. First, spring for Telenav’s Scout guidance app. It’s a great turn-by-turn backup that won’t cost you a dime to download, but it also provides the ability to operate offline for just $2.99 per month or $9.99 per year. (It also recognizes voice input, separate from Siri!)

Wrangling Reminders

There are a nearly endless number of ways to keep tabs on what you need to keep tabs on, digitally. Some folks just create reminders in their calendar app, but if you’re looking to keep appointments and your to-do list separate, there’s a very real need to utilize Reminders. Clearly, Apple realizes this. It has included a dedicated app within iOS 5 (yes, it’s called Reminders) that cannot be deleted—just like Maps, Messages, Calendar, and so on. There’s definitely a good deal of value in using what’s tightly integrated with the operating system, but for those yearning for more, the third-party world seems to have the to-do-list app market completely satisfied. I’ll discuss both sets of options here.

Benefits of Apple’s Reminders App

The usual lead-in applies here: when using a built-in app in iOS 5 and 6, you gain certain advantages that apply only to apps that are actually built into the fabric of the OS. Reminders is a fairly simple app, but it does what it purports to do. Upon launching the app, you can create or delete new reminder lists, as well as create actual things you need to be reminded of. From there, you can sort them into lists, which is useful for keeping your repeating to-do items categorized somewhat. Have a glance at the interface in Figure 10-4.

Figure 10-4: Apple’s Reminders app is simple. Maybe too simple for some users.

Reminders can also be synced to the cloud—the iCloud, that is—if you enable it in Settings iCloud Reminders. (Have a peek in Figure 10-5.) This may not strike you as particularly beneficial, but those who also carry any other iOS device will certainly benefit from this feature. The iCloud sync feature enables you to view a reminder you created on an iPhone on your iPad, and vice versa.

Figure 10-5: Toggle Reminders to be synced across iCloud on or off here; but mostly on, if you want to remember your appointments on any device.

Considering Third-Party To-Do Apps

Truth be told, there’s really only one third-party reminders app to be concerned with. That app, as you may have heard, is Remember The Milk. RTM is actually a full-featured website, and it enables you to interact with your account and manage your profile from any web browser on any machine. There just happens to be apps to access the same service, with the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch being supported. The app enables you to add and complete tasks on the go, while having it all synced to the cloud. You’ll have access to priorities, due dates, time estimates, repeating lists, tags, and more, and you can even see tasks nearby and plan the best way to get things done. You can be reminded via e-mail, SMS, and instant messenger, and amazingly, the basic version of the app is free. For $25 per year, you can upgrade to a Pro account, which unlocks unlimited syncs (instead of one per day), usage on multiple devices, and push notification reminders.

In the interest of expanding your horizons, I list a few slightly off-beat alternatives that may be a better fit for your specialized reminder needs:

• BugMe! Stickies Pro ($1.99; also works with iPad)—If you’re a fan of Stickies on OS X, you’ll love this. You can craft alerts and pin them to a virtual corkboard within the app, and if the traditional reminder alert isn’t enough, the visual board might be.
• Due ($4.99; also works with iPad)—This is a highly rated, frequently updated app that’s overly simple in design and is engineered to handle short-term reminders with poise. I love the contrast with a calendar; use the Calendar app for long-term, repeating appointments, and use Due to handle the random to-dos that pop up during the course of the average day.
• Task Pro ($1.99; also works with iPad)—It does everything that Reminders does, but the multi-tiered approach to tasking makes it more flexible and easier to organize than most other options.
• OmniFocus for iPhone ($19.99)—Don’t even bother diving in here if you aren’t serious about organizing your digital life. At nearly $20, this is easily one of the most expensive apps you’ll find in the App Store, but there’s a ton of value here for those who need a sophisticated, robust to-do app for handling their personal and business lives. Cloud-based syncing is supported, and free e-mail and phone support is thrown in, too.
• Corkulous Pro ($1.99)—A clever name for a clever application. If you’re coming from the School of Old where reminders were scribbled on scraps of paper and pegged to a corkboard, this app is most certainly for you. It allows you to place photos and notes on a virtual corkboard, and multiple boards are supported in order to help you segment your tasks and reminders.

Obligatory Office Apps

You spent hard-earned money on the iPhone, so it might as well pay you back in some form or fashion. It’s true that most Office-style programs were designed for inputs from mice and keyboards, but now that the iPhone has been out for a few years, app producers have tweaked programs to accept multi-touch inputs. There’s no question that working on documents with the iPhone is typically slower than using a full-fledged notebook or desktop, but toss a Bluetooth keyboard into the mix and the playing field levels somewhat. Of course, hardware’s just half the battle. In this section, I touch on a handful of world-class Office apps that handle documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.

Believe it or not, Microsoft doesn’t make a version of its Office suite for iPhone. Only heaven (or perhaps Bill Gates) knows why. It’d clearly sell like hotcakes based on brand name and familiarity alone, but it’s probably for the best. Instead, there are a number of third-party alternatives jousting for your bucks, and that intense competition makes ‘em all better.

• Quickoffice Pro ($14.99)—It’s the preeminent Office-compatible document app for iPhone. It takes full advantage of the extra screen space, masters the art of input via touch, and boasts a multi-edit tool that enables users to quickly format text, numbers, colors, paragraphs, backgrounds, and cells, minus the multiple menus. It’s also dead simple to navigate to files, and the built-in integration with cloud services (Dropbox, Google Docs, Box.net, Huddle, SugarSync, Evernote, and Catch) ensures that any files you create or documents you edit can be pushed back onto the web as soon as you’re done with them. It allows you to create, edit, and share Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files, and the extensive amount of shared functionality (Find and Replace, as an example) makes it easy for Office addicts to adjust to.
• Documents To Go ($9.99; also works with iPad)—The primary advantages of this guy over the first option should be clear—it’s cheaper and it also works with the iPad you probably own. It allows you to open, edit, and create Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents, not to mention RTF, iWork, PDF, text documents, and more. The real kicker is the gratis desktop version that comes with your purchase, enabling users to two-way file sync with a Wi-Fi connection.
• Apple iWork suite ($29.97; also works with iPad)—Strangely, Apple doesn’t sell a discounted bundle of its three homegrown Office apps, but you can still pick up Pages, Keynote, and Numbers separately for $9.99 apiece. These are Apple’s document editor, presentation editor, and spreadsheet editor, and not surprisingly, they’re amazingly intuitive. Apple clearly built these specifically for multi-touch, and they’re undoubtedly the most elegant, easy-to-use Office apps for iPhone. Toss in iCloud integration, and I’m finding a hard time not recommending this trio strongly.
• Documents 2 ($1.99; also works with iPad)—Can you really go wrong? It’s a full-fledged document suite editor for under two bucks. It lets you store, manage, print, and share all your photos, documents, spreadsheets, and recordings in one place on your iPhone, iPod, and iPad. Furthermore, the user interface is very “File Explorer” like, so it should be quite familiar to anyone who has used a computer in the last decade. You can also view, edit, e-mail, and share (using Google Sync, AirPrint, Wi-Fi, or USB) whatever you open or create.

Presentation Is Everything

First impressions go a long way, and if you’re pitching a startup or just showing off your analytical wizardry in a staff meeting, having a beautiful presentation setup can go a long way. These days, lasting through a conventional PowerPoint presentation is a feat in and of itself, but using the iPhone to present with has been scientifically proven to both maintain interest while leading to higher projected earnings from future promotions. Okay, I confess, I made most of that up, but anyone who stares at slides for a living probably understands the point. Not only does AirPlay give presenters an even sexier way to showcase their pitch, but the iPhone as a whole is far easier to connect to a projector, far less likely to crash halfway through, and way more tailored to “present” than any work-issued laptop you have laying around.

Contrary to popular belief, presentation applications are actually useful for more than just business. Avid travelers can easily showcase trips with jazzed-up presentations, and parents who are entirely too active in their local PTA meetings could use this to petition for new band uniforms. Best of all, most of these apps make it possible to concoct a presentation right on the iPhone itself, and even if you create a Keynote or PowerPoint presentation on a full-fledged computer, it’ll format beautifully for use on the phone. Here are a few of my favorites in the category:

• Apple Keynote (9.99; also works with iPad)—Yes, I already recommended you pick this up in the Office category discussed earlier, but in case you took that suggestion lightly, it’s here again on its own. Keynote is a splendid iPhone app—largely thanks to it being built in-house at Apple for use on its own devices. If you own a Mac with the desktop version of Keynote, all the better. The most outstanding aspect of this is that it was built specifically to be controlled 100 percent by touch. It’s also worth pointing out that Keynote works with iCloud, so your presentations stay up to date across all your iOS devices—automatically. It ingests PowerPoint files with no fuss, and you can import files from Mail, the web, a WebDAV service, or your Mac or PC using iTunes File Sharing.
• Wooji Presentation Remote ($7.99; also works with iPad)—You’re probably wondering why you’d consider paying $8 for a presentation remote, but if you’ve ever priced out dedicated presentation remotes, you understand that the price point here is actually a bargain. The only major downside is the incompatibility with PowerPoint, but for avid Keynote users, it works like a gem. You can tap anywhere on the screen to spotlight your slide, with a choice of graphics and colors.

Travel Must-Haves

There’s just something about the iPhone that seems tailor-made to travel. Perhaps it’s the “I never leave home without my phone syndrome?” All joking aside, most iPhone owners who I’ve talked to purchased one with the intent to travel with it—have iPhone, will travel, as it were. And it makes sense. It’s easy to wrap your entire digital life around the iPhone, and being that it fits in your pocket, there’s really no reason to hit the open road (or the friendly skies) without it.

Evidently, I’m not alone in that line of thinking, as the App Store is chock full of travel-related apps that make getting from Point A to Point B way easier than it should be. All hail technology, eh? Here’s a look at my favorite iPhone travel apps—coming to you from a man who has proudly (and safely!) driven a motor vehicle in all 50 U.S. states.

• Kayak (free)—Going somewhere? No? That’s a problem. You’ll know the travel bug has bitten when you can’t rest easy if your next trip isn’t somewhere on the calendar, and there’s no better way to plan ahead than with Kayak. This app is a beautifully designed portal into the famed Kayak.com website, which searches hundreds of flights in order to find you the best prices, and even gives you the opportunity to expand your search backward and forward a few days in the effort of cost savings. Why use this? Airlines have a nasty, nasty habit of keeping track of your flight searches when you search directly on their websites; if they know you’re interested on a certain route on a certain day, they’ll jack the price up the second time you search for it. Kayak searches anonymously, helping you to avoid targeted price hikes.
• TripIt Pro (free app; $49/year service)—Travel is complicated. It just is. But the journey is half the fun, and keeping those journeys organized makes things even more fun. TripIt is a fantastic free app, and I recommend trying the free version first. However, avid jet setters will appreciate the $49/year Pro service. TripIt monitors your travel-related e-mails and automatically builds and updates itineraries as changes fly in, and you can automatically share those details with folks who need to know. You even get flight refunds on fare drops, and it helps you find an alternate flight if something gets in the way of your existing one. (Remember to avoid the ad-free $3.99 app if you’re going Pro, anyway.)
• TripAdvisor (free; also works with iPad)—TripAdvisor’s website is still an absolute catastrophe of design, but the app is surprisingly soigné. It’s worth signing up for an account. Within the app, you can search for reviews and ratings to nearby hotels, day trips, activities, and attractions, and better still, the highly valuable forums portion of the site can also be accessed here. It’s the easiest way to look for “top things to do” in any locale, but be warned: reviews aren’t always what they seem. People jump at the chance to post a negative review, but the vast majority of satisfied customers will never take time to leave a positive remark. (In other words, always leave a good review when you have good experiences!)
• Travel Interpreter ($4.99; also works with iPad)—Here’s the thing—Google’s language translate app is amazing, but it requires data. If you haven’t heard, you do not want to use roaming data overseas. International roaming—particularly on data—is impossibly expensive. To put it in perspective, looking up 10 words using roaming data will probably cost you between $5 and $10. This particular app has popular terms and phrases for 28 languages, and all are available offline. More than 2,200 illustrated phrases and words with audio tracks are included per language, and although it checks in at a hefty 692MB, that’s a small price to pay for offline access.
• National Parks by National Geographic (free)—If there’s any place in America where you can count on spotty connectivity, it’s in our beautiful National Parks. Having offline access to maps and trail maps is hugely helpful, and if you haven’t been taking advantage of your parks, there’s no better time than now. iPhones love nature too, you know.
• AllSubway ($0.99)—Hundreds of cities, thousands of subway lines. Tough to manage on your own, particularly if you don’t speak the language. This oft-updated app provides a look at subway stops in the world’s most popular city centers, and if you’re able to grab an Internet connection, you can also look up schedules and revised fares.

Fiduciary Responsibility

If you’re looking for a way to justify your “investment” in an iPhone (and in this book, while we’re on the topic), you’ll probably need an app or two. Good news for you—there are plenty to choose from. In fact, I’ve been downright shocked with how many finance-related apps are popping up in the App Store, and a handful of them are just wonderfully polished. Steve Jobs spoke of a “post-PC world” shortly before his passing, and once you start doing taxes on an iPhone (instead of a computer), you sort of feel like that future has arrived. Here are a few of my favorites for keeping finances in check:

• Mint (free)—This app allows you to track, budget, and manage your money all in one place, so you can see where you’re spending and where you can save. The app is beautiful, and the web interface gives you another way to manage the same profile when your iPhone is away. It’s actually pretty astounding that this service is completely free. I highly, highly recommend this for college-age folk or users who are just starting to build their financial foundation. If you open an account, add your bank, credit, loan, and retirement accounts, Mint will automatically pull in and categorize your transactions. Keeping things in order from the get-go makes record keeping all that much easier.
• Compoundee ($2.99)—You might balk at the idea of toting around a financial calculator if you aren’t a CPA, but in truth, you’ll know and understand a lot of these financial calculations. Money makes the world go ‘round, and understanding how the decimal falls is vital to grokking mortgages, loans, and everyday negotiations. Best of all, it doesn’t take a Masters in Mathematics to use.
• Expensify (free; also works with iPad)—What’s the first thing you think of when I say “expense reports?” Thankfully, the rest of this paragraph will still be here when you return from hurling. Managing expenses is one of the most dreadful experiences for avid business travelers, but having this app around makes it significantly less so. Not only does it pull in e-mailed receipts and keep ‘em in a tidy list, but you can use your iPhone’s camera to snap photographs of paper receipts in order to keep track of new expenses as they happen (and before you lose said receipt). If your company allows it, you can even be reimbursed directly to a checking account.
• iDonatedIt ($2.99; also works with iPad)—Charitable donations are good. Fact. But keeping track of ‘em is a massive headache. This app nixes a lot of the frustration with that, enabling you to keep detailed records of thrift store drops and the like as they happen. A $2.99 app just made it easy to both help folks and whack a few dollars off of your taxes. That’s progress.
• Square (free; also works with iPad)—This is easily one of the most innovative, game-changing applications in the past decade. The app is free, but you need to sign up for an account at www.squareup.com. A free card reader—which sits in your iPhone’s headphone jack—is shipped to you, and it allows absolutely anyone to start receiving credit card payments immediately. The fees aren’t any worse than what you probably see in PayPal, but Square is a far more customer-friendly company. No monthly fees and no contracts. For small business users who simply have to accept credit cards in order to gain business, this is undoubtedly the best way. It even e-mails receipts immediately to those you do transactions with.
• Time Master + Billing ($9.99)—Freelancers who need to keep track of billable hours should stop here. This is absolutely the most comprehensive time-keeping app on the iPhone, and the real kicker is the included invoicing capabilities. Consultants, attorneys, and contractors (among others) can finally keep track of who owes ‘em what, and yes, this tracks time right down to the second.

Calculators and Translators

Look, math is hard. Scoff if you want, but even common multiplications are a struggle when the world’s crumbling down around you, you’re tired, or you’re just feeling lazy. Thank heavens for calculators, right? The App Store is chock full of ‘em, but finding the good ones is a challenge. There are also a slew of highly specialized calculators and translators, and in this section I cover a smattering of my most trusted.

• Soulver ($2.99)—If you’re still into the idea of doing math on paper, this app is a godsend. It’s a masterfully designed program that allows you to use words alongside your numbers. It’s ideal for comparison shopping, couponing, figuring out margins, or just keeping track of which numbers correspond to which data.
• Digits Calculator for iPad + iPhone ($1.99; also works with iPad)—All of these basic calculators start to run together, but the one major standout here is the ability to enter a long series of calculations and then e-mail it all to yourself for import into Numbers or Excel. You can also quickly calculate a few different scenarios by editing any previous entry to automatically update the total.
• MedCalc Pro ($4.99; also works with iPad)—It may only apply to those in the medical field, but having a full-on medical calculator at your disposal is a huge boon. Better still, this particular app is designed in a way that even the everyman could appreciate and use. Plus, it’s cheaper than becoming an actual doctor.
• Weight Watchers Mobile (free; also works with iPad)—If you’re already entrenched in the program, this is a full-featured app that works right alongside your program. The fitness calculator is the standout aspect, but having an app at your side can help you stay focused on reaching your goals, even while away from your desktop web browser.
• Google Translate (free; also works with iPad)—It’s the quintessential translation app, supporting a staggering 60+ languages. It also translates spoken words into a foreign tongue, and you can actually listen to spoken translations for 20+ languages. Best of all, it’s free; the only downside is that a live Internet connection is required.
• Jibbigo (price varies by language)—These guys started with a Spanish/English spoken translation app, but they’re building out their language app library. Just search their name in the App Store and you might find the language you need; it allows two people speaking different languages to speak into the iPhone, and without an Internet connection, it speaks aloud the translation. Pure magic.

Apps for Kids

Try as you may, you’ll probably fail at keeping your iPhone out of entirely reach from your offspring. It’s the whole “kids these days…” thing. Apple’s touch interface is among the easiest in the industry to understand, and thus, the iPhone is almost instantly attractive to kids with wandering hands. Thankfully for you, the App Store is bursting with options for young minds.

• Interactive Alphabet ($2.99)—This one is obviously designed for the youngest of the young, but the colorful nature and masterfully designed user interface makes it a real winner in the minds of parents. It’s a great first step to convincing your young one that “alphabets are fun!”
• Grover’s Number Special ($2.99)—Again, this one hits at the younger-than-young crowd, but hey—it’s Grover! Learning about numbers has never been so enjoyable, but I recommend this app with one word of caution—budget for lots of Grover toys. You can bet your kid will start asking for ‘em.
• WeetWoo! ($3.99)—A brilliant video viewer showcasing curated, tasteful, educational content for kids. Many youngsters learn better from watching videos, and the options here are endless. Better still, the app supports AirPlay so that these videos can be beamed to a connected HDTV so long as it has an Apple TV 2 connected to it.
• Sums Stacker ($0.99)—More than just a math app, this multifaceted learning tool integrates Roman numerals and even Spanish. It’s the ultimate gamification of mathematics, and it’s useful for kids of all ages.
• Star Walk ($2.99)—It’s the next best thing to being shot up into space… maybe, anyway. This app is sure to educate both the young and old, enabling users to point their iPhones at the sky and see which stars, constellations, and satellites are above in real-time. It’s a beautiful way of marrying augmented reality with education, and support for AirPlay mirroring and AirPrint make it even easier to use in group or classroom settings.
• Fish School ($1.99)—Letters, numbers, shapes, colors, matching—just about anything you can think to teach your budding whiz kid is here. It’s an under-the-sea themed title that brushes up on the most basic of basics, aimed at “early learners” and chock full of activities. It’s honestly one of the more elaborate learning titles for the iPhone targeting this age bracket. I’m guessing they’ll be spent long before they plow through every last game.
• Math Bingo ($0.99; also works with iPad)—It’s inexpensive and it teaches a tough subject using a game that just about everyone understands. You can select from addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and push your youngster with three different levels of difficulty.
• Color & Draw ($0.99)—This one’s probably fun enough for kids ages 3 to 103; it invites users to draw, color, and decorate drawings or photographs with voiceover artistic invitations. In short, it’s an interactive coloring book, and there are letter/number tracing tools to enhance learning as well. The only downside? Your offspring will never be excited about a conventional coloring book after experiencing this.
• The Cat in The Hat ($3.99; also works with iPad)—What would a kids’ section about iPhone apps be without a tip of the (cat) hat to Dr. Seuss? Not much. This particular app is a real standout, featuring professional narration, background audio, and enlarged artwork for each scene. To promote reading in young children, individual words are highlighted as the story is read and words zoom up when pictures are touched.
• Any app by PBS KIDS (price varies)—These guys have a model that just works; games are inexpensive, colorful, and full of replay value. There’s a variety to choose from to cover a wide array of ages, and I’ve yet to be let down by any that they’ve developed.

Reading and Re-Reading

Early on, pundits suggested that the conventional LCD on the iPad and iPhone would render them nearly useless as e-readers. As the market has unfolded, there’s obviously still a niche being filled with E Ink-based products such as the Kindle, but many consumers have decided that an iPhone will serve just fine as a digital reader when they don’t feel like carrying a second device.

The only major knock is the glossy display, which glares uncontrollably when placed in direct sunlight. That said, it’s clear that Apple’s positioning both the iPhone and iPad as reading devices—iOS 5 saw the introduction of Newsstand and iBooks (a free download) is another Apple-created app for fetching books. Outside of those two, here are a few others that digital bookworms shouldn’t miss:

• GoodReader for iPhone ($4.99)—I’ve already extolled this app enough, but seriously, if you’re attempting to open massive TXT or PDF files, there’s no better option than this. It’s also highly useful for things outside of just reading complex documents, making it a shoe-in for inclusion in your app library.
• Kindle (free; also works with iPad)—Funny, right? One of Apple’s archrivals in the e-reading space actually has a highly sophisticated app in the App Store. The best part about the Kindle app for iPhone is the cross-compatibility. You can buy an Amazon book on your Windows machine, open it where you left off on your iPhone, make a few notes in it on your iPad, and lend it to a friend on your MacBook Pro. That’s powerful stuff.
• Nook (free)—It’s pretty much the same story as the Amazon Kindle app, but works well for those already invested in the Barnes & Noble ecosystem. Cross-compatibility and sharing are both here, and the layout couldn’t be finer.
• Stanza (free)—If you’re okay with having an app folder stuffed with e-reader apps, add this one to the pile. It doesn’t hurt the wallet, and it offers better-than-average “sideloading” capabilities, meaning that you can load your own ePub, e-reader, PDF, Comic Book Archive (CBR & CBZ), and DjVu books from your Mac or PC by dragging and dropping the files into the File Sharing section of the Apps tab of your device in iTunes.

News and Reference Material

I’ll confess—news is one of my passions. By day, I’m a news hound. I track and report stories, investigate leads, and bury my nose in the App Store looking for the sexiest, most seamless ways to consume the absolute torrent of news that flows from the Internet each and every day. Ingesting news on the iPhone is one of the most lovely and enjoyable experiences surrounding the entire device. There’s nothing quite like kicking back after a Hard Day’s Night, grabbing a cup of Joe, and catching up on whatever it is you missed.

• Zinio (free; also works with iPad)—This is a downright beautiful app that enables you to shop for and read a slew of great magazines—things that were seemingly built to be showcased on the iPhone. You can read full-color, high-fidelity pages, or switch to enhanced text mode and resize text for simpler reading. It also supports offline reading, and you can buy subscriptions or single issues using your existing iTunes account; no extra sign-up is necessary.
• Flipboard (free)—Two things make this app great. One, the layout is stunningly beautiful. Two, it can ingest any content as it sits on the Internet right now, so long as there’s an RSS feed, and turn it into something gorgeous. In other words, you don’t even need to find new favorites; simply pop the RSS feeds that you visit routinely into Flipboard, and it instantly converts those articles into magazine-like modules. It’s really not doing much more than beautifying RSS content, but it does it so well. And, it’s free.
• Pulse News for iPhone (free)—Pulse works in a similar fashion to Flipboard, but the layout is better suited to handle vast, vast quantities of news. In a nutshell, it takes your favorite websites and transforms them into a colorful and interactive mosaic. Not only does it do an excellent job of visually segmenting stories, but it also enables users to save particular articles for later reading across all platforms, or sync them with Instapaper, Read it Later, and Evernote. Sharing a story via Facebook, Twitter, and e-mail is as easy as two taps, and truthfully, the hardest part is putting it down.
• Google Currents (free; also works with iPad)—Similar to Flipboard, Currents pulls in stories from your favorite websites by way of RSS. It then reformats them to look absolutely beautiful on a smaller screen, and in my opinion, much more readable.
• Instapaper ($2.99; also works with iPad)—This is the de facto application for reading online articles at a later point in time while offline. It’s tailor-made for underground subway rides, where you’ll load up a few longer articles here and then read them when there’s no connection available. Well over 150 iPhone and iPad apps support direct integration with Instapaper already, and that list is growing by leaps and bounds. It does a commendable job stripping down complex articles to ones that are easily saved and read, and you can adjust a dizzying amount of settings to make reading all the more comfortable for your two eyes.
• Engadget (free): A shameless plug? Yes, but if you’re even remotely interested in keeping pace with the world of consumer technology, this app provides access to news, opinions, and reviews from the author of this book and his wonderful colleagues.

Wizarding Weather Apps

It’s hard to explain, but there’s something tantalizing about checking the weather on an iPhone. Maybe it’s the feeling of having your own “green screen” of sorts, or making yourself the meteorologist with those oh-so-easy swiping movements. Perhaps it’s just the kid in me, but a super sophisticated, ultra-nerdy weather app just makes the iPhone that much better. Googling forecasts for a certain area just feels boring; throw in interactive maps, webcam feeds, and historical data, and you have the forecast of the future. Here are a few of my favorites:

• swackett (free)—It’s a new take on weather apps. Aside from sending you push notifications for alerts in customizable places, giving you a glance at the forecast, and displaying the current temperature, it also uses an edgy graphical interface to display what kind of clothing you should wear out for the day. Useful!
• Weather+ ($0.99; also works with iPad)—The only compelling reason to actually pay for a weather app on the iPhone is the visual awesomeness baked into this one. The layout is simply stunning, and dare I say, looks a pinch like elements of it were borrowed from HTC’s Sense Android overlay. It also offers full-screen video feeds from select locales, wind direction and speed details, and a plethora of customization options.
• Living Earth HD ($0.99; also works with iPad)—Half weather app, half Google Earth(ish), this app nicely mixes 3D simulations with up-to-date forecasts. It’s less of a tool for figuring out your local weather and more of an exploratory app to discover weather patterns across the globe, but if you’re in the education sector, it’s a good way to get your kids to pay attention to a topic they may otherwise tune out.
• Fahrenheit ($0.99; also works with iPad)—There’s really only one reason to consider this app over the others: The icon itself dynamically changes to show the current temperature, so you never actually have to enter the app to know how warm (or frigid) it is in the area surrounding you. Should you do so anyway, you’ll be greeted with a lovely user interface that shows forecasts, radar screens, and the usual complement of extras.

Alternative Browsing Options

Safari just so happens to be the web browser that Apple built (shown in Figure 10-6), and in turn, is planted front and center on the iPhone. For years, developers of third-party browsers watched in vain as their handiwork was rejected from the App Store, but Opera Mini for iPhone broke that ice back in April of 2010.

Figure 10-6: Safari is simple and understated, but well refined at this point.

Since then, a handful of other finely tuned alternatives have filtered in. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Safari—particularly now that it has native tabbed browsing—but there’s also nothing wrong with taking a look at the other options out there. This section covers a few of my recommendations.

Skyfire

Skyfire’s a potent enough rival to deserve its own space, so its own space it has. The browser app can be purchased for $2.99, and although it certainly has a few laudatory features—including a robust bookmarking system, private browsing and mobile/desktop view switching—there’s one feature in particular that puts this app on the map. Apple and Adobe have long feuded over the inclusion (or exclusion, I should say) of Flash on iOS products, and now that Flash development on the mobile side has been killed, I’m guessing it’s just a matter of time before web-based video transitions entirely away from Flash. That said, thousands upon thousands of websites and web videos still use Flash, and not being able to view “the whole web” on an iPhone just feels… wrong.

Skyfire adds back that crucial missing feature with just a click. There’s a built-in transcoding feature that converts Flash video to HTML5, and although it’s a bit clunky when trying to stream over 3G, it’s certainly better than staring with an error message. Any Flash video that shows up while using Skyfire can be initiated by clicking a small pop-up icon. A few seconds later, assuming the transcode goes smoothly, it starts playing back.

Google Chrome

During Google’s annual developer conference for the year 2012, the highly touted Chrome browser was finally ported to iOS. Both the iPhone and iPad now have access to Google’s acclaimed web browser, and with that comes Google Sync. In other words, those who use Chrome religiously on their home computer and/or Android device can sign in across all platforms. That way, their bookmarks, saved passwords, and open tabs are synced across every device that uses Chrome.

Unfortunately, the lightning fast speed that Chrome’s desktop browser is known for has been hamstrung by Apple’s policies. As of now, the only browser in the iOS universe capable of using Nitro—an engine that has proven to be wicked quick on mobile platforms—is Safari. All other third-party browsers, Chrome included, are forced to use a pre-Nitro alternative (called UIWebView), which isn’t as quick. Apple claims it’s for security; I think it’s partly to keep Safari in the lead in terms of speed.

Opera Mini

It wasn’t too long ago that Opera had its own fingers crossed, waiting and praying that Opera Mini would be accepted into the App Store. It was quite the precedent-setter when Apple allowed it, effectively giving third-party developers the green light to produce and distribute apps that directly and unequivocally compete with software that was born and bred in Cupertino. Now, it stands as one of the best alternatives to Safari, and it’s absolutely free to download and enjoy.

Not only is the interface polished (see for yourself in Figure 10-7), but it also includes an amazing compression feature that truly sets it apart. In a world constrained by data tiers, usage limits, and overage charges, the reality is that mobile Internet users have to be mindful of how much data they’re consuming. It’s a drastic change in mentality from even five years ago, when unlimited data was the norm and “usage” was not a consideration.

Figure 10-7: Opera Mini is a bit flashier than Safari.

Opera Mini takes web page requests and redirects them to its own servers, where pages are compressed by up to 90 percent before they’re shot back to your iPhone. The result? Slightly lower quality images, but huge data usage savings. Even if you’re unconcerned with usage (those who are still holding onto unlimited data plans, I’m looking your way), you’ll probably be interested in faster browsing. Given that so much less data is transmitted when browsing with Opera Mini, pages load more quickly. On crowded networks, this could be the difference between a low-fi version of your favorite website loading, or a page time-out. Furthermore, the Visual Tabs feature enables users to see all of their open tabs at once and hastily switch between them, whereas the Opera Link allows those who use Opera at home to pull in their bookmarks with just a couple of taps.

iCab Mobile

This particular browser doesn’t do any zany Flash tricks or completely wipe the floor with Safari, but there are enough unique features here to justify the $1.99 price of admission. It allows users to search within web pages, save passwords and form-fills, and there’s even a customizable Filters function that enables you to toggle images off completely in order to save bandwidth. Fullscreen mode gets rid of the border and toolbar areas, whereas the homegrown Scrollpad function allows a three-finger tap lead to anywhere-on-the-page finger scrolling. There’s also native Dropbox support, which allows you to import/export bookmarks as well as transfer downloads, images, files, and web pages to your cloud account. AirPrint is naturally supported, and there’s even a way to customize how multi-finger gestures control the browsing experience.

Searching for Great Apps

This chapter closes by giving you a few tips on searching that tend to work quite well, regardless of what you’re looking for. It’s quite likely that you’ll find yourself interested in related apps after diving into the laundry list shown here. The question is, how do you even begin? Apple has segmented the App Store as best it can, but with well over 300,000 apps, there’s just no corralling them all.

Start by opening iTunes, venturing into the iTunes Store, and looking for the App Store button along the top edge of the program. Besides that, you’ll spot a drop-down arrow. Give that a click, and a lengthy list of app genres and categories will appear. Apple seems to be fine-tuning this list as the App Store blossoms and evolves, so you should definitely expect the list of categories to grow over time.

From there, I suggest clicking into a category that you’re interested in; you’ll be brought to a portal page that features only applications from whatever segment you selected. From here, the search options really get useful. New apps are plastered across the top, and this is a great place to hop into if you’re religiously checking the store from week to week in order to see what new and exciting software has arrived since your last visit. If you’re just looking for the best of the best regardless of age, the What’s Hot and Top Charts sections generally list the highest rated apps.

Best of all, a quick scroll down the page enables you to look only at paid apps or only at free apps. I generally recommend a peek in the free section first; if you can find a suitable app without having to spend any money, go for it. If you come up empty there, the paid section will usually present you with a far more robust, polished array of options. After all, the developers here know that they have to offer something quite exemplary to encourage users to buy their app over a free alternative.

If you simply have no idea where to start, I suggest rereading this chapter on a day when your brain is a bit less frazzled. I also suggest visiting the iPhone Apps Starter Kit option, which is located in the App Store Quick Links section of the App Store in iTunes. To get there, open iTunes, click iTunes Store App Store and look in the top-right rail. Within, you’ll find a stout collection of universally adored applications from just about every major genre.

Unfortunately, there’s no direct way to force the Search box within iTunes itself to narrow a query to the particular segment that you’re viewing. In other words, each search within iTunes scans the entire marketplace for results. You can, however, narrow these down somewhat. If you’re on the hunt for apps—querying something like “biology app”—be sure to click the Apps line over in Filter by Media Type, a box floating along the left edge after each search. If you’re after something else—perhaps Music, Podcasts, Books, or Movies—simply aim for the corresponding filter.

That said, there is a separate way to fine-tune your results. Once you search, you can click the Power Search button that sits atop the aforementioned Filter by Media Type box. The resulting box—assuming you already filtered by apps—enables you to search specifically by keyboard, developer, free/paid, and even by device compatibility. It takes a bit of poking around to find this feature, but it’s worth it for occasions when the traditional search just isn’t helping.

It’s also worth downloading Chomp. It’s a free app in the App Store, and acts as a super customizable search engine to find the kinds of apps you’re looking for. Think of it as the Power Search version of Apple’s own app search.

Summary

It’s an app-filled world, and the iPhone is just living in it. In all seriousness, the iPhone would be a lot less useful without apps. Every ounce of its functionality is unlocked by the power of developers, and although it’d handle phone calls and texts just fine without a suite of apps on its home screen, it’s actually a potent productivity device if you have the right software.

Everything from highly specialized web browsers to educational and instructional apps are available, but wading through the 300,000+ apps in the App Store can be a huge chore. Apple has done a solid job in creating Best Of portals within iTunes, and I recommend frequenting those weekly in order to see what’s new and improved since your last visit. Digging into the productivity side of things is also the perfect excuse to finally buckle down and create a folder system that works for you, and generating a reliable and seamless workflow on your iPhone can end up creating a new world of free time.

It’s important to remember that while the apps listed here are surefire winners, development is forging ahead each and every day. New coders are designing more intuitive ways to be productive on the iPhone, and unless you develop masterful searching skills, you’ll miss out on apps that are just around the bend. Keeping your toes dipped into the New section in the App Store is a great way to discover future hits before they hit the mainstream, and keeping the Chomp app nearby is a great way to search for and discover new programs that fall into your favorite categories.