Productivity
Once I find an App that I like it usually takes a lot to get me to look at and move to a different App. Very few Apps are perfect and there is always room for improvement or a feature here and there. If I find an App that I really like then chances are even if there is a similar App out there, I'd be giving up a feature to move to the other App to gain a different feature. I say this because, many of you know that my favorite Grocery List App has been Grocery iQ for quite some time. Grocery iQ has worked very well for me and I really didn't have any major complaints with it. However, there was one problem in using it and it was something I never considered until I saw Grocery Gadget. Once I saw this feature in Grocery Gadget it became painfully obvious that this was the one feature that would solve my problem and make me switch.
The basics
Let's get the basics out of the way first. Grocery Gadget lets you add items to a list (or multiple lists) either manually or by scanning the product's barcode (a must have for me). You can enter additional details about the item such as the price and what category/aisle it's in. You can even enter your own custom comments about the item. If you do take the time to enter the item's price then Grocery Gadget will total up everything on your list so that you know approximately how much your grocery bill is going to be before you even leave the house. Although I'm not big on coupons it has a coupon feature too.
The big thing for me in any of these Apps is that they have to allow for cloud based syncing. The beauty with cloud based syncing is that your significant other can add things to your list over the air at any time. Whenever you happen to go shopping you just pull out your iPhone/iPod touch and your list is ready to go. So far I haven't mentioned a single thing that the App I was already using didn't do. However, Grocery Gadget adds one thing that made my shopping experience so much faster…
A picture is worth a thousand words
While it's great that my wife can add something to my list over the air, the problem arrises when I don't know what that item looks like. I remember standing there staring at 15 different kinds of Oatmeal reading each one to try to find the one that was on my list. Had I had a picture of what the box looked like I would have been able to find it in 2 seconds. Grocery Gadget allows you to have a picture of the item you're adding to the list. As a matter of fact if the picture is already in the database it will be added the minute you scan the barcode. If it's not in the database you can take your own picture when you're adding the item using the camera on your iOS device. This is the one feature that got me to switch over to Grocery Gadget immediately. I also like the fact that with Grocery Gadget you can manage your list via their website too.
The Bottom Line
Grocery Gadget is a great grocery list App and having the ability to add pictures to the items makes it the "BEST" App that I've seen to date. While I do really like it, there are a couple of things I'd like to see streamlined and added. First of all there is no native iPad version. I don't really care since I'm not going to take my iPad to the store. However, the iPad would be great to use at home to manage the list. Also if iPad 2 has a camera like the rumors are saying then I'll want an iPad version even more! Next, I would like to see a more clear distinction between Lists and Stores. Clearly you could have an item that is available at more than one store and while Grocery Gadget does allow for this, it doesn't make it obvious on how to assign a list to a specific store. I figured it out along with how to add stores, but it was in an obscure place. It's not the end of the world, but Grocery iQ does this better.
With a few minor interface tweaks, I'd gladly give this app a 5th star. If you're looking for the BEST Grocery List App for iOS (and Android), this is probably it!
You can get Grocery Gadget for iPhone/iPod touch for $4.99 here from the 
Although I did all my holiday gift management with an iPhone App last year I was intrigued by this new iPad App so I decided to give it a try. Make no mistake about it. Gifts HD tries to cover all the bases for your holiday gift planning, budgeting and list management. This App even has something that I haven't seen before in an iPad App. It has multiple user support. One of the things I had hoped to see in iOS 4.x for iPad was multiple user support. I'd be a lot more apt to let someone borrow/play with my iPad if they weren't going to have immediate access to all of my information including emails. Although multiple user support is still my wish for iOS, it's a reality in Gifts HD today! You start off by creating a new user. Each user can have his/her own passcode – brilliant! Even if you're the only user of your iPad you can still setup multiple users (or lists) for different shopping needs. Once you're setup/logged in you then add the people that you're buying for to that list. For each person you can then add one or more gifts. Besides the usual stuff of adding gifts, keeping track of what you bought/wrapped and sent, Gifts HD does a few things that I thought were really nice perks over other Apps in this category. You can see faded countdown in the background for how many shopping days left till Christmas and/or Chanukah. Besides that there is a built-in calculator for doing your own quick calculations beyond the built-in budgeting feature. However, the feature that I thought was the most thoughtful is that once you build your shopping list you can bring up an integrated web browser and search for each item on your list! This is awesome for online shoppers like myself.
The Bottom Line
If you're looking for a full-featured holiday shopping App for the iPad, this is it! My only complaint with the UI (user interface) is that you have to go to several screens to do things like enter gifts and then check them off. I'd like to see the gift list and all checking off (bought, wrapped, mailed, spent, etc.) done in one window/pad. I can get used to the way it works now, but the thing that is driving me crazy is the crashing. I would have given it a 4 star rating if it didn't crash so often and a 5 star rating if it were a little more streamlined. Until they do an update though be prepared to re-launch the app regularly. It's a BRILLIANT app, let's hope they make it more stable.
You can get Gifts HD here for $4.99 from the
First off let me remind everyone that when I created Best App Site my goal was to focus on what I considered to be the "Best Apps". In other words this is not a typical App Review site that reviews all Apps. Nor do we do very many comparisons on the site. It's simple, we want to help you by telling you which App to get so that you can go on with your day. That's it! There are thousands and thousands of Apps out there and rather than waste energy on telling you about bad Apps or the Apps that are so so, we want to tell you which ones are BEST. With that said I'm kinda torn in writing this review of the long awaited Google Voice App. As a fan of Google Voice and having watched the saga between Google and Apple over this App, I'm very happy to see it hit the App Store. I'm also an advocate of companies developing their own Apps as opposed to leaving it to 3rd parties (not contracted by the company) to do it. Don't get me wrong, I want 3rd party developers to be successful, it's just that usually a company has better access to their own technologies than an outsider. TiVo is a prime example. There isn't a "TiVo" branded App yet. Although there are some nice Apps by 3rd party developers that access many of the TiVo features and scheduling, there are a lot of things that these Apps will never be able to do because the developer doesn't have access to TiVo's internal technologies.
The Google Voice App is "OK"
I had already been using both GV Connect (my new favorite) and GV Mobile +. I figured that an App directly from Google would make me immediately delete these other two Apps. I figured that the Native Google Voice App would have it all! Access to all the features of Google Voice. Access to all the Settings. Push notifications and more. The sad reality is that the FREE Google Voice App is VERY BASIC in terms of functionality. The first thing that people are up in arms about is that it requires an iPhone. In other words it won't work on an iPod touch????? It's probably because in order to make calls Google Voice still does it via Phone, not the internet. Nonetheless, it doesn't work on a touch. I have an iPhone 4 and that's where I use the App the most anyway so that's not a big deal for me. What is a big deal is that there is virtually no access to the account settings from within the App. You can't use the Do Not Disturb feature. You cant' switch any of the other forwarding settings beyond the phones. While there is push notifications for new SMS and Voicemails (yay!), you have no way to have a "Quiet Time" schedule. In other words, don't push between the hours of midnight and 6 AM. Now in all fairness the other two Apps don't allow this either, but since Push is there In Google's App I wanted more options. Hopefully it will improve over time.
You can get the Google Voice App for free here from the , but not before you read the next paragraph:
What should I get?
Let's get back to my primary objective and that is to tell you which is the "Best App" to get. I would have to start by saying that Google's Google Voice App is FREE and it's hard to beat FREE. However, my recommendation would be if you want the MOST features/options, go with GV Connect. It's the one that I recently switched to and I switched to it from GV Mobile + because the latest update added so many things I wanted. What about Push Notifications. Currently Google Voice is the only App with built-in Push Notifications. However, I find that with the FREE Boxcar App and GV Connect I have the best of both worlds. Boxcar is a FREE App that let's you configure Push Notifications from MULTIPLE services including Google Voice. It also has two features that I love. 1) you can set a quiet time schedule so that you won't get any notifications between those hours and 2) you can configure the push pop-ups to be PRIVATE. Just like the built in iPhone Messages App you can set the option not to display the actual text on the screen to keep prying eyes from seeing your business 
So my recommendation is GV Connect and Boxcar for the ultimate Google Voice App experience.
You can get GV Connect here for $2.99 from the
You can get Boxcar for free here from the
I’m certain that I haven’t seen every app in the App Store that will display PDF files on the iPad. But, I do have a few of them, and what I quickly noticed going through purchased app or free app, was that there was something poignantly missing for me in all of them.
I usually have numerous PDF files open and accessible while working on my laptop at any given time. Now that I use my iPad for work purposes, and sometimes in place of my laptop, I need an iPad app that does the same. What I found was that most apps allowed a library of PDF files stored in them, but when it came to viewing those PDF files, that was done only one PDF at a time. Going back and forth to open/close/open a PDF just would not work for how I needed to work. So, living the motto “There’s an app for that” I went searching for it (or them).
I soon found iRead PDF, by Aji, LLC, to be the app I have been wanting. iRead PDF is a PDF reader that sports tabbed viewing; in essence mimicking the tabs on the Safari Browser or a Creative Suite app like Photoshop. Thus, allowing multiple PDF files open and accessible at one time, like you would normally work.
Knowing that the iPad isn’t going to give me the exact same workflow that I’m used to with my laptop, it’s nice to get as close as possible. Even so, I was just happy that I could now have multiple PDFs open in a tabbed viewing structure, and from a free app at that.
Along with the tabbed viewing structure, expected scroll, zoom and gestures support, iRead PDF had many nice features that made working with it feel more like working with PDFs on my laptop.
There is a customizable toolbar to bring more of iRead PDF tools to your fingertips. Navigation tools like PDF Outline, Go To Page Number, Previous Page, First Page, Last Page, Next Page, Select (for copying content); from the Command Library.
Add Bookmarks (even with customized colors) to the opened PDFs for quick access to page location and customized views; view PDF links, Outlines (TOC-like), Highlights, Underlines, and view any other Annotations already within the PDF.
The Library pane is filled with expected features (Favorites, Search, Recents, New Docs, Browse, Unread), but also unexpected features of displaying a special icon if a PDF contains notations and allowing the addition of tags to the PDF.
While there are many way to get a PDF opened into iReader PDF, a companion Aji Reader Service desktop application is available for syncing PDF files on your computer with iReader PDF on your iPad.
While there are other PDF reader apps that do what they do and do it well, iRead PDF is an absolute must if you need multiple PDF files open at one time.
You can download iRead PDF here from the
When the iPad came out earlier this year I saw it as an ideal solution for carrying around my camera equipment manuals and demo scripts in Adobe PDF. Although iOS supports PDF in its core, Apple didn't initially provide a way to view PDFs outside of Mail. As you might imagine this opened the door to 3rd parties to come out with PDF viewing Apps. I settled in on Readdle Docs and have been quite happy with using it to store and view my PDFs on the iPad. There are a few great Apps for this purpose. The next round of updates from all of these Apps seems to now be focused on PDF annotation and markup. Readdle has been adding a few of these features to Readdle Docs and for the most part that App still offers everything I need personally, but they just released PDF Expert for iPad to go even further. If markup is important to you then you should start here instead of Readdle Docs. Like I said, there are a few great Apps for PDF viewing out there that have also updated their markup features too. The one thing that will keep me looking at PDF Expert and it's the one thing that people have been asking for from day one, you guessed it…
PDF Forms Fill-in is on the way
In talking with the developer I raised the question on everyone's mind. Will this App allow PDF form fill-in? The answer was "It's coming." Yes, they gave me a time frame and no I can't tell you what it is, but let's say it's sooner than later. I'll tell you what I told them. Adding PDF form fill-in to this App will push you guys over the top! Since Apps typically have free updates I would feel comfortable (although I can't guarantee it – I don't work for them) that if you get this App now, you can start using it now and then have PDF form fill-in in the near future.
PDF Expert offers
- Highlight text
- Notes
- Markup/drawing with your finger
- Create your own Bookmarks
- Underline and Strikethrough
- Online sharing via: Email, MobileMe iDisk, Dropbox, Google Docs, FPT, SFTP & WebDAV as well as WiFi sharing
- App level password protection
- You can also Zip and move PDFs into folders that you create in the App
You can get PDF Expert here from the
As a photographer I’m always on the lookout for applications that will make my life easier. Sometimes it’s applications that help me make lighting diagrams, sometimes it’s an application that helps with new and fresh posing, and sometimes it’s an application that helps with the business end of photography. Zosh is one of the latter. Zosh takes one of the most tedious tasks in photography and simplifies it. Of course I’m talking about paperwork. Zosh takes the most popular style of documents (PDF, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, JPG, GIF, PNG, and BMP) and allows you to fill information on the fly and email a copy of that document to anyone you choose. This is great for photographers! Now fill in Model releases, wedding contracts, property releases, etc. on the go!
Functionality
Setting up your account with Zosh is as simple as any setup for an online account. You have to provide an email account that you wish to be associated with the app. If you have multiple email accounts, choose your email account carefully because this is the email account that you have to use to load documents into your Zosh document dashboard. To load a document you simply email the file from your specified email address to mydocs@zosh.com. Within two to three minutes, that document is available for you to view and use from your idevice. You will receive a confirmation email from Zosh letting you know that it is available for use.
Once you have a document in your Zosh dashboard, filling it out is easy. Simply click on the document to open it on your screen. On the top right of the screen you will see an insert button. When you tap on it, you get four choices; insert signature, insert text, insert date, and insert image. Chose whichever you would like to insert. Once you have created the content to add to the document and click “ok” the content will be added right in the middle of your document. Tap once on the content that you added and you will be presented with a number of options to place that content in your document. You will have the option to move, resize, rotate, and delete. The biggest advantage of this application to me is the ability to add signatures to your documents right on your idevice. When I sit with a wedding client we fill out the wedding contract right on the screen, tap insert signature and the client signs with their finger right there. It’s quick, easy and effective.
Once you have your document filled out, getting a copy to your client and to yourself is as easy as tapping “Transmit” at the bottom of the screen. You can then add as many recipients as you would like the document to go to. You can email it to yourself for printing at a later time.
Things I would like to see
This app is designed for the iPhone and iPod touch (when you have wifi service), there isn’t currently a native iPad app yet. This means that to use it on my iPad (which I do a lot) I have to use the up scaling option which makes the resolution less than ideal. According to the Zosh website there is a native iPad version in the works. Until then the up scaled version will have to do. The other thing that I would like to see is the option to store documents on your device. In its current form, your documents are stored in the “cloud” and not on your device locally. This means that if you don’t have 3g or wifi service you cannot access your documents. This isn’t a problem on my iPhone usually however I bought a wifi only iPad so from time to time I don’t have a connection to be able to access the forms when working with clients. I would like to see the ability to keep documents locally on the device and email them later when I’m connected to the internet.
Conclusion
Overall, this application is a winner. It simplifies my life when dealing with clients, models, and art directors; and anything that does that is a winner in my book. At $2.99 it’s well worth the money. If they get the iPad version out, and add local document storing this will be a perfect app.
You can get Zosh here from the
Yes it can be awkward signing with your finger so get a stylus!
If you're going to be a doing a lot of these, you might want to make an investment in a iPhone stylus to make it easier for your clients to sign. I got one of these and I LOVE IT! Makes it so much easier to sign!
As a web designer and developer, tracking both my own and client websites is very important to me. The app that I have found pleases me in this area is Analytics App which ties right into Google Analytics (my tracker of choice) and is available for both the iPhone and iPad. The interface on the app is pretty similar on the iPhone and the iPad with the main difference being the larger resolution on the iPad allowing for a larger interface. Generally I like the interface although feel sometimes that it could be improved on to feel more modern. Right now it is a cross between a modern iPhone app and a not-so-nice app. iPhone : iPad: (not a universal app)
Now that Apple has published their guidelines for App submissions and relaxed the guidelines that allow 3rd party compilers (such as Flash Professional CS5) to create iOS Apps, it seems that they are also OK with Google Voice Apps that had been previously banned from the App Store. The first two native Google Voice apps have been released back (GV Connect and GV Mobile +) onto the App Store and made their way to the public this past weekend. I'm very happy to see these Apps get approved. Although both Apps are very similar in functionality and having played with both over the weekend I prefer GV Mobile + and that's the App I'm going to focus on here. I started using Google Voice earlier this year, but it was a little disappointing to have to rely on the Web App on the iPhone. First off Google Voice is a FREE service offered by Google that allows you to have one phone number that you can configure to ring to any or all of your phones. You can do SMS texting, voicemail as well as make cheaper international calls.
GV Mobile + Makes Google Voice a First Class Citizen on the iPhone
When I give out my number now I like to give out just one number, my Google Voice number. This way I can control which phone the calls will ring through on and I can even set up different voicemail greetings for different groups of people or individual. When I'm in my home office I can set it to ring on my office phone. When I'm out and traveling I can have the calls ring through to my iPhone. Also I can set it to "do not disturb" when I'm sleeping in a different timezone and don't want the phone to wake me. GV Mobile + gives me native access to all of the Google Voice features. I can see transcriptions of the voicemail messages as well as play them back via audio. I can send and receive SMS messages (although I prefer doing it via the TextNow App). Most importantly I can make calls and even access my iPhone Contacts more easily that appear on the other end via callerID as coming from my Google Voice number. Although Google Voice is FREE, making and receiving calls actually does use cellular minutes. However, for international calls you can probably save money using Google Voice instead of roaming.
I'm happy to see this App! Like I said I did check out the other App that came out right before it (GV Connect), but I found it to be less stable and the interface is not quite as good. Since this is "Best App Site" I'm going to have to recommend GV Mobile + as the better one at this point.
You can get GV Mobile + here on the
We all have our favorite to-do list system and mine is Things from Cultured Code. I use their Mac client and a few months ago I reviewed Things for the iPhone here on BestAppSite. Since then, the iPad has gotten released and they have had an iPad version of Things out almost since the beginning. I thought today that it is high time to give Things for iPad a review.
Interface
Part of why Things is so great is its gorgeous interface. I would go as far as saying that half of Things is its interface. Throughout all the platforms it is gorgeous to look at, but I must say that the iPad beats both the iPhone and the Mac with the most beautiful Things version to date.
Navigating around the application is simple and it works well in both landscape and portrait mode. Controls are simple which makes managing your to-dos equally easy.
I would like to think that my iPad could eliminate the need for me to carry different note pads with me to several of my classes, instead taking “just” my iPad. While browsing the App Store a couple of weeks ago, I found an app which looked very promising for this, CourseNotes.
Good Looking and User Friendly Interface
One of the reasons why I decided to give CourseNotes a go was that it looked well from the screenshots and the app icon. After using the app for two weeks now to see how well it works I have found the interface to be helpful to me in that it allows me to find what I need quickly. This is essential when in a class as to not miss out on anything because you wanted to say, start a new note.
Managing Subjects and Creating Notes
Setting up CourseNotes, you can add all the subjects you wish to take notes for. Each subject can have an icon attached to it so that you can visualize which one it is quickly. This course setup screen also lets you type in your instructors name and also a subject website (if there is one).
