18 Useful Business Apps for 2011

Apps are making it easier to do business no matter which smart phone you use:  you can market, build relationships with customers, track your finances and do market research among other things.

According to Scott Steinberg in a July 25, 2011 article “10 Must-Have Business Apps for 2011” in Entrepreneur:

“No matter your weapon of choice from iPhone to iPad, BlackBerry, Android or Palm device, apps make every entrepreneur’s life that much easier. But with thousands available for download on dozens of mobile gadgets, it can be hard to tell which are really worth their weight in microchips.“

Here’s a quick summary of Scott’s list with a few of my own suggestions:

1.  Square (Free) – Process credit card payments anywhere using an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.  Sign up with them to get the free credit card reader that hooks into your headphone jack.

2.  Evernote (Free) – This is my favourite tool for capturing anything I find on the web or in my e-mail.  It handles everything from scanning receipts to recording your voice.  It has a pretty darned good tagging system too.

3.  Scanner Pro ($6.99 USD) – This app turns your iPhone into a multi-page scanner (if you’re avoiding Evernote).  You have to have an iPhone 4, iPod Touch or iPad and iOS 4 to use this very high powered scanning app however.

4.  JotNot Scanner Pro ($0.99 – $3 USD) – This app also turns your iPhone into a multi-page scanner except it works for any model of iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad running iOS 3.1.2 or later.

5.  Flight Track Pro ($9.99 USD) – This app manages your entire trip from confirmation email to delays and alternate boarding plans.

6.  MightyMeeting (Free) – Put your presentations and videos online and watch them from anywhere.  It’s great for client meetings.

7.  Gist (Free) – This app lets you manage all your contacts in one place including seeing your friends’ Facebook or Twitter feeds.

8.  Worldcard Mobile ($5.99 USD) – This amazing app lets you take a perfectly scanned text recognized shot of business cards you get at networking meetings.  Once it’s done it automatically creates a contact in your Addressbook so you don’t have to (sweet).  There’s one catch – you have to have an iPhone 4 or better because it requires a powerful camera.  This will be the first app I buy when I get a better iPhone.

9.  LinkedIn (Free) – This is the leading social network for job searching and business networking.  The app makes it easy to connect right at a networking event if you both have the LinkedIn app and wireless turned on.

10.  JotNot Fax (Free; $0.99 USD/fax or get packs) – This handy little app lets you send faxes straight from your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.  Using Save2PDF and the Sign-n-Send app (both below) you never have to print anything ever again.

11.  Print n Share ($8.99 USD) – You can print from a WiFi printer or one connected to a Mac or PC.

12.  Jump Desktop ($19.99 USD) – You can control your computer from anywhere in the world as long as you have access to the Internet.

13.  iTeleport ($24.99 USD) – This is the app I use to remote control my computer from my iPhone or iPad.  It handles regular use pretty well.

14.  Things ($9.99 USD) – This is my preferred task management app because it looks beautiful, is easy to use and easy to learn.  I used to use Omnifocus however its interface is slow, confusing and clunky at times.  It’s available on the iPhone and iPad.

15.  Omnifocus ($19.99 – $39.99 USD) – You can manage your daily tasks and agenda with the ability the share the information across all of your devices.  It is the Swiss army knife of productivity management apps with a learning curve to match.

16.  Sign-n-Send ($2.99 USD) – You can sign any PDF or Microsoft Office document right from your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad and send it by email.  It’s handy for lawyers, real estate agents and anyone who handles sales contracts.

17.  Save2PDF ($6.99 USD) – There are both iPhone (iPod Touch too) and iPad versions of this app which lets you create great PDFs without using a computer or Adobe Acrobat.  It also supports multiple languages.

18.  Billings Touch (Free to try; $14.99 USD) – You can track time, expenses and mileage.  You can also create invoices and add client payments.  I’ve used it for freelancing work and it syncs well with the Mac version.  The timer runs in the background so you never have to worry that you’ve shut it off.

(Above Photo via Silicon Beach Training)

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