These days there are so many apps available on the market, it can be overwhelming deciding what you need and what will just eat into precious memory space on your device. So, to give you a helping hand, here is my list of the ‘must have’ apps for your phone or tablet. Many of these were recommended to me by other people and I have since wondered how I managed without them.
Social Media
Twitter – Twitter is a network made up of 140-character messages called Tweets. It’s a fun way to discover the latest news related to subjects or people you care about and to communicate with people that have similar interests.
Why you need it: Twitter opens up a whole new world of connections that all have the same interests as you. It can be used for entertainment, as a way to network and to catch up on current affairs.
Available on: Android, IPhone and Window’s
Facebook– Facebook is by far the most popular social network. It allows you to create profiles, upload photos and video, send messages and keep in touch with friends and family.
Why you need it: a great way to stay in touch and share content with friends and family both near and far.
Available on: Android, IPhone and Window’s
LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a social networking site designed specifically for the business community. The goal of the site is to allow registered members to establish and document networks of people they know and trust professionally.
Why you need it: whether you’ll looking to expand your professional network, searching for sales leads or hunting for a new job, LinkedIn will have the tools to help you do it.
Available on: Android, IPhone and Window’s
Instagram – Instagram is a fun and quirky way to share your life through a series of pictures. Snap a photo with your mobile phone, and then choose a filter to transform the image. These images can also be shared across other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter through this app.
Why you need it: a picture speaks a thousand words, as the saying goes. You can share with the world or adjust privacy settings to just share with people you chose.
Available on: Android, IPhone and Window’s
Life Management
Evernote – Evernote is designed help you stay organised in modern life. From notes to project plans, everything you write on this app stays with you everywhere you go as you can access it from any device – mobile or desktop. Great when you’re running around like a headless chicken!
Why you need it: set reminders, take notes, save documents, set chat groups, so much can be done in Evernote to help you stay on top of everything. It syncs across all your devices, so you’ll never be without it.
Available on: Android, IPhone and Window’s
DropBox – Dropbox is an online storage center that keeps your files safe, synced, and easy to share. You can save files to Dropbox on your computer, and then access them on your phone or tablet wherever you are. Everything you keep in Dropbox is synced automatically to all your devices.
Why you need it: you can back up pretty much anything to drop box and one account can be used across your devices. It even has an automatic backup option which will store all your photos. If you ever lose your phone or your laptop breaks, anything you save to Dropbox can be accessed from any machine, so you’ll never lose your photos or any of your information again.
Available on: Android, IPhone and Window’s
Hootsuite – Manage all your social media accounts from one handy place. Hootsuite not only allows you to view your accounts alongside each other, it also gives you the ability to post to multiple accounts at once. And to help you to be super organised, you can even schedule posts for a future date and time making social media management a breeze.
Why you need it: simply put – it saves you time. You’ll no longer need to go to multiple websites to check your accounts. The ability to schedule posts is fantastic as well. It even has a “suggestion” segment that can inspire you on relevant tweets related to your interests and who you are.
Available on: Android, IPhone and Window’s
Feedly – I am always finding new and interesting news sites, blogs and websites that I want to follow and my favorites bar is chock a block. Does this sound like you? To save you going to each site individually to look for new content, you can now save the sites to a Feedly account and each day Feedly provides you with all the new stories from your selected sites in one easy and convenient place.
Why you need it: all the latest news, blogs etc. in one easy to read site. It saves time and can be accessed anywhere.
Available on: Android and IPhone
Communication
WhatsApp – While you are unable to use the call section of this app here in the UAE, it is still a great app to have. WhatsApp provides a free messaging service and works worldwide. As well as being able to send pictures you can also set up group chats.
Why you need it: one of the most popular free messaging services around, the majority of your contacts will have a WhatsApp account. Why pay to send a text message when you can send a WhatsApp for free.
Available on: Android, IPhone and Window’s
Skype– Skype is for doing things together, whenever you’re apart. Skype’s text, voice and video make it simple to share experiences with the people that matter to you. If you pay a little, you can do more things, like call phones, access Wi-Fi or send texts. You can pay as you go or buy a subscription.
Why you need it; providing free internet to internet calls and video calls, it’s a great way to chat face to face with people when you can’t be in the same place. Not just great for friends and family it is also being increasingly used within the workplace.
Available on: Android, IPhone and Window’s
Business
Camcard – This is a great business card scanner. Just take a photo of the card using your phones camera and Camcard will save it as an image and will also extract the information and save it to your contacts list.
Why you need it: never worry about losing a business card again, once you have used Camcard, the contact is stored safely in your phones contact list.
Available on: Android, IPhone and Window’s
www.camcard.com
Fast Scanner – Another app that utillises your phones camera. If you need to scan a document simply take a photo of it using the Fast Scanner app and it will sharpen the image and turn it into a PDF file that can then be saved, emailed or printed.
Why you need it: always having the ability to scan a document comes in surprisingly handy when you least expect it.
Available on: Android
Photography
Photoshop Express – Fix photos fast. Photoshop Express is a great one stop shop for making the best of your photographs without having to transfer and work on them on a PC. Remove red eye, crop, enhance and share all from one place. The app is free but you can pay for additional add ons.
Why you need it: provides you with a quick and easy way to make the best of all the photos you take whether you chose to share them online or keep them for your own happy memories.
Available on: Android, IPhone and Window’s
Lifestyle
Zomato – From Vancouver to Auckland, Zomato is used by millions every day to decide where to eat in over 10,000 cities across 22 countries. Zomato provides you with restaurant locations, contact details and reviews from real customers to help you make the best choice for your next meal.
Why you need it: provides you with all the information you need when you’re trying to decide where to eat. It can also use your GPS to tell you what is near to you.
Available on: Android, IPhone and Window’s
Entertainer – This app offers buy one get one free incentives across the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe. With a vast selection of merchants from restaurant and hotels to spas and amusement parks, the Entertainer has something to offer everyone and is an essential annual purchase for thousands of local residents and tourists in 15 countries.
Why you need it: who doesn’t love saving money?
Available on: Android, IPhone and Window’s
So there you have it, the apps I just can’t live without and the best bit…they are all free! Some do come with an option to pay for a more premium service; all of the apps mentioned above have high quality free versions that work really well.
