Productivity

Find the best productivity apps for your iPhone or iPad to help you work faster and better.

Productivity / Reviews
Week Calendar - Easy and powerful calendar management app for iCal, Google, Outlook, Exchange and more

A Calendar on Steroids for Your iPhone

When iOS 6 was rolled out along with the iPhone 5 I was looking for a number of improvements to come along with it. I don’t pay much attention to the rumor sites, or even what Apple sends in some of the developer previews because they’ve been known to pull/add things last minute so when I fired up iOS 6 I didn’t know what to expect. There were a few things that I had hoped would receive some attention (Contacts, Airplay etc.), but one of the most important things on my wish list was an update to the calendars App. Don’t get me wrong, the built in calendar App does the basics just fine. It will allow you to input an appointment or task into it with no problem. It will remind you at a set time prior to that appointment with a notification, but it doesn’t offer much beyond that. When I saw the lack of calendar love with this update, I went searching for a 3rd party App to cover my needs. What I found was a super versatile, customizable, easy to use calendar that is now the only calendar that I use.  From the slick interface to the batch editing, it has everything that I want.

Beautiful Display

One of the things that I dislike so much about the built in Calendar App is the lack of a quality week view. Apple offers “list” view which is a semi-week view but no where near the beautiful layout of the week view in Week Calendar. With Week Calendar the week view shows every day of the week in 9 hour increments. A red line indicates what time of the day you currently are on and allows you to easily identify what appointments are approaching as well as which appointments are currently going on. Indicated by a light blue tint, the column (day) that you are currently in will have the day of the week and date highlighted in bright blue. On the topic of color, you can also color code events based on keywords. So for example I can color code all of my appointments for my children in green so that I can quickly determine what type of appointment I have just by glancing at the colors associated. To take this one step further, you can set the App to automatically color code an event based on keywords contained withing the appointment. For example if I start the appointment off with “Twins” it can change the color to green automatically. This saves a ton of time in color coding. Another great visual enhancement is the addition of icons. These icons can be entered manually into appointments or again automatically with keywords.

Moving appointments has never been easier than it is with Week Calendar. Just tap and hold to move around appointments like you would an App. Intuitive and easy; this is what makes the iPhone so great and that same simplicity transfers into Week Calendar.  Moving beyond simple reoccurring appointments, Week calendar allows custom, complex reoccurring appointments such as every 3 months on the last weekend day of the month, every 2 weeks on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, and much, much more. Basically almost any way of making it reoccur is supported.

Everything You Would Expect

Beyond the added features contained within Week Calendar, it contains everything that you would expect to see in a calendar on the iPhone. Adjustments for the colors, calendar, views, and more. While the “week” view is my favorite and the most widely promoted for Week Calendar, you also have the option to view it in day, month, year, mini month, agenda, and more! This is truly a customizable calendar that is meant to be changed to fit your needs!

The Bottom Line

If you’re looking for a quality, customizable replacement for the stock calendar App, Week Calendar is for you! It is totally customizable, well laid out, and easy to use. It’s not only powerful, but user friendly. It’s as close to perfect as I’ve seen in a calendar.

 

You can get Week Calendar for the iPhone from the iTunes store for $1.99 here:  iTunes

Productivity / Reviews
Photo Shoot List

Creating a Photo Shoot List

Nothing is more frustrating than returning from a shoot only to realize that you forgot to get one or more of the shots that you had envisioned before doing the shoot. The model has gone home or you’ve left the scene and it’s really too late to get that shot! This is why having a shot list before doing your shoot is key. I tend to get into the shoot while I’m shooting and focusing on making sure I got the right equipment settings or lighting just right. I have been guilty of forgetting to get one or more of the actual shots that I had conceived before the shoot.

With Photo Shoot List You Won’t Forget To Get The Shot

Photo Shoot List lets you do the obvious. It lets you create a list of the shots that you’d like to get and check them off as you take them. However, it goes a few steps beyond the basics. First of all it allows you to attach a photo to each shot on your list. This way you refresh your memory with not only the shot in text form, but an example of the shot or pose that you’re looking to get. You can create multiple lists and you can even setup templates. For example, let’s say you’re the occasional wedding shooter. I don’t shoot weddings very often, but If and when I do I’d definitely need a shot list so that I wouldn’t forget to get those classic shots. With a “wedding template” I could just pull in all the shots from a previous Wedding list to remind me of which ones I need to get. There’s even an In App purchase option to buy additional templates. As of the initial release there is a “San Francisco” and “Pinup” list. These of course are optional and you can build your own templates.

Good, but could be better

This App is off to a great start, but I’d like to see a few more options. While it does work as advertised, I’d like to see an iPad native version. I’d also like to see a way to sync lists between multiple devices and perhaps a way to share lists with others to create a kind of community aspect. Lastly and perhaps in a 2.0 version I’d like to see an equipment tie in. Not only what shots to remember to take, but also what gear to remember to take to get those shots. You can do this in the notes, but I’d like to see a more formal way of selecting gear from a gear list that I store in the app. Other than my wanting more, this is a good app and works well.

 

iTunes

Productivity / Reviews
GarageSale HD

GarageSale HD Let’s You Prepare eBay Auctions on Your iPad

There seems to be no shortage of uses for the iPad. Many deem it to be a content consumption device more than a content creation device and I typically agree. However, I’m finding myself doing more creating with it than I did two years ago. This is due largely in part to the increase in really great iPad Apps. Yesterday I finally got around to putting some items on eBay that I’d been wanting to sell for a while. Rather than set these auctions up on my Mac, I decided to see if I could do the whole process on the iPad and the answer was YES! On the Mac I use an application from Iwascoding called GarageSale. They released an iPad version and although I bought it a while ago, I never really used it to do an auction. I was always gun shy that I would run into some limitation and end up completing the process on my computer. Since I had a little more time than usual, I decided to try it.

GarageSale HD eases the pain of creating an eBay Auction

When you create an eBay auction you want to have good images, a good description and a good looking HTML listing that stands out more than the next guy selling the same thing. GarageSale on the Mac sold me because it had great templates to make the auctions “pretty”. GarageSaleHD also has great templates and walks you through the whole process. You start with the title/sub title of your auction. Then you insert your photos. The App will allow you to upload up to 5 photos using their hosting service for free OR you can use eBay’s hosting for a fee. You can grab the images from your iPad camera, albums or Dropbox. Since I had already photographed my item and processed the images with Adobe Lightroom, I simply grabbed the JPG files from my Dropbox folder. This process was a little tedious because you can’t import multiple images at once and you have to navigate to where the images are each time if they are not in your root Dropbox folder. Once the images are in then you choose your categories and other eBay items such as New or used, model number, etc. Next you right your description and this is probably the hardest thing to do with the on screen keyboard. Luckily I have this nifty Logitech Ultrathin iPad Bluetooth Keyboard Cover (that totally rocks), so writing my description was a breeze. Next you set your buying/shipping options. Lastly you preview your Auction right in the App and choose any template you want. There are some nice ones built-in, but if you get bored with those you can buy more via an in-app purchase option. Start your auction!

 

The Bottom Line

GarageSale HD is the BEST APP for creating eBay auctions because it’s easy and well designed. These guys have been at it for a while on the desktop side too. Speaking of which you can send your auction over to the desktop version if you wish to perhaps do more. The only thing I found lacking was not having the ability to put a hyperlink to a page in my description. It would have also been nice to have more image hosting options such as choosing the images from your own web site/server. Lastly eBay is getting smarter about pulling in the manufacture specs for your item if you have the UPC code. It would be awesome if GarageSale HD included a UPC bar code scanner to add this to your listing. If you sell on eBay this is your App!

You can see my GarageSale HD generated auction here (for as long as it’s available on eBay)

iTunes

Productivity / Reviews
Chrome Sync Pro - visit your Chrome Browser's bookmark,history and tab

Chrome Sync Pro – Bring your Google Chrome Bookmarks, History & Tabs to iOS

Google Chrome is my default browser on the desktop. While I like Safari’s features, I’ve just found Chrome to be more stable for me over the years. The one problem with not using Safari as my default browser is when it comes to having access to my bookmarks on iOS devices. iOS of course syncs bookmarks between iOS devices and the desktop version via iCloud. If there is an important bookmark that I want to have on iOS I’ve found myself in the past launching Safari just to bookmark it. Just the other day I was wishing that Google would make Chrome available as an iOS App. However, with Chrome Sync Pro I don’t have to wait.

Chrome Sync Pro is a Universal App for iOS that syncs your Bookmarks, History and even currently open Tabs from your desktop version of Chrome to iOS. I installed the App on my iPhone and then the browser extension in Chrome on my Mac. Once I relaunched the App it was all there. My bookmarks, browsing history and even the two tabs that where currently open on my MacBook Pro. When you tap on a bookmark it will either open in Safari or if you have multiple browsers (I have iCab too) it will ask you which browser do you want to be your default?

The Bottom Line

This is a GREAT way of always having your current bookmarks, history and tabs from Google Chrome on your iOS devices. I do wish that the App would actually sync them directly to Safari on iOS, but I can certainly live with the current implementation of having them live within the App. If Google Chrome is your default browswer, you’re gonna want this App. I have to thank my colleague Paul Trani for turning me on to this app.

iTunes

Productivity / Reviews
Smart Merge - Duplicate Contacts Cleanup for addressbook, Facebook & Linkedin

Merge Your Duplicate Contacts With Smart Merge Duplicate Contacts

If you’re anything like me you have multiple copies of your contact list in multiple places, all of which converge in your “Contacts” App on your iDevice. Personally, I have contacts from my Google account and my Yahoo account. Contacts that were merged from my computer, not to mention all of the contacts that I put in my phone on a weekly basis. It becomes a little overwhelming at times. Because all of these different locations were feeding names and numbers into my phone, there were multiple duplicates. I tried to keep up with them but going through almost 500 contacts was a daunting task that I didn’t want to take on regularly. I even considered deleting my contacts altogether and starting fresh, but that idea was quickly vetoed by my worrying mind fearing that I would lose an important email or contact that I didn’t have synced somewhere else. Enter Smart Merge Duplicate Contacts, or Smart Merge for short. This App not only goes through and sees what duplicate contacts you have, but it finds duplicate numbers, duplicate email addresses, contacts with no email or no phone number, and more! It has a really easy to use interface, AND it’s a universal binary! It has everything that I wanted and more!

 

Find The Duplicates

As soon as you launch Smart Merge you are taken to the main screen showing you an assortment of information. You see how many contacts you have total, Duplicate contacts, Duplicate emails, contacts with no name, contacts with no number, and contacts with no email address. It’s a lot of information, sorted very quickly into easy to understand categories.

 

A quick tap on any of the categories will expand the list to show you it’s contents. For the duplicate contacts page you will see a list of all of the duplicate contacts. Tap the merge button to allow Smart Merge to do it’s magic. It will take your to a screen like this one where you select any contacts that you don’t want merged.

Simply tap the check box next to each contact that you don’t want merged. When done, simple tap the merge button in the top right corner to merge all of the selected contacts.

The same works for the duplicate phones, and duplicate emails fields. Smart Merge shows you the duplicate phone numbers, which contacts they reside with, and allows you to individually control which numbers/contacts are merged.

Missing Fields

When it comes to the bottom three fields (No Name, No Phone Number, and No Email Address), the real point is to let you decide if you want to keep or delete the incomplete (in the Apps eyes) contact. It assumes that if you don’t have the full information, why would you want to have them in your contact list. For the most part this is true, if I don’t have all of your info, I don’t want/need you in my contact list especially if I don’t actually have your phone number. There are some exceptions to the rule, and this is just my personal preference.  A lot of social media Apps will offer up user information for your phone without you even knowing it. The majority of the contacts that I deleted were contacts automatically generated by Facebook, and LinkedIn. There are a few select contacts that I only have email addresses, or twitter names for but that’s what I love about this App; the flexibility to remove certain listings before the App does a mass purge.

 

The Bottom Line

If you’re like me and have multiple duplicates in your contacts App of your iPhone you’re going to love this App. I can’t recommend it enough and I know you won’t be disappointed with it!

 

You can get Smart Merge Duplicate Contacts from the iTunes store for $.99 here: iTunes

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