Photogenda
Michael (Admin) | Jan 12, 2012 Productivity
User rating: 
(4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)
(4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)
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Photogenda ($1.99) by AwakeningIdeas
Available on iPhone only
A whole mess of these replace-your-contacts apps have marched through my inbox over the past couple of years, but I’ve ignored them all because I didn’t really want one… until now. Maybe it’s my old age catching up with me, or the fact that I’m super popular and have to sift through billions of contacts in order to find my drinking buddies, but for whatever reason I suddenly feel the need to have shortcuts to certain phone numbers.
Photogenda does this by showing me the photos associated with contacts instead of the typical line-by-line list that Apple’s default iOS provides. Show names or don’t show them, it’s the pics that count. If your contact doesn’t have a photo then Photogenda asks you to specify gender and then spits out a generic icon in place of the absent photo. Sounds good right? Yeah it is… mostly.
TextCrafter
Lauren | Dec 6, 2011 Productivity
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TextCrafter ($2.99) by Mysk
Available on iPhone & iPod Touch
We all know at least one person (if not ourselves) who loves posting updates to their Twitter and Facebook accounts. How would you feel if you could do this at each time Via one application? Well, today I bring to you TextCrafter. It’s kind of a 3-in-1 type of deal. It has the same idea that the basic “Notes” app does, but has many more features. The features included in this app are sharing your text to FaceBook and Twitter as I already mentioned, e-mail, or send it to someone through iMessage, changing font size, hundreds of special characters, and adding your location.
GoodReader for iPhone
Clint | Dec 5, 2011 Productivity
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GoodReader for iPhone ($4.99) by Good.iWare
Available on iPhone and iPad
I was so much more productive at work when I had my Blackberry Bold 9700. Unfortunately, my Blackberry meet its demise the day that I accidentally dropped it in the toilet. After much badgering from my friends, wife and co-workers, I decided to take the plunge and officially joined the Steve Jobs/Apple cult by purchasing an iPhone 4. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my iPhone! Otherwise, I wouldn’t be volunteering my free time to write pro bono reviews. The thing is, I like the damn thing too much! The app store is a gamers paradise with thousands of games being introduced every week and probably half of them are free. Throw in a retina display and a plenty powerful Apple A4 chip running the thing and you have a well-qualified gaming device. Gaming on my blackberry, on the other hand, was a joke: think black-and-white Pong and you aren’t too far off.
So, despite the fact that my law firm bought me the iPhone, I have rarely used it in any capacity other than playing games and the occasional phone call or email. Then enter GoodReader! This app has honestly transformed my iPhone into what I am sure my employer wanted it to be. So what is GoodReader? Well, I am glad you asked.
NoteMaster
Michael (Admin) | Nov 10, 2011 Productivity
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NoteMaster ($3.99) by Kabuki Vision, LLC
Available on iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad
I had NoteMaster on my iPhone for a long time before I ever found a use for it. I’m not a big note-taker, but when I decided to start a small business last year I found myself using NoteMaster all the time! The crappy default Notes app that comes bundled with iOS is fine for jotting down an occasional address or whatever, but when you need to keep information organized NoteMaster is definitely the way to go.
It lets you add photos to notes, it syncs with Google docs, it does several different kinds of lists, it lets you categorize notes… it really does it all.
Tags: notes
Tap Forms HD
Jason O'Donoghue | Nov 4, 2011 Productivity
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Tap Forms HD ($8.99) by Tap Forms
Available on iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad
I like being organised (borderline OCD some might say) and I use a variety of apps to help me achieve this. In my view, a database creating app should be part of any organised persons arsenal and so I’ve been extensively using Tap Forms to manage and store my information both at home and at work.
Tap Forms is a huge, flexible app (and is therefore quite daunting to review!) and has 25 ready-made forms built-in and 19 customisable fields to create your own forms with.
Tags: Database
Direct Report: Employee Feedback Tracker
Michael E. | May 9, 2010 Business, Productivity
User rating: (17 votes, average: 2.29 out of 5)
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If you are responsible for supervising either one person or a team and have to evaluate their performance annually or semiannually, then you know the challenges that can come with that.
Over the course of six months or a year, unless you are someone who manages to keep detailed and consistent notes on your staff as they occur, you will find yourself struggling to remember either the things your staff members did well or the things they need work to improve on come evaluation time.
Tags: $3.99
(10+2)x5 Procrastination Hack
Tony Mei | Apr 28, 2010 Productivity
User rating: (17 votes, average: 2.47 out of 5)
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As far as working effectively goes, I am a black belt in procrastinating. In fact, I’m procrastinating at the moment from writing a research paper in order to review this app, which, ironically, is supposed to help end my procrastination. But at least it’s an incremental step.
(10+2)x5 Procrastination Hack by EBratton revolves around the idea that if you commit 10 minutes to working on a task and then take a 2 minute break afterward, you will be able to ‘hack your procrastination to oblivion’ if you rinse and repeat the cycle 5 times. The app is essentially a single screen with a set of buttons and a timer that clocks how long you’ve been working, and when you deserve your scheduled 2 minute break ration.
For such a simplistic and bare-bones app, it gets the concept across pretty nicely. I find it much easier to work on a project when there is timer tracking my progress and keeping me motivated. While I found the app successful, these kinds of unique productivity apps will obviously have wildly different success rates from person to person.
Tags: $1.99, procrastination, Productivity
Todew
Tony Mei | Mar 23, 2010 Productivity
User rating: (9 votes, average: 3.56 out of 5)
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Face it: most of the to-do apps that run rampant in the App Store are filled with clutter and difficult to navigate, making them useless. It’s not fun having to spend more time organizing your day’s events then actually doing your day’s events. Todew, in the words of its developer SomanticContact, is a “no-frills, yet powerful to-do app that won’t waste your time”, is sounds like exactly what the App Store needs.
Todew’s interface is fast, sleek and simple. No unnecessary buttons to fumble around with. No option panels to get lost in. Adding the day’s events is super efficient and easy. Press a button. Make a title. Pick a day and a color. Done. My biggest gripe with the built-in iPod Touch/iPhone Calendar is that it coerces you to make a time for your event, or else use the generic ‘All-Day’ feature. Thankfully, Todew takes care of this by only sorting the events into different days, which makes for a more simple and efficient process.
Tags: $.99, Productivity, to do
Manuscript
Michael E. | Mar 22, 2010 Productivity
User rating: (7 votes, average: 3.86 out of 5)
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Much like my second novel, this review is a long time coming. As I’ve mentioned before, I do a lot of writing and invariably- especially with novel writing- things tend to bleed together; plotlines and characters and settings all expand, becoming much more formidable than you initially thought. Writing a book is a marathon, not a sprint, and without discipline, even the shortest novella can balloon into an runaway epic of mammoth proportions.
When I first heard about Black Mana Studios‘ Manuscript, I knew this was one app I had to pick up and put through the paces.
Tags: $7.99
Q&F: List!
Michael E. | Feb 25, 2010 Productivity
User rating: (4 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
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ToDo/List apps tend to remind me of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. No matter how hard I try, I can never find the perfect fit for my needs and have gone through more apps than I care to remember.
Lists! by Secret Society Software is a straightforward To Do app that has some small, but useful features that lift it above the standard ToDo/List fare. Since I hate swiping through dates, I really like how it can add days or weeks to the Due Date by tapping the ‘+Day’ or ‘+Week’ button. ‘Revert’ takes me back to where I was just seconds ago and if I hit ‘Today’, it goes back to today’s date. Priorities are marked by the number of exclamation points, from ‘-’ up to ‘!!!’. And the app will automatically sort the ranking of lists by 5 variables.
Best of all, it’s free. So try it. You might find that it fits you just right.
Version 1.0
Tested on an iPod Touch 3.1.3
A sample list
Tags: free
gogoDocs Google Docs Reader
Michael E. | Feb 22, 2010 App Sale Alert, Productivity
User rating: (4 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)
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WYSIWYG. You’ve seen the acronym before and I’m sure just about everyone knows what it means: What You See is What You Get. Of course, nearly every iTunes app is a WYSIWYG on some level or other, but there are some apps that are more obviously WYSIWYGs than others.
gogoDocs is a perfect example. It is a Google Docs reader whose strength lies in the fact that it can sync your Google Docs to your iPhone or iPod Touch in order for you to view them anytime, anywhere. It also incorporates a number of features, including a document sync that allows you to access your docs anywhere you can pull a signal. You can star documents for later reference or use the star as a way to make certain those documents are always synced. gogoDocs Google Docs Reader can bookmark documents and pdfs so that when you reopen the document, you can easily go right back to where you left off. gogoDocs Google Docs Reader also does document sharing, list filtering, portrait or landscape viewing, and can email docs directly from the app.
Tags: $1.99
PomodoroPro
Michael E. | Feb 14, 2010 Productivity
User rating: (6 votes, average: 2.67 out of 5)
(6 votes, average: 2.67 out of 5) Loading ...
In spite of the numerous ways an iPod Touch or iPhone can help you to stay connected or easily call up information on just about everything, most of the items in the AppStore share a singular purpose: they serve as distractions, as a means to help us pass the time. They can be fun distractions, educational distractions, but I doubt there would be all that many people who would argue with my assertion that an iPod or iPhone can also be an excellent time waster. There’s nothing wrong with that- it’s called relaxation and entertainment- and we all need rest and relaxation. Once we’re suitably entertained and relaxed, we can resume whatever it was that we were doing in the moments before needing a distraction.
The purpose of Peer Assembly’s PomodoroPro is to help you make the most of your time by helping you focus and concentrate on the task at hand, whether you’re studying, working, or simply reading. In other words, it’s a time management app.
But PomodoroPro isn’t just any old time management app; it employs the Pomodoro Technique, a method of task management created in 1992 to better manage time and reduce distractions.
How does the Pomodoro Technique work? There are 5 steps to the technique:
Tags: $2.99
