Business

Apps in the Business category are all about helping you do business in an easier fashion. Here you can find the best apps, reviewed and collected.

Business / Reviews
speakerclock

SpeakerClock is a must for presenters

As a presenter the one thing I'm always concerned with is staying on time. Although I'm usually doing my presentation from my computer and there is a nice clock in the upper right corner I just can't simultaneously concentrate on my presentation and do the math on how much time is left from the current time. I need a timer. The iPhone has a nice built-in clock App that has a timer. However, it's not designed to keep the screen on the whole time and it also gives you no intermediate warnings (like 5 minutes left, 2 minutes left, etc.). It just sounds off once the time is up.

SpeakerClock mimics those big red TED clocks

I like SpeakerClock because it's simple, big, easy to read and keeps the display on the whole time. So at anytime during the presentation I can look down at my iOS device and see exactly how much time I have left. To use the App you just launch it and use your finger to drag across the display to set the time (00:00 to 99:30). So say you set it for 30:00 minutes. Then you just tap the display when your presentation starts to begin the countdown. As you get close to zero, the green light will go to yellow (3 minutes left) and then finally it will go to red (1 minute left). This is to let you know visually that it's time to wrap it up.

SpeakerClock works both portrait and landscape and is a universal App for native support on all iOS devices including iPad. It really looks great on the big iPad display.

It's great as is, but I want a couple more features. There is no option for an audible cue. Also there is no way to configure when the traffic light changes from green to yellow to red. I'd like to set the yellow warning at 10 minutes left and the red warning at 5 minutes left. I'd like the option of having a 10 minutes left beep and a 5 minutes left beep. Aside from those minor things, this App is AWESOME and I'll be using it from here on out. It's also great at helping me keep to the 10 minute YouTube limit.  

UPDATE: Thanks to a tip from Twitter follower Karsten Warner, it appears you can adjust the traffic light intervals by first swiping/dragging the time to when you want say the yellow light to come on (for me 10 minutes) and then hold down the yellow light for a few seconds to set it. Then swipe/drag the timer again to set your red light interval (for me that would be 5 minutes) and hold down the red light a few seconds to set it. Very cool and thanks again Karsten!

There is the option to do an in-App purchase for 5 additional presets for $0.99. The default preset starts you off at 18:00 minutes.

 

You can get SpeakerClock here from the SpeakerClock

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Business / Reviews
contractmakerpro

Contract Maker Pro Gets it Right!

At the end of April I compared my top two picks for Apps that let you do model (property, etc.) releases right on your iPhone. Back then I challenged both developers to take the great apps that they had created and add just a few missing things to make their Apps the "Ultimate App." Well today, I get the pleasure of reviewing the first major update out of the gate by Michael Shiffler and it's actually a NEW App called Contract Maker Pro. I have to give Michael credit for not only "listening" to my advice and implementing every single thing I asked for, but also for going beyond what I was asking for and developing a great new "multi-purpose business tool!"

Totally Customizable Contracts

Photographer's Contract Maker (PCM) was already ahead of the competition in terms of the number of placeholders (fields) that you could insert throughout your Contract, however, this new Pro version blows away everything else out there. Not only do you get all the same types of placeholders as with PCM, but now you get 10 "Custom" text fields that you can assign to whatever data you want to capture, 5 Roller fields (you know the kind that give you the wheel to spin to select a value), 6 custom checkboxes and even a Counting Number placeholder to automatically increment the value (ie. Contract Number). You even get to choose between 5 different fonts to format your contract in. This goes way beyond model and property releases. The idea here is that this is not only a great tool for Photographers and Videographers, but it's also great for ANYONE that needs to generate a totally customized contract and have clients sign off on them electronically on the spot.

I got what I wanted! – One of the things that I really hoped for the most in the update was the ability to easily add a photo on the spot to the contract. Maybe it's a shot of the model you just photographed or a drivers license to verify age, etc. They added this ability, while still maintaining the ability to pull the photo from your Contacts. Speaking of Contacts, you can import them as you need them from your Address book and they stay there! You can use them again and again going forward without having to hold on to the old contracts. They also added a custom logo feature with an ON/OFF switch so that I can turn it OFF on the contracts that it doesn't belong on. They even implemented the "shake to clear the screen" on the signature panel if you want to start over. 

You can get it here from the App Store:  MIchael

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Business / Reviews
InstaViz

InstaViz – Gesture Based Flowcharting on your iPad or iPhone

While I don't do a ton of flowcharting and graphing, I am a sucker for a great user interface (UI) and that's exactly what InstaViz gives me. While this App is a "+" App and it works on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, it really sings on the iPad. I love how I can use simple finger gestures and the App automatically converts them into vector shapes. I can add colors and text and then easily share my ideas in various formats. Rather than tell you about how cool this App is, it's easier to show you. Check out this video:

 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc7ZDzvBkfk

 

You can get InstaViz here from the App Store: Instaviz

Business / Reviews
scannerpro

Scanner Pro turns your iPhone into a Document Scanner

As a business traveler i have to do expense reports on a regular basis. For certain out of pocket expenses I'm required to submit copies of my receipts in PDF to our online expense system. Although I have some great document scanners at home, I don't travel with them. However, I always have my iPhone 3GS with me. The great thing about the 3GS in particular is that it has better macro lens support so using it to shoot documents is actually quite feasible.

Scanner Pro lets you use your iPhone to capture documents

Scanner Pro isn't the first App I've tried for this task. However, I was intrigued by the sharing features in particular the direct support to upload to Evernote. I also like the fact that you can transfer documents via WiFi and password protect your documents from view. 

How does it work? The user interface is very straight forward. You start with either the iPhone camera and take a picture of your document or one that you've already shot that's on your Camera Roll/Library. Then you can choose the edges for better framing or have it select all. You can work with color or convert it to grayscale. There's even a software based image stabilization feature to capture a better image in the first place. Once you get your shot you can also adjust the Contrast and Brightness. Then you can choose to upload it to Evernote, your Photo Library, your MobileMe iDisk, Dropbox or other WebDAV server. If you have the optional Print n Share app installed you can even print it from your iPhone. Lastly you can of course email it out directly from within the app. 

I just used it to do my last expense report for work and it worked great! I also like the ability to combine multiple scans into one multiple page PDF right in the app. However, I don't see a way to combine multiple PDFs together after the fact. In other words you need to do them all at the same time while you're creating them in the App. Another nice bonus is the built-in help/manual. I wish more Apps did that.

You can get Scanner Pro here from the App Store: 

Scanner Pro

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Business / Reviews
ReaddleDocs

ReaddleDocs gets it right for PDF viewing on the iPad

Although eBooks are great you give up a lot when it comes to formatting. That's why I think Adobe PDFs are a better alternative for content rich documents. The problem is that although the iPad and iPhone both support PDFs natively, they don't have a built-in dedicated PDF viewer. Sure you can view PDF email attachments and PDFs in Safari on the web, but what if you just want to load up a bunch of PDFs on your device and view them whenever you need to? That's where an App like ReaddleDocs comes in. Now of course ReaddleDocs is not the first App of this type I've reviewed and quite frankly I wasn't even sure that I wanted to take a look at yet another one. However, I'm glad I did because I'm very impressed by what I've seen so far. My goal is to have all of my reference manuals for my photography gear in PDF on my iPad. The beauty of this is that the equipment manufacturers already provide downloadable PDFs of their manuals online. So I have them already. Now it's just a matter of choosing the ultimate "Best App" for carrying them around and viewing them as needed. So the things that are important to me are ease and flexibility of getting the PDFs onto the iPad and into the App. I want to be able to do keyword searches. If the PDF has bookmarks (a table of contents), then I want to be able to pull it up and tap to goto a section that I want to read. Also since I help out other people from time to time, it would be great to be able to select text in the PDF and copy and paste it into an email to send to someone. 

ReaddleDocs does everything I want

I wouldn't even be reviewing this App if it didn't nail everything I want or at least 90% of it, so YES! ReaddleDocs does a great job matching features up against my requrements. First you can load PDFs into the App/iPad either via iTunes and a USB cable or via WiFi. Once the PDFs are on your iPad you can choose them from the list and view them. I really like how uncluttered the user interface (UI) is compared to other Apps in this category and I really like the scroll knob on the right side to quickly scroll through the pages. It's very unobtrusive. Yes, there is a search feature (a must have for me) and yes you can view the Bookmarks and tap to go to a chapter. You can even add your own bookmarks. So if there is a particular page that you are constantly going to you can bookmark it yourself to make it easy to jump to from here on out. Another cool feature that makes me love this App is that you can configure it with your email account info and it can pull in PDF email attachments that you've received. 

Turning pages – One thing about these apps that always throws me is that I expect be able to flip the pages left to right. However, they act more like your computer and you "scroll" or flick up and down. This is not necessarily a bad thing in the App, but it's just not the behavior my brain expects.

Other document support - Just like the iPad itself ReaddleDocs can view Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents as well as iWork documents. 

Video Support! – A nice surprise. When I connected to my iDisk, I saw a video there in the App so of course I tapped it. It seemed to download the video as it took a couple of minutes and there was a progress bar. The next thing you know my .MP4 was playing. Sure enough when I went back to the documents list I now have a "Movies" section with one movie in it. Speaking of which another feature I like is that you can enable a Password via the settings. This is great for people who are carrying sensitive documents around that they don't want just anyone who picks up their iPad to be able to view.

Although the App is GREAT and definitely serves the bulk of my needs I am slightly disappointed in a couple of areas. Copying text is possible, but it wasn't obvious to me. I had to ask the developer. Instead of tapping to bring up the selection function you actually choose "Copy to clipboard" from the Share menu first. Then it will display a selection rectangle for you to choose the area you want to copy. It works great, just not the UI I expected. The next thing that all of these 3rd Party Readers suffer from is that they don't quite offer "full" PDF support. In other words although PDF is an open standard, Apple doesn't fully implement all of its features on their devices or Mac OS X. So for example, if you have PDF with form fields and that PDF has data in those fields, that data will NOT show up on screen in ReaddleDocs. So I imagine that Readdle Docs is using the built-in PDF render engine, which has always lacked this function. Lastly, although you can grab PDFs from your email accounts (very cool), MS Exchange email support isn't offered. On the plus side: in addition to grabbing document attachments ReaddleDocs can also grab PDFs from your MobileMe iDisk, Dropbox, GoogleDocs and others as well as any WebDAV server.

 

The Bottom Line

If you're looking for a GREAT PDF viewer, this is it! Is it the best one? Hmmm, I'd have to say of the ones I've tried to date… YES! Why? Because I like the UI better than the others that are out there.

 

You can get ReaddleDocs for iPad here from the App Store. You can also get the iPhone/iPod touch version here.

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