I work prominently with digital media, be this web design,
photography, film making and design. I love technology yes, but when it
came to the iPhone I was unsure whether to take the plunge or not. I
tried weighing up my options, and finally decided to buy one "to help me
with my work" cough* cough*. Although my reasoning was half made up
just so I could convince myself the iPhone was worth the monthly
outgoing money I have been pleasantly surprised how work effective my
iPhone and the apps to go with it has been. I am going to lead you
through my top 5 free apps which help me in my everyday work.
At
number one we have the Skype app. I often use Skype to call clients, as
one of my jobs is as a website mentor. My calls with clients are always
pre-arranged, so if for any reason I can not get to my laptop I always
have my iPhone, which 9 times out of 10 at least has a 3g connection to
allow me to make the call through Skype. The other great advantage of
this app is that for one clients I work out in the sticks, on a farm
where my phone signal is non existent, but there office has wifi which
once again allows me to make calls through Skype when I can not make
normal calls due to lack of phone signal.
Another great app at number two is the BlogPress app. You can get the lite addition for free or buy an upgraded version. BlogPress works along side multiple platforms of blogging software which is great for me as I help run several different blogs via blogger, WordPress and Joomla, and this little app can edit posts (and create posts) on all these platforms straight from the iPhone. This can come in handy when you receive a email or call from a client who needs something changing NOW! and your not at your desk. Simply log in and edit till your hearts content.
My third fave app is Adobe Ideas, not only with this app can you draw vector illustrations, you can draw over photographs, you can have the photo as a separate layer to the drawing so you can hide the photo is you being a bit of a cheat and tracing something. Other great features to this app is that you can pinch zoom into the canvas to colour fine detailed areas of your "idea". You can then email your idea as a PDF to whomever, I often email mine to myself so I can check on a computer on large screen first. The other very handy feature is that the PDF is a very large resolution so if you wanted you could work straight from the PDF rather than having to re make your idea on the computer. Ive experimented with signature designs with this app which worked very well, I just imported the PDF into Illustrator and edited further from there.
In at number four is 2Do Lite. With this little app you can set up your todo calender for different subjects areas such as work, home, birthdays, and set up email reminders. I found this a very good organizational app which helps keep me in control. I love it more than the normal calender as I feel it works more efficiently, working much more like a Filofax. One great tip with this app is that if your being given instructions over the phone and don't want to forget any of the details jot them straight down in todo, email the note to your self so when your set at your desktop, open it up and there it is.
the last app i will mention is SE Guide, I have surprised myself by listing this app, but I use it so much more than I ever believed I would. It is basically a few RSS feeds from an about SEO website, driven into an iPhone app. This being just an RSS feed doesn't really sound like much of an app, but I read through the articles all the time, much more so than I would from my RSS reader client on my mac or from my Google reader. Its one of those things where I am at the computer waiting for something to render of export and I have my iPhone hand so i read the SEO articles. The feature I love is that if I find an article particular interesting then I email myself the link straight through the app, so I can read it later full screen, print it out and archive it in my big collection a web tip etc.
Another great app at number two is the BlogPress app. You can get the lite addition for free or buy an upgraded version. BlogPress works along side multiple platforms of blogging software which is great for me as I help run several different blogs via blogger, WordPress and Joomla, and this little app can edit posts (and create posts) on all these platforms straight from the iPhone. This can come in handy when you receive a email or call from a client who needs something changing NOW! and your not at your desk. Simply log in and edit till your hearts content.
My third fave app is Adobe Ideas, not only with this app can you draw vector illustrations, you can draw over photographs, you can have the photo as a separate layer to the drawing so you can hide the photo is you being a bit of a cheat and tracing something. Other great features to this app is that you can pinch zoom into the canvas to colour fine detailed areas of your "idea". You can then email your idea as a PDF to whomever, I often email mine to myself so I can check on a computer on large screen first. The other very handy feature is that the PDF is a very large resolution so if you wanted you could work straight from the PDF rather than having to re make your idea on the computer. Ive experimented with signature designs with this app which worked very well, I just imported the PDF into Illustrator and edited further from there.
In at number four is 2Do Lite. With this little app you can set up your todo calender for different subjects areas such as work, home, birthdays, and set up email reminders. I found this a very good organizational app which helps keep me in control. I love it more than the normal calender as I feel it works more efficiently, working much more like a Filofax. One great tip with this app is that if your being given instructions over the phone and don't want to forget any of the details jot them straight down in todo, email the note to your self so when your set at your desktop, open it up and there it is.
the last app i will mention is SE Guide, I have surprised myself by listing this app, but I use it so much more than I ever believed I would. It is basically a few RSS feeds from an about SEO website, driven into an iPhone app. This being just an RSS feed doesn't really sound like much of an app, but I read through the articles all the time, much more so than I would from my RSS reader client on my mac or from my Google reader. Its one of those things where I am at the computer waiting for something to render of export and I have my iPhone hand so i read the SEO articles. The feature I love is that if I find an article particular interesting then I email myself the link straight through the app, so I can read it later full screen, print it out and archive it in my big collection a web tip etc.
Darren Michael works with Websites, Film and Photography and he
also enjoys teaching all these elements to people whom want to learn. If
your interested in my web related work visit my Creative CMS Website archive, which showcases some of the websites I have constructed recently.
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