I enjoy my iPhone. In fact, I sometimes wonder what I did before I owned it. I resisted purchasing an iPhone because I once owned and intensely disliked one of these. I've made a complete turnaround, and today, we are a happy Apple family. This was the home screen on my iPhone last week. (I've already changed it. More about that later.)
My favorite and most often used apps are on my home screen, arranged generally in order of how often I use them. I plan to publish a post in a day or so summarizing how I use each of the 12 apps on my home screen and why they are so important for my personal productivity. As you might imagine, many of those apps are not free, so today, I'm excited to share 10 free iPhone apps that help me squeeze more productivity out of each day.
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This FaceBook app allows me to post to my user profile and my Business Page with seamless efficiency. I can post comments on other people's pages and quickly add photos with text to my pages. I have family members and favorite pages saved to a special area that makes them more easily accessible. There are probably lots of other things you can do with this app, but that's all I need it for. | Download! |
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When I'm on the run, I use the pre-loaded Voice Memo app to record information when I don't have a pen or paper. This morning at my son's school, I saw a mom I wanted to connect with for summer play dates. We were both cruising the halls with no paper. I activated the voice recorder and she literally shouted her phone number into the microphone. We have a play date scheduled for later this month. Who can't use that kind of efficiency? | Pre-loaded |
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The free Google RSS app integrates with my Google Reader account and places all of the blogs I subscribe to in one place. I can read them in the reader, and click quickly to the blog post to leave a comment if I want to. From the interface, I can send the post to Twitter or FaceBook to share with my friends. The ability to read, store and share content with a few clicks is priceless. | Download! |
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If you have a Gmail account (and who doesn't?), this app is a no brainer. You can compose, send, check and delete email messages. This app is especially useful if you direct emails to different Gmail accounts as a categorization strategy. | Download! |
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I use Dragon Dictation to record and save my voice as text, often for use in future blog posts. Once my voice is saved as text, I cut and paste it into a new blog post, saving tons of time. I've heard that it's up to 5 times faster than typing on a keyboard. I must normally make a few edits, but that's a small price to pay once the thought has been recorded. The more I use this app, the fewer errors it makes. I have heard that this app may not be free for long, so grab it while you can, just in case. | Download! |
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HootSuite is my favorite Twitter client because it helps me easily track conversations and lists, including my IBN members. It's great to interact with specific people on a daily basis without having to use my laptop. Another great thing about HootSuite is that you can use it to post to your WordPress blog. I am told that they will soon make this available for self-hosted WordPress blogs like mine. When that happens, I will be over the edge indeed. The only thing I don't like about HootSuite is that when I cross-post a photo to FaceBook, the photo appears in a link and not as a visible wall image. But Tweetdeck takes care of that. (See below.) | Download! |
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I once preferred TweetDeck to HootSuite, but since HootSuite allowed scheduled posts and TweetDeck did not (until last month), I migrated to HootSuite for most things. TweetDeck is a great back-up though, especially when I want to post a photo simultaneously to Twitter and my FaceBook wall, and I want the graphic to be immediately visible on the wall without clicking. | Download! |
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The Flickr app is amazing. You can quickly add photos and give them titles, descriptions and tags. You can add them to photo albums as well. Since I never have time for that kind of categorization, it's nice to have this app available to fill the time waiting at railroad crossings or for my kids to finish swimming and gymnastic lessons. I don't use it as much as I should, but I'm working on it. | Download! |
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Whenever I'm out, I can use Twitvid to record a short video and share it quickly on Twitter. For example, check out this 30-second video of my son and his classmates singing, “The World Is A Rainbow” at this morning's kindergarten graduation, or this even shorter video of Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman, channeling Ethel Merman at a book signing last month. | Download! |
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PhotoShop mobile is handy when you want to spruce up a photo on the run. Here's a sampling of what you can do: crop, straighten, rotate, flip, tint, change to black and white, increase or decrease exposure, sharpen or soften the focus, add borders and add effects. The only thing you can't do is change the dimensions of a photo. I hope they add that next! Once your photo is exactly as you like it, you can save it to your camera roll. You can also post it to FaceBook or Twitpic. Cool. | Download! |
Question: What are your favorite free iPhone apps?
