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The Top 56 Productivity Tools, Apps and Software Programs of 2019

September 30, 2019 No Comments

By Md Mohsin Ansari

With the growing and busy times, productivity is something everyone looks forward to. It doesn’t matter if you are working or in school or just trying to develop a hobby, you can find a way to be productive in multiple ways.

To enhance one’s productivity and skills certain tools have been developed digitally that can not only help plan your day ahead but also keep track of your progress.

If the planning, and organization part of the work can be taken over by these productivity tools, one can truly focus on doing their work and excel in the same.

Categories

Communication and Collaboration

1. Slack

Slack is a team collaboration tool which facilitates chat and message features. This can help in avoiding the repetition of the same information to different team members over and over again. All the relevant conversations can be found in the same place to save time.It is also compatible with applications that facilitate sharing documents and files which can be really handy for sharing data quickly. Check out our guide on how to use Slack if you want to go in-depth on the tool.

2. Troop Messenger

Troop Messenger is a messenger tool that can aid team communication with features that help share files and keep the team informed and updated about the latest occurrences in a project. This application has a wide range of chat supporting features such as Screen Sharing, Video call, Burnout, Workout, Recall, delete etc., to enhance team communication and collaboration.

Troop Messenger’s user interface is quite intuitive and impressive that all its features are self-explanatory for any novice user. Any business user can start the application’s free trial using their email.

3. Fleep

Fleep is a messenger application that combines with the email feature to be able to facilitate team communication. It integrates emails, messages, and file sharing at one place for easy access. The communication platform is truly flexible in every way. It is like an open network where users of different teams can communicate. It keeps everything in one place.

4. Quip

Quip is a tool for effective communication across different platforms. It helps to ensure maximum productivity with efficient features to keep you updated with your team at all times. Its key feature is getting everyone on the same page. One can view the document and another can simultaneously edit it, thus, saving time and facilitating efficiency.

5. GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting is a video conferencing tool. You can easily organize meetings and share screens in real time. This helps to share and display both the individual and team’s progress. This is perfect to keep everyone updated during scheduled meetings. It is an integration of an online meeting and video conferencing software in one package.

6. Calendar

Calendar is an AI-powered time management app that improves how you leverage a digital calendar to schedule, track, and share your time each day, week, month and year. Highly integrative with other digital calendars like Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCal, the Calendar app for desktop and mobile use (Android and iOS) brings all those calendars into one view, offering new ways to see how you can use your time more effectively. Decide who can see what and let the app contact meeting participants to schedule events for you. The Calendar app offers free and paid versions for individuals and teams.

7. 10to8

10to8 appointment scheduling software is a booking tool, that makes it easier for businesses to schedule both internal meetings and appointments with clients seamlessly and skip date ping-pong.

The tool is quick and easy to set up, it syncs with iCal, Google and other popular calendars, and integrates with thousands of apps via Zapier.

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Time Tracking Tools

8. Time Doctor

Time Doctor is a team time tracking application. It helps to keep track of how each individual person is keeping track of their time and hence makes them accountable for their working hours. You can even use alerting and other features to avoid distraction for extra productivity. It includes a desktop software, mobile version and even a chrome app. It even offers a free 14-day trial without the need of a credit card.

9. Hubstaff

Hubstaff can be used to track time for several hundred teams working in distant locations. It has features like randomized screenshots and tracking the mouse movements so that a check can be kept on the workers. You can use the work-time tracker with additional screenshots and time sheets. This can help to analyze where every minute was spent and hence create a sense of accountability. Our Hubstaff review shows all of these features in detail. Go check it out.

10. Toggl

Toggl helps to track time along with other added features. With a history of working hours, it can deduce the chargeable hours and track the availability of different employees all at once. This can further be used for invoice generation with the pre-recorded chargeable hours. It is free and can be used to create detailed reports of time spent on various activities.

Check out our Toggl review to have a better look at the tool.

11. Paymo

Paymo helps in tracking time along with planning and project management tasks. It also automatically generates invoices according to the number of working hours and assist in carrying out the payments. Additional features include resource planning, charts, reports, and invoices. The combination of these features makes it an excellent overall productivity tool.

12. Harvest

Harvest is a business-oriented time tracking software that can work on multiple devices. It helps in creating time specific reports for the employees. This can also be used for generating and sending their due invoices online. It has an efficient mechanism of starting and stopping time as you work. We also have a comprehensive Harvest review so you can see more of its features.

13. actiTIME

actiTIME is a work management and time tracking solution for teams of any size. It offers a hassle-free way to keep record of work and leave time, allows to track project progress, and provides managers and employees with valuable insights on work results and productivity.

Its cost & billing module helps calculate billable amounts and process payroll, analyze profitability of specific projects, and create professional invoices. The robust reporting module helps analyze the collected data and get actionable results.

actiTIME also offers native mobile apps that simplify time tracking on the go and allow to implement the tool for remote and field service teams.

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Project Management Tools

14. Celoxis

Celoxis is an award-winning, affordable, all-in-one project management & collaboration solution. Manage projects, tasks, resources, timesheets, expenses, issues, risks & more from one place saving your team license fees & the hassle of jumping through multiple tools. The reporting and dashboards are fantastic. It also has a built-in workflow engine that enables you to automate things you never thought possible.

15. Monday

Monday helps to manage and organize work in a spreadsheet format. It distributes the workload, tracks progress, and conducts project management for the team as a whole. It simplifies and organizes the work for easier and more efficient management. Additional features include the tracking of projects and communication tools.

16. Trello

This is an extremely flexible project management tool. The Kanban Method it uses helps to keep track of the project progress at different stages. It is also an efficient way of organization. Trello is great for businesses as well as educational projects and task management.

17. Asana

Asana is helpful in organizing, tracking and managing projects. It aids the process of communication and collaboration among team members. It also helps to formulate deadlines and create an efficient working environment. Asana provides a free version for use that can accommodate up to 15 people. Other paid versions can be accessed for the addition of more members.

18. Hive

Hive is used to manage the economics, business and collaboration aspects of different projects. It can be helpful in dividing the project into current target lines and serves as a platform for the entire team to be updated with the progress. It provides an SQL type of interface for storage of data in different databases.

19. Workzone

Workzone is a project management and collaboration software for teams. It can help to create reminders and prioritized task lists for added productivity. It allows one to access the employee portal from the convenience of any location. The workplace documents can be viewed and updated by any member of the team according to the requirements.

20. ProofHub

ProofHub is an online project management software that lets you stay in control of your projects, project communications, and project delivery. The software provides scalable features such as Chats, Discussions, Notes, Gantt Charts, Kanban Boards, Timesheets, Reports, etc to match the requirements of any business size from small startups to large enterprise. It also integrates well with popular productivity tools such as Google Drive, OneDrive, Box and Dropbox, thereby enhancing your overall project management experience.

Another key feature that grabs everyone’s attention is ProofHub’s compatibility with various devices and popular operating systems, including iOS, Android, and Windows. Plus, it offers a free trial and exceptional support services before you go for a paid version.

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Design Tools

21. Canva

Canva is a designing software apt for creating resumes and other documents in an extremely creative fashion. It offers several templates and options to customize your creations. You can set a tone for how formal or informal you want your document to be. You can get a list of predefined fields for ease in creating your document. These fields can also be edited and customized according to one’s needs.

22. PicMonkey

PicMonkey is a photo editing and designing software. It can be used to edit and format pictures with a series of options available. You can also create a collage and design it in any style. It is, essentially, a platform that encourages visual and creative communication.

23. Crello

Crello is a graphics and animation software. It can be used to edit images as well as create animation designs. There are several templates available for you to choose from, hence making it highly customizable. You can create posts, covers, graphics and other documents.

24. Design bold

Design Bold is an online photo editing and design studio. It helps you create resumes, collections, posters, etc. You can choose from the thousands of templates available in order to be able to give your creation a professional look.

25. Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark is a graphic designing application which incorporates the creation of videos and graphics. It is a platform which can be used to effectively create and share content including graphics, animated videos, posts for social media and other web stories.

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Note-taking Tools

26. Evernote

Evernote is an efficient note-taking application which can help you to organize and share notes effectively. The notes can be synced across various devices for ease of access. It also allows the attachment of audio recordings and reference links. It even has a feature that allows you to read digital media like physical documents.

27. Microsoft OneNote

Microsoft OneNote is a note-taking app which allows writing and drawing freely. The app allows audio and video recording with facial recognition features. It also allows you to take side notes along with PDFs or other documents just like you would in real life. Plus, you can use it free with just your email address.

28. Google Keep

Google Keep is a note taking app for lists, reminders, and checklists. It is compatible with Google Docs. You can sync your notes and even add audio and color codes to them. It is absolutely free of cost. You can attach reminders even in the form of voice notes for future reference. It helps to capture notes together and organize them efficiently.

29. Apple Notes

Apple Notes is the note-taking app for iOS and macOS devices. It allows adding text, photos, videos and other forms of notes and finally synchronizes them with multiple devices. The Notes app is compatible with the Apple Pencil. You can draw a line of varying thickness by pressing the pencil lighter or harder. These variations provide a life-like feel.

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Distractions and Focus Tools

30. Brain.fm

Brain.fm is a focus and productivity application based on music. It uses music to stimulate the brain and helps to boost focus. It aims at unlocking the potential of music to assist our cognitive states. You can choose a mental state to get music from that genre. Focus, relaxation, meditation, and sleep are some of the modes that you can enhance. It is designed in a way that noticeable results can be observed in 15 minutes.

31. Hocus Focus

Hocus Focus is a focus application for Mac and iOS device which helps reduce the distraction and create an aura of concentration. This can be very efficient in ensuring productivity as people tend to waste a considerable amount of time on their devices without even actively doing something. The tools provide several creative features to encourage the user to concentrate and keep the desktop clutter-free.

32. FocusList

It is a focus-based app integrated with a daily planner which helps to enhance productivity and efficiency. It acts as a planner with a focus timer based on the timeboxing technique. This includes boxing several hours of the day to a certain activity. It is basically a way of visualizing the hours of the day.

33. RescueTime

RescueTime is a time management tool which gives you an analysis of how you are spending your day. It helps minimize wasted time and formulate a strategy for productivity. Its motto is to find an ideal work-life balance. It continuously tracks the time you spend on websites and in other apps to give you an accurate picture of your workday.

34. f.lux

This is a focus tool that helps set the light of your computer to match the exact time of the day. When it is night time, your computer screen will look like indoor lights. But, when it’s day time, it will look like sunlight. These light changes will actually help you sleep better at night.

35. PomoDone App

PomoDone App is a productivity and time management ecosystem for all your devices, integrated and synchronized (Windows/Linux/macOS/web, iOS and Android).

Boost, hack and track your workflow using the Pomodoro technique, on top of your current task management system (Asana, Trello, JIRA, Basecamp, Evernote, Slack, etc).

Sharpen your focus by using an interruption shield: block certain websites while you are working, notify your distributed team via Slack and switch it to silent mode by managing its Do Not Disturb. Use your work history log to analyze, report and invoice.

Free version for everyone, paid plans for advanced and team users.

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Documentation Tools

36. Google Docs

Google Docs is a Google-based word processor. It also makes available other variants like spreadsheets and presentation. You can edit and update the documents in real time. This avoids the trouble of loss of content due to unsaved data. One can access the document from various platforms with the use of the shareable link.

37. Bit.ai: Smartest Interactive Documents

It is a documentation tool that is integrated with an iterative interface which proves to be helpful in creating and sharing professional documents. Real-time uploading and updating can help team members and co-workers to access information as and when it is made available.

38. Zoho Docs

Zoho Docs is an online documentation software which enables one to centrally access documents, spreadsheets, presentations, images, etc. You can also share these by a mere link, thus avoiding the hassle of a lot of system space being consumed.

39. Confluence

Confluence is a collaboration software which assists in organizing your work and creating professional documents. Its features include being able to update documents online without having to save it separately.

40. Dropbox Paper

It is a document creation and editing software to design creative work. You can efficiently edit, format and design professional looking documents with absolute ease. It also has features for tasks and to-do lists. It is collaborative and team friendly. You can create, review, revise, manage and organize all project documents. You can even work in offline mode when required. One can read, comment and edit without any Internet connection.

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Health Tools

41. MyFitnessPal

MyFitnessPal is a trusted calorie counting app which helps to lose weight and encourages healthy eating. There are features which can also help to provide tips and ideas on health benefits and fitness techniques. The calorie counting in daily activities can be an interesting way of keeping score and being motivated to lose more weight.

42. StrongLifts 5×5

StrongLifts 5×5 is a strength and muscle building application which focuses on primarily five exercises, namely squat, bench press, deadlift, overhead press, and barbell row. The app encourages a three-time workout weekly while focusing on weightlifting techniques. It emphasizes proper sleeping and eating schedules to maintain health along with fitness.

43. Yoga Studio

It is a fitness app based on Yoga by Rodney Yee. It provides HD video classes from experts. Videos for different purposes including treatment of posture oriented diseases and other bodily problems are available. You can focus your yoga routine on the results you want to obtain.

44. Jefit

It is a gym workout application for training and keeping track of your progress. It helps to focus on different gym sessions for building fitness. You can focus on arm strength, legs or lower body according to your preference. The tool helps you to keep track of previous progress in gym routines to effectively improve performance.

45. Strava

Strava.com is a health application for athletes with features to track and organize their activities. It mainly focuses on a range of athletic activities to enhance the physical features of the body. An organized routine of activities for stipulated periods of time can help to develop the body into an athletic form.

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Email Marketing Tools

46. AWeber

AWeber is an email marketing and auto responding tool to send commercial messages to people via emails. This can be greatly beneficial in attaining a perfect email pitch that markets and advertises your brand positively. AWeber lets you build audience of diverse verticals with its result-oriented email marketing strategies. This can be considered as a perfect tool for small businesses to communicate more effectively and profitably.

47. SendinBlue

SendinBlue is a relationship and marketing tool which helps in a transaction and automated email generation. It provides a wide range of templates to choose for a response or advertising mail. This tool ensures custom marketing workflows to inform, guide and convert customers into loyal clients. The transactional messaging of SendinBlue includes sending emails and SMS to customers.

48. GetResponse

GetResponse is an email marketing software with features suitable for auto-responding and appealing to business clients. You can give specific instructions to generate emails according to the message you want to convey. This tool lets you build an impressionable and profitable customer base. It has got the highest reachability rate, to make sure that each email gets delivered to the destined inboxes.

49. MailChimp

MailChimp is a marketing and automation tool which processes advertisements and emails for the purpose of marketing. You can easily attain a professional vibe that is desirable for your brand. MailChimp allows you to create unique campaigns by sending out emails and SMS.

50. Mailerlite

This is an automation and email marketing tool used by professionals and bloggers to generate responses and carry out advertising via email. It has features that bloggers need like newsletter promotions and other professional communication. The drag and drop email builder feature of this tool helps the user to create professional newsletters, instead of using the regular HTML email format.

51. EmailAnalytics

EmailAnalytics is a unique tool that integrates with Gmail or G Suite and visualizes your employees’ email activity such as emails sent, emails received, top senders, average email response time, and much more. It enables managers to identify imbalances in employee workloads, and identify top performers, while also identifying employees who don’t have enough work to do.

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File Sharing Tools

52. Google Drive

Google Drive is a cloud-based real-time file creation and sharing tool. It makes different types of file styles like documents, spreadsheets, and presentations available. One can directly share the link to the file for easy access without the consumption of any extra space for the storage of the shared file.

53. Wimi

Wimi helps to manage and formulate documents and share them on a platform for easy access of all team members. It helps in project management and collaboration as well.

54. Dropbox

Dropbox is a file hosting and sharing service used to share files by syncing them online directly. Dropbox also offers cloud storage and file synchronization which can be essential in being efficient and productive.

55. OneDrive

OneDrive is a cloud-based file hosting and synchronization service which helps to share files and documents online. It helps to save the system space and effectively update documents immediately. Team members can access the updated documents from different locations at their ease.

56. SugarSync

SugarSync is a cloud service platform for the synchronization of files. It provides features for the access, backup, synchronization, and sharing of files and documents across various operating systems. Contrary to other popular file sharing tools, it enables you to generate a backup for the shared documents which can be helpful and beneficial for future references. It is, therefore, an efficient file management and productivity tool.

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Wrap Up

Evidently, there are a number of different types of tools which can help you achieve your maximum potential, whether it is by and for yourself or for your team at work. However, the onus eventually lies on you to take the initiative and work towards it with the help of these incredible apps, tools, and software programs.

By Md Mohsin Ansari

Md Mohsin Ansari is the Marketing Manager of Troop Messenger – a business messenger that comes with all the requisite features. It is a viable team communication tool that is spreading its wings across all industries by bringing all the internal communication at one place. Connect with me on Linkedin.

Sourced from TimeDoctor Blog

In News

Learn to build your own intelligent apps with this machine learning bundle

April 23, 2019 No Comments

By Stack Commerce

Just like a small child, artificial intelligence has to learn about the world through observation. This process is called machine learning, and it’s set to define technology for the next decade. The Complete Machine Learning A to Z Bundle provides a great introduction to the topic, with nine courses and over 30 hours of hands-on developer training. You can get the bundle now for only $35 at the PopSci Shop.

Machine learning powers everything from facial recognition to self-driving cars and Netflix recommendations. It’s an exciting field to work in, and many companies are looking for new talent.

Whether you want to go pro or simply keep up with the latest tech, this bundle is the place to start. Through concise video lessons, you discover how machine learning works and how to build your own intelligent apps — including smart chatbots and voice assistants.

The training covers a variety of tools, including Google DialogFlow, Amazon Lex and Spark. You also learn about neural networks and data analysis. These skills are valuable for any aspiring developer, and they are valued in many other industries.

The training is worth $891 all together, but you can grab it now for $35.

Like this deal? Check out Vault, the best way to secure your online data for just $9.99/mo.

By Stack Commerce

Sourced from Popular Science

In News

Augmented reality promises to rescue dying museums – so why don’t visitors want to use it?

December 20, 2018 No Comments

By Matthew Robert Bennett & Marcin Budka

Museums are often perceived as dusty cabinets full of dead and ancient things, especially those institutions you’ve never heard of. You know the ones, the neglected pride of county towns that could play a vital cultural and social role but struggle for funding.

For some, technology is the answer, virtually recreating museums and their contents online, or launching fancy augmented reality smartphone apps that overlay videos of the real world with interactive computer-generated content. We certainly see the potential for such apps to make museums more exciting, especially to young people, and have recently been using them to bring dinosaurs to life.

But sadly our experience suggests visitors just aren’t keen on downloading these apps. So is there another way technology can help revitalise musuems and similar attractions?

We are working on a project called PalaeoGo! that explores how museums and parks can be enhanced by augmented reality, 3D digitisation and new search engines. Our first foray with augmented reality was at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, US, using a smartphone app called Zappar to support research undertaken there.

Using the phone’s camera to scan a code on a notice board or flyer brings forward a 2D computer-generated image superimposed on the phone’s live camera feed. Users can see a troop of mammoths walk over the horizon with the real landscape behind, or have their selfies taken with a mammoth. We’ve since created our own free app that recreates augmented reality dinosaurs and other extinct reptiles and mammals in 3D, without the need to scan a code.

We deployed the mammoth and a T. rex at various events in 2017 and 2018, allowing visitors to pose for selfies. The tech was embraced enthusiastically, not just by children but by older generations as well. We found the sense of technological wonder coupled with a chance to strike a silly pose with an extinct animal really appealed to the visitors.

Mammoth selfies. Matthew Bennett, Author provided

But when we first deployed the app at a museum, in summer 2018 at the Etches Collection on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast, it challenged our thinking. In fact, it stopped us dead. When we had staff on site to show people what was possible with our own tablets and phones, the technology had an impact and people were excited to see it in action (although they did not always download the app). But no one engaged when we relied on posters and banners to encourage visitors to download and use the app.

We failed at the first step, not due to a lack of interest in the technology or in the 3D dinosaurs deployed, but due to the fundamental reluctance of visitors to download museum apps. We have since found this experience to be shared by others, such as Skybox Museum, who also struggle to get visitors to download their app deployed at their site in Manchester. In fact, the feedback we’ve received so far suggests that simply getting people to download a museum app, rather than a problem with the underlying technology, is the biggest obstacle to its success.

What makes people download apps?

To find out why, we immersed ourselves in a growing body of consumer-based research on smartphone apps. It turns out that the characteristics of an app are less important when it comes to getting people to download it than whether they trust the makers, and that brand loyalty and familiarity help build this trust. We also know that the potential for social interaction and pure enjoyment are more important than the usefulness or educational value of an app. People want to be entertained, engage with others and are wary of potential risks to their phones and personal data.

So when you’re asked to download an app at the doors of a museum, the default position is to decline. It’s a hard sell, especially if you have children in tow. Promoting the app in advance helps but, even if you overcome this reluctance, people still want a guarantee of fun.

Not enough for a download. Matthew Bennett, Author provided

What’s the answer? Games are an obvious possibility. Which regular museum visitor hasn’t seen a horde of children with clipboards on some form of quest or hunt? Promising a fun game is perhaps the key to getting children to try the augmented reality we know can change a museum experience.

The alternative is to make such resources available without an app, and we are exploring this. One solution might be to enable visitors to access it through their phone’s internet browser or via a standard QR code. Another idea we are trialling is to preload the technology onto a tablet hired like an audio guide at a museum’s entrance. As the software doesn’t need downloading it can be more complex, for example using locational technology such as GPS that can prompt the user to activate the device at a given spot and offer content tailored to their visit. But this would make social interaction and downloading those fun-filled selfies harder.

We believe that technology has much to offer the museums of the future. In fact, we would argue it’s essential to their survival. In particular, mixed reality, a form of enhanced augmented reality where real people and objects are displayed in virtual worlds, has some exciting potential to create immersive, engaging and educational content. But for once, the smartphone may not hold the key.

By Matthew Robert Bennett

Professor of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, Bournemouth University

& Marcin Budka

Professor of Data Science, Bournemouth University

Sourced from The Conversation

In News

4 of the Best Follower Apps to Build Your Instagram Business

November 26, 2018 No Comments

By Amy Aitman

Building an Instagram following is time-consuming. And for a lot of creators, the biggest drain on their time is the process of building an audience. To help with this tough task, here are four great follower apps. These will save you a ton of time and leave you free to focus on creativity which leads to more engagement in the long run. Here are the best follower apps to build your Instagram business:

4. FollowAdder

FollowAdder is an app that automates your Instagram marketing. This app automates the process of getting people to follow you on Instagram. Using this tool you can attract real followers automatically.

This app has a lot of functionality for building followers and likes. Yet, FollowAdder is easy to use. It has a search function that allows you to download user details, photos, and comments. You can then use this information to decide whom to follow or DM.

Another great feature to free up your time is the bulk upload feature. This allows you to add many photos to your account with minimal effort. You can also set a schedule for posting these pictures and this makes things look more natural.

You can get likes and followers from custom audiences by using different lists. This allows you to interact with a large number of users in a more personal way. Personalized interactions with users lead to better relationships. This means that users are more likely to respond to your commercial offers.

Lists feature is the more useful part of FollowAdder as it allows you to:

Target specific groups of users
Create a list of users to follow or DM
Create a list of posts you want to comment on or like
Create a list of comments you’d like to place on other people’s posts
Manage the process of unfollowing people in bulk

Pricing

Starter packages start at 49.99 and go up from there.

3. Gramista

Another option for social media marketing is an app called Gramista. This app allows you to decide which promotional methods you would like to use. Giving you control over how to achieve your social media marketing goals. Having a lot of followers on your business account is important. It signals credibility. Gramista helps to increase the recognition of your brand. It does this by expanding the target audience you are able to reach. All with a few key tools:

The auto liker. This is the most effective tool in the Gramista app. Once you activate this liker, it will continue to work in the background. This is an automated system that encourages users to like your posts.
Auto follow. This feature allows you to follow relevant accounts. This generally leads to a spike in the number of accounts that follow you back. This process is completely reversible using the auto unfollow feature described below.
Auto unfollow. This feature reverses the work of the auto follower function. The purpose of this is to maintain an ideal follower to following ratio.
Intelligent follow management. Gramista’s follow/unfollow feature is designed to mimic natural human actions. It also provides a failsafe to ensure that none of your real friends are unfollowed by accident.

Pricing

Pricing for Gramista is done a little differently and can get quite costly if you have several business Instagram accounts. There are smaller, single packages and ones for longer period of times as well. If you really want to manage your account ongoing, the monthly packages do add up over time.

2. MegaFollow

Megafollow is an Instagram growth app that helps free up your time. It does this by automating mundane marketing tasks. This is all done via a central dashboard that is user-friendly and easy to navigate. This app has features that will help you attract more followers. All without spending hours on end following, liking, and commenting.

It is a straightforward service to use. Here are a few key features that help it Megafollow to stand out.

It’s easy to use. Since you do not have to manage a complex setup, you can be up and running in a few clicks.
Everything is automated. All you need to do from your end is set certain targets. These are in relation to commenting, liking following, and unfollowing. The app takes care of everything else while leaving you free to focus on content.
Very secure. You do not need to give up your Instagram password for this service to work.
Full control. Megafollow has deep customization features. These allow you to maintain full control over your account.
Excellent support. Megafollow has very good technical support if you are new to social media marketing. They can support you in configuring and executing your campaign.
Cost effective. Compared to some other options, Megafollow is good value. This is because of the capabilities it gives you. They are confident enough to offer a 3-day trial and then the monthly packages are only $59.99.

Pricing

You can start with a three-day trial for 8.99, but prices go up from there if you like and want to continue to use this service. The full year package is 299.99, so that could be good value for you there.

1. Crowdbabble

The Crowdbabble app helps increase audience engagement through deep analytics and insightful reporting. This gives you the leverage to measure your social performance.

You can then compare it to your competitors. You are trying to build your business on social media. To do this, you need a big-picture understanding so you can make better decisions. Crowdbabble helps with this while also allowing you to zoom in for a deeper, more detailed view. This gives you a fuller understanding of your activity on Instagram.

Some key benefits of Crowdbabble include:

The ability to uncover your most influential followers.
Discovering the best times to post.
Measuring which content performs the best.

Of course, Crowdbabble has a lot of other features. Yet, these three alone will help you manage your social media more effectively. This will produce better results for your business. Using these tools, you will be able to make engaging content that appeals to your audience. This, in turn, will increase the organic traffic you generate from social media.

Other useful features include:

Easily export data as Excel, CSV, or image files.
Provide easy access to your team members to improve collaboration.
Analyze the top followers of your account as well as those of your competitors.
Analyze the engagement of your content by traditional and custom parameters
Filter data based on timezones. This lets you analyze how people in different parts of the country and world react to your content.
See all your data visually so that you can tell at a glance how a given campaign is performing.
Measure the demographic composition of your followers.
Measure how quickly your audience is growing.

Pricing

Pricing for Crowdbabble isn’t exclusive for one account only, so there is more value for your spending dollar right from the beginning. For example, you can manage up to 20 social accounts in our Enterprise packages — a real savings that adds up for businesses who want to grow their social media accounts.

In Conclusion

Having an app with all the right tool is great. Yet, the foundation of every successful audience building strategy is the creation of great content. Followers flock to quality content. But, you have many competitors. All out there also trying to attract the attention of Instagram users.

In fact, some of these competitors may have done an even better job. And having cultivated a loyal and engaged following, they may seem beyond your reach. But, in fact, this represents an opportunity. Crowdbabble’s features allow you to learn from your competitors and surpass them

By Amy Aitman

Sourced from Business 2 Community

In News

4 Great Business Calendar Apps To Help Improve Your Schedule

October 5, 2018 No Comments

By Susan Gilbert

I have some business calendar apps to help you improve your schedule. Here’s four links with tips and tricks to kick start your Monday.

With so many different tasks to grow our business there are apps available today that can help us be more efficient and avoid missing important appointments. There are resources that can help you stay on target while increasing sales. Do you need to improve your work day? Take advantage of these apps, and let me know how these work for you!

1) Manage your day online or offline – CalenGoo

Quickly and easily make changes to an online calendar wherever you may be. With CalenGoo, available on iOS, you can update and modify your Google calendar and stay on task. Features include integration with Google Calendar and the iOS/iCloud calendars as well as a .pdf print function.

2) Simple events reminder and timer – Countdown!!

Looking for a free app to countdown an important travel date or event? Then you will love Countdown!!, which is perfect for planning and scheduling. Visualize exactly when your next product launch, book release, client meeting, ect. will be taking place with customization available for multiple countdowns.

3) User friendly schedule management – WeekCal

Get an overview of all of your scheduled tasks and events with the ability to share. WeekCal is simple to use and can even be sent via email. Features include integration with iCloud, Exchange or Google calendar, and the option to upgrade to a premium subscription to gather news, weather, sports, ect.

4) Stay on track with appointments – CalAlarm 2

Would you like a gentle reminder for your calendar tasks? That is what CalAlarm 2 provides in its newly updated app for iOS. It is fully customizable, with great settings to help you stay in the loop. Choose either a snooze or move setting that can be set for specific time slots throughout your day.

Hopefully you will find these mobile apps for business helpful to your productivity and scheduling. Are there any that you would like to add as well?

By Susan Gilbert

Susan Gilbert uses her laser focus knowledge to coach and provide online marketing and social sharing programs for authors, speaker, experts and small businesses. An entrepreneur since 1987, Susan has evolved years of traditional business experience into several cutting edge projects which includes her digital marketing company, Online Promotion… View full profile ›

Sourced from Business 2 Community

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Microsoft relaunches its news app to take on Google and Apple’s offerings

July 9, 2018 No Comments

By Abhimanyu Ghoshal

Remember MSN.com? It’s still around – and Microsoft is trying to bring it back by relaunching its mobile apps with a new moniker.

Available for Android and iOS, Microsoft News brings you stories from the company’s MSN News effort, that’s been online for several years – with a modern interface that should be familiar to folks who’ve tried Apple News and Google News.

The service brings curated news from more than 1,000 publishers and 3,000 brands. Microsoft says that its AI scans more than 100,000 pieces of content each day, and has over 800 human editors across the globe to select the top stories that its app will surface on your device.

This effort also “powers news on Microsoft Edge, the News app in Windows 10, Skype, Xbox and Outlook.com.” To that end, signing in with your Microsoft account syncs your news preferences across all the devices you’re logged in on.

I spent a few minutes with the Android app, and found the interface to be simple enough to navigate. You’ll initially be prompted to indicate your interests to aid curation, after which you can browse through stories sorted into the categories you selected.

There’s also a section for local news; testing it in my hometown of Bangalore, India, I was served up stories from various outlets covering my city. However, these articles were displayed in an in-app browser, as opposed to the native view.

You can choose between a light and dark theme, and opt to receive notifications for breaking news stories. One feature I missed from Google News is the ‘Full Coverage’ button, which brings up multiple publications’ perspectives on the same topic or event in a single list.

Microsoft says it supports publishers by offering them channels to earn revenue, but it didn’t exactly how that works. It’s likely through partnerships and a bespoke advertising platform (you can see ads in the app which aren’t present in the articles’ original web view); the company noted that it’s “delivered more than $600 million back to our publishers” in the past four years.

While I prefer Google News’ UI, Microsoft’s offering is a formidable rival that arguably does a better job of surfacing local content. You can try it now by grabbing the free app from Google Play and the App Store.

Feature Image Credit: Microsoft

By Abhimanyu Ghoshal

Sourced from TNW

In News

Over Half of Millennial-Owned Small Businesses Have a Mobile App

March 29, 2018 No Comments

Millennial small business owners are more likely to build a mobile app than Gen Xers or baby boomers, but overall small business app growth is stagnant.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

The younger small business owners are, the more likely they are to build a mobile app to support their business, according to a new survey by Clutch, a B2B ratings and reviews firm.

Fifty-five percent (55%) of millennial-owned businesses have a mobile app, compared to 13% of small businesses owned by baby boomers.

However, even as more small business owners of all generations recognise the value of mobile apps, small business app growth has stagnated, the survey finds.

In 2017, Clutch found that 42% of small businesses had a mobile app, and another 25% planned to build one by the end of the year. The 2018 survey reveals no change in the 42% of small businesses that currently have an app.

This finding does not surprise experts, given that building a well-crafted mobile app requires significant resources. “With less capital and smaller teams, I would expect these barriers to be even harder for smaller business to overcome,” said Woody Zantzinger, vice president of business development at WillowTree, Inc., a mobile app development company.

Businesses Need to Consider Goals of Mobile App

Small businesses should ensure they are building a mobile app for the right reasons, say experts.

Nearly 30% of small businesses surveyed say they primarily built a mobile app to attract new customers. Experts say this objective is misguided, since most customers don’t browse for apps. Rather, they seek out apps for a particular purpose.

If and when a small business decides to build a mobile app, experts advise that the goals and target audience be clearly defined. “The more rigorously you assess whether to invest or not to invest in a mobile app, the better,” said Peter Mezyk, chief operating officer of Nomtek, a mobile application development agency in Poland.

Mobile Apps Build on Existing Client Relationships

Mobile apps are best for enhancing communication with existing customers, say experts.

“When I think of a mobile app, companies with a lot of repeat customers benefit the most,” said Zantzinger. “If you’re going to have an app that lives ever-present on someone’s phone, that app provides businesses with new marketing opportunities to reach out to customers again and again.”

Mobile apps work well for businesses with loyalty programs. Mobile apps can keep track of rewards points, send push notifications on discounts and new products, and offer other functionalities that make existing customers even more invested in your small business.

Clutch’s 2018 Small Business Survey includes 351 small business owners and managers. The small businesses surveyed have between 1 and 500 employees, with 55% indicating that they have 10 or fewer employees. More than half (57%) reported annual revenue of less than $1 million.

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In News

5 Apps That Keep You Productive

August 3, 2017 No Comments

By Ritika Tiwari.

We all need help sometimes, and there is nothing wrong with admitting that we have a problem: I am Ritika, and I am a social media addict. Every time I see a viral post, I can’t help myself from reading all about it. No matter how close I am to a deadline.

Of course, this leads to lower productivity and I have to spend more time doing the same work. Lucky for people like us there are productivity apps which can help keep us in check and help us be more focused and efficient, on top of helping us to run a small business.

To help those of us that have a procrastination problem, we’ve compiled a list of five apps that keep you productive.

Why use productivity apps?

For many of us, our work takes place online and we sit in front of our laptops all day taking care of business. While we might tell ourselves that we are working for as long as our laptop is open, honesty compels us to say that this isn’t really true most of the time.

Maybe it’s an email from an old college friend or an interesting article on a media site; there are so many distractions that we can’t even keep track of the time we actually spend working.

Productivity apps come in various shapes and sizes; they can help us stay organized and, in turn, increase our efficiency. From organizing our calendar to tracking time and stopping you from visiting certain websites, these apps can help you focus more on work by automating many of the time-consuming processes.

Here are some of the reasons why you should consider using productivity apps.

Stay Organized

If you have a number of meetings or deadlines every day, then signing up for a digital calendar is the best way to go to always stay updated on your schedule and set group meetings online.

For instance, Google Calendar allows you to create an event and invite other users as well. So when others accept the event, it is updated in their calendar too, thus avoiding any conflicts.

Get Away from Distractions

Social media is fun and it also helps us create our own personal brand, but still, too much of anything is dangerous. If you see yourself checking Facebook or Instagram every hour then maybe it’s time to make some changes.

Timewarp, a Chrome extension, can help you with that by redirecting the web browser every time you try to visit an addictive website.

Track Your Time

If you are a small business owner or freelancer, you might already know how important it is to track your time yourself. It doesn’t just help you bill your clients, but it can also help you see where you are spending most of your time.

For instance, Toggl is a time tracking app which also creates daily, weekly and monthly reports easily.

Keep All Your Notes in One Place

We live in a world where we use several devices together, but we still want to access the same data and that is where cloud apps step in to help us out. There was a time when we used Sticky Notes on Windows excessively; they might have been useful, but only when you had your PC open.

Now, we have productivity apps that allow you to add notes with files and checklist. They also allow you to set a reminder for certain tasks, making it easy for you to always stay on track.

For instance, Evernote is a cloud-based note taking app which syncs all the notes to its server so that you can easily access your notes whether you are using your laptop, mobile or tablet.

Add Things to Your ‘Read Later’ List

If you are reading this article when you were supposed to be working, then here is a great win-win idea for you – Download a “read it later” app like Pocket and add the article to your list. This way, you can read the article more carefully when you are finally free.

5 Apps That Keep You Productive

Let’s take a better look at the apps I’ve mentioned.

Toggl

Whether you want to track your time or your team’s, the hardest part of that is to remember to start your timer. Luckily, there are apps like Toggl which make time-tracking incredibly easy.

All you have to do is, type the current task in Toggl and hit enter to start the time. If you forget to start the timer, you can also add a time entry manually. If you are out, you can track time on the go by installing Toggl on your iOS or Android phone.

Toggl’s web interface might take some time for you to get used to but its Chrome extension is the one that will leave you impressed.

The Chrome browser extension allows you to integrate Toggl with more than 100 apps including Asana and Trello. If the app you use isn’t mentioned in the list, you can also add your own custom link.

After installing Toggl in your browser, you will find a “start timer” button inside the apps that you use, and you won’t even have to open Toggl’s web app to do anything.

All time sheet entries can be organized by projects and billable or non-billable hours. Color coding makes it easy to analyze everything in a single go. Toggl dashboards can also be helpful for small teams to directly submit their timesheets and recognize who was the most productive.

With a freemium version, Toggl is a great choice for both freelancers and SMBs.

Timewarp

If you find yourself checking Twitter or YouTube every five minutes even when you are buried deeply in work, then Timewarp is the perfect Chrome extension to keep you on track.

Easy to install and even easier to set up, Timewarp allows you to create a “new wormhole” for every website that you find distracting.

For every domain that you add, you can:

Redirect it to a different URL like Wikipedia or a Google Drive file you might be working on

Put a timer on the web page to keep a check on the time you are spending on that website

Add a quote which you will see every time you try to open that website (this one is my personal favorite)

The tool is free, but that also means that it has rather limited features. For instance, you can only add a website domain and not a web page. If you do try to enter a web page URL, you will be shown an error. I also wish there was a timer to block certain websites for a specific period of time.

One other downside is that Timewarp only works with Google Chrome and there is no support for any other web browser.

Evernote

With over 200 million users and 5 billion notes created, Evernote is one of the top note-taking apps in the market right now and that is not because of luck. It’s because Evernote has revolutionized the way people take notes by providing a cloud-based service packed with features.

Any note created on Evernote is quickly synced online and you can access it from any of your devices including iOS, Android, Mac, Windows and Linux.

Since Evernote comes equipped with OCR, you can easily take pictures of receipts and important documents and convert them into a text-searchable format. Of course, you can upload document files and audio recordings as well, but the best part of Evernote has to be its browser extension.

Supported by both Chrome and Firefox, Evernote’s browser extension can clip web pages as a complete article, simplified text, full page, bookmark or screenshot.

Also, Evernote does not have a storage limit, but an upload limit which means you will never have to delete anything from your Evernote account to make space. Also, upload limit only counts towards web page clippings and other files; it does not count towards the notes directly created in Evernote.

Google Calendar

If you have been struggling to keep track of meetings and deadlines, then it’s high time you got yourself a digital calendar. Yes, there was a time when people used diaries to keep up with their everyday schedule and appointments, but with most of our work online it only makes sense to have a calendar online as well.

Google calendar is a preferred choice of many (including me) because of its easy integration with most of the other team software and project management apps including Trello, Asana, Outlook and iCal. By using apps like IFTTT and Zapier, it can be integrated with more apps too.

Also, if you already use Gmail as your primary work email account then using it makes more sense since you can automatically add appointments from the email to the calendar and create group meetings by inviting other users.

Efficient color coding, easy export and import, and custom notifications on the phone and email are some of the many reasons that make Google Calendar a life saver.

Pocket

The internet is a very distracting place; there is so much content been thrown at us every second that we don’t even have enough time to read it all.

Pocket helps you pin all those articles together and lets you read them later. The app also goes out of its way to make the articles easy to read by removing any distracting sidebar data.

But how is that different from bookmarking? Well, when you bookmark something, it stays on the top of your browser even when you have read the article and you have to delete it explicitly. On the other hand, articles on Pockets can be instantly archived after they have been read.

When you connect your email, Facebook, and Twitter, you can follow your contacts who are also on Pocket and see all the links shared by them under the “recommended” tab.

So, the next time you see a really interesting article while you are working, just hit the Pocket button and read it later, whenever you have time.

Final Thoughts

The right productivity app will depend on your work environment and the industry you work in. While there are numerous productivity apps available online, some of them will end up wasting your time instead of saving.

It’s important that you test an app thoroughly and make sure it doesn’t have a very long learning curve. Once you do find an app that helps you stay more productive, we recommend sticking to it and not looking back.

By Ritika Tiwari.

Sourced from Cloudwards

In News

How to Boost Sales Using 4 Apps You Already Use

July 13, 2017 No Comments

By Dakota Shane.

Ready to increase awareness and sales for your business, no matter the size? Then give these specific social media tactics a try.

Chances are, if you’re reading this article and you’re a small business owner, startup founder, or other kind of entrepreneur, you read a lot of helpful content. For this week’s column, I wanted to give actionable strategies on how to increase your awareness and sales using specific social media tactics.

Here they are.

Host a Snapchat Geofilter Contest

Geofilters aren’t just super fun to use, they’re also powerful promotional tools. In addition, they only cost around $5 per 20,000 square feet per hour.

To get the most out of Geofilters, try hosting a Snapchat Geofilter contest.

To do this, for your next event, create a Snapchat Geofilter (if you don’t know how, check out this helpful guide). Encourage your attendees to use the filter, screenshot the Snap they used it in, then post the screenshot to their Instagram and tag your business in the post. Reward the most creative post with a prize.

This way, your customers can engage with your business in a fun way that will also let all their friends know about your business not once, but twice. Once in their Snapchat Story and again with their Instagram post. Increasing brand awareness is a surefire way to increase sales.

Start a Facebook Group in Your Niche

Building a community of people that trusts you is one of the most effective ways to boost sales for your business, and Facebook Groups are a terrific venue for doing this.

Just be sure to not oversell. Instead, give your group members value, more value, and then even more value. After you do, then you’re free to pitch.

Do you own a cafe in Portland? Start a Facebook Group called Coffee Lovers of Portland, where you talk about the best roasts around town.

If you’d like to take it a step further, use your Facebook Group to connect with others and begin a meetup with those same members. The meetup could even take place at your own business.

For more on how to successfully build a Facebook Group, check out this blog post by Neil Patel.

Facebook & Instagram Advertisements

If you haven’t yet tried Facebook or Instagram Ads, you should do it tomorrow. Or later today. Or right after you read this article.

Why? They’re easy to implement and their targeting capabilities are unparalleled.

You’re able to target geographically, which enables even remote businesses (local bars, restaurants, etc.) to benefit from the ads.

You’re able to target by interest, which will ensure no irrelevant prospects see your ad.

They’re also cheap. For as little as $5 per day, you’re able to run your ad.

For even more on Facebook Ads, read this article I wrote.

Publish an Article on Medium

If you aren’t yet using Medium, you could be missing out an immense amount of leads for your business. Here’s how to get started:

1. Create a helpful article that’s relevant to your industry.

If you own a pizza shop, write an article on what’s wrong with the pizza industry, then include a step-by-step recipe on how you cook your best pizza from scratch.

2. Construct a strong call-to-action.

At the end of your article, write a 1-2 sentence call-to-action that includes a link to a page where users can sign up for your email newsletter. This will ensure you don’t miss out on your most engaged readers, and that you’ll have the option to stay in touch with those people.

3. Get on a publication.

This is almost non-negotiable. If you want success on Medium, you have to get on a publication. To do this, search for relevant and established publications either directly on the app or by using Toppub.xyz. Then, search for the publication’s submission guidelines, or dig up the editor’s personal Twitter handle and send them a link to your story that way.

For more tips on how to succeed on Medium, give check out this podcast I was on.

Give Instagram Influencers a Try

Instagram influencers are a terrific way to reach your target audience without you having to create content directly.

Don’t think you have the budget for influencers? No worries. In some cases (not all, but some) you can use the resources you have at your disposal as compensation.

In cases like these, I always recommend giving away a freebie in exchange for the influencer posting about your business.

If you’re a bar, your freebie could be a free beer. If you’re a cafe, your freebie could be a free bagel and coffee. If you’re an apparel company, your freebie could be a hoodie and beanie.

To find influencers, use tools like Klear or search popular hashtags in your industry.

One last step: Don’t forget to have the influencers tag your business as their location on their post. To do this, you’ll need to be set up with Facebook Business Manager.

Feature Image: CREDIT: Getty Images

By Dakota Shane .

Dakota Shane is a social media consultant and the co-founder of Arctiphi, a social media agency based in Los Angeles. In 2016, he was the No. 3 writer on Medium.com for social media, alongside… Full bio

Sourced from Inc.

In News

16 apps for your iPhone that are better than the ones Apple made

February 3, 2017 No Comments

By Dave Smith.

Apple preloads every iPhone with a slew of its own first-party apps — but thankfully, the App Store is overflowing with alternative apps, many of which are better than Apple’s.

Whether you’re looking to organize your photos, get some work done, or get around town, we’ve scoured the App Store for the best apps that are better than the default ones on your iPhone.

Instead of Mail, use Microsoft Outlook.

iTunes

In December 2014, Microsoft bought one of my favorite email apps, Acompli. Outlook is essentially that app with a new skin on it. Still, this is the most robust and most refined email app out there — you can create quick filters for your flagged and unread emails and check out all the attachments and files that have been emailed to you in one dedicated folder. It also gives you tabs for your calendar and contacts, which are nice additions that improve productivity.

(Microsoft Outlook, free)

Also: Instead of Mail, use Email (from EasilyDo).

EasilyDoMail.com

I try new email apps all the time, but after using Outlook for a while, I’ve fallen in love with another app, Email from EasilyDo.

It’s incredibly fast, highly customizable, and, most importantly, it’s both smarter and more proactive than any other email app I’ve used. It automatically scans your emails for purchases, receipts, attachments, calendar dates, and more, and it’ll automatically put those emails into separate, appropriately labeled folders that appear on your sidebar. It’s super nifty — you can read my review of it here.

(Email from EasilyDo, free)

Instead of Calendar, use Google Calendar.

Digital Trends

I’ve used Google’s calendar app on the desktop for years — but even if you haven’t, you’ll feel right at home on Google Calendar, which is beautiful to look at and easy to use.

Like Apple’s Calendar, it can pull in data from Google, Facebook, and iCloud, but it presents all the information in a much more useful way than Apple’s default app does. The top half of the screen shows you the whole month, and the lower half of the screen shows you what’s up next. You can scroll down to see what’s coming up, and you can tap the top right corner of the screen to jump back to the present day. It’s all incredibly intuitive.

(Google Calendar, free)

Instead of Notes, use Evernote.

iTunes

Apple’s Notes for iOS has gotten better in recent years, but Evernote is still the best way to create different types of notes and keep them organized across all your devices.

With Evernote, you can create notes out from photos or text, flag notes to revisit later, set reminders for yourself, and tag your notes in various ways to stay organized. Better yet, if you take pictures of documents and upload them to Evernote, its powerful search function can even scan those PDFs and other documents. And, of course, Evernote syncs across all devices — phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops.

(Evernote, free)

Instead of Maps, use Google Maps.

Google

Apple’s mapping and navigation app has gotten much better recently, but Google Maps is still the most reliable, most detailed, easiest-to-use mapping and navigation app for travel, whether you’re walking, driving, biking, taking a bus, taking a train, or hailing a car.

Google says its Maps data is crowdsourced from “oodles of Android phones moving through the world” and processed by machine learning algorithms that study traffic patterns to give you the quickest route every time.

(Google Maps, free)

Instead of Voice Memos, use Recordium.

Recordium

Apple’s Voice Memos app is nice, but it doesn’t give you a great way to organize or annotate all your recordings. Enter Recordium, which lets you edit your clips right in the app and annotate any part of the recording. It will even sync with your favorite cloud storage service like Google Drive or Dropbox.

(Recordium Pro, $9.99)

Instead of Apple Music, use Spotify.

Spotify

Apple Music is Apple’s built-in music streaming service — you can still load it up with music from your iTunes library for free, but if you pay $10 a month, you’ll get access to Apple’s entire music catalog. Spotify, however, is still the most polished music app out there, and in my opinion the best experience that’s actually worth your money.

Spotify Premium costs about the same per month as Apple Music, but Spotify organizes music into clever ways that Apple does not. Aside from browsing by genre or what’s topping the charts, Spotify also puts together a unique “Discover Weekly” playlist for you every Monday based on your listening habits and a “Release Radar” playlist every Friday of new music you might like. It’s not easy to find new music, but through smart curation and design, Spotify does music discoverability better than anyone else in the game.

(Spotify, free)

Instead of Weather, use Dark Sky.

Google Play

Apple’s Weather works fine most of the time — it’s taking the same information as The Weather Channel, specifically its Weather Underground service — but the most detailed and accurate weather app I’ve used is Dark Sky. You can get minute-to-minute predictions for the next hour, and hour-by-hour forecasts for the next day and week.

Since Dark Sky tracks your location via GPS, you can get notifications for when it’s about to start raining or snowing in your area — it’s eerily good at this — and you can even watch radar animations to see how storms are moving.

(Dark Sky, $3.99)

Instead of Safari, use Mercury.

Dave Smith/Business Insider

You may not have heard of it, but the Mercury web browser for iPhone is a great Safari or Chrome alternative on mobile.

It’s excellent where it matters: It’s extremely fast and has a ton of useful features that you’d normally find only on a desktop computer. You can sync all your Chrome or Firefox bookmarks and reading lists, save files from the web and manage them, choose a background theme, use real tabs (up to 10 can be open at once), browse webpages in full-screen mode, screenshot and doodle on any website, browse privately — and there’s even more. Perhaps best of all, Mercury supports a variety of plug-ins and extensions like LastPass, Google Translate, and AdBlock.

(Mercury, free)

Instead of Pages, use Word.

Dave Smith/Business Insider

Apple’s Pages has plenty of useful tools, but it’s not always easy to read or format on the smaller iPhone screen. In bringing Word to the iPhone, Microsoft made sure it had built-in modes for easy reading versus the real document layout, and it’s very easy to write and format your documents with text, photos, and equations — and have it all look good on other devices — seamlessly.

(Microsoft Word, free)

Instead of Health, use MyFitnessPal.

Dave Smith/Business Insider

Apple’s Health more or less collects data from other apps, but it assumes you use a ton of other fitness-tracking devices that can count steps and stairs by themselves. MyFitnessPal, on the other hand, offers much more in the way of tracking your own fitness. It’s easy to track your diet using its immense database of foods — you can even scan barcodes — and it also works with over 60 fitness-tracking devices and apps to give you a picture of your overall health. You can see your progress at a glance and add notes to your “diary” for future reference.

In general, it’s just a much more complete app — you can even share your progress to your favorite social network in case you need cheering on.

(MyFitnessPal, free)

Instead of iMovie, use Videoshop.

Dave Smith/Business Insider

Videoshop makes it exceedingly simple to cut and combine your iPhone videos into one movie — you can also add filters, music, and animated titles, and even apply slo-mo or fast-motion to your videos to get the desired effect. Once you’re done, sharing to your favorite social network is as easy as a button tap.

(Videoshop, $1.99)

Instead of Keynote, use PowerPoint.

Dave Smith/Business Insider

Keynote offers a basic slideshow creator and editor with plenty of transition animations and formatting options, but it doesn’t hold a candle to PowerPoint. Microsoft’s app lets you create slideshows that sync across all devices, but it also lets you view your notes as your presentation is beamed to a bigger screen. You can even draw all over your presentation right from your iPhone in real time.

(Microsoft PowerPoint, free)

Instead of iTunes U, download Khan Academy.

Dave Smith/Business Insider

Apple’s iTunes U is great for students or interested learners who want to view full courses from leading universities in things like history, science, even foreign languages. It also offers plenty of resources for teachers, too, but with so many options, it’s not always easy to know where to start.

Khan Academy offers many of the same features as iTunes U, but it’s all brought together in an extremely intuitive interface that lets you first choose what you want to learn and then hone in on certain subjects, courses, and videos. It even has a ton of resources for test preparation, whether you’re getting ready to take the SAT or MCAT.

(Khan Academy, free)

Instead of Stocks, use Stocks Tracker.

Dave Smith/Business Insider

Plenty of people will say they never asked for Apple’s Stocks app. But Stocks is child’s play compared with Stocks Tracker, which tracks indexes, currencies, futures, and even bitcoin — all in real time. (Apple’s Stocks app updates every few seconds, but not nearly as quickly as Stocks Tracker.) It also has a useful currency converter, and you can set up alerts and check on bullish or bearish signals for any given market, at home or abroad.

(Stocks Tracker, free)

Instead of Numbers, use Microsoft Excel.

Dave Smith/Business Insider

Apple’s Numbers is helpful for creating charts, but Excel is still the best spreadsheet application out there — and it will sync across all your devices. The iPhone app even has a special formula keyboard that lets you compute more quickly and is much easier than working with a standard keyboard.

(Microsoft Excel, free)

By Dave Smith

Sourced from Business Insider UK