Thursday, April 10, 2014

Great Apps for your iPhone and iPad...part 3.

With March in the rear view mirror, it's time to further breakdown the App of the week posts.  So here we go.  Another month gone by, and another handful of great apps for you to check out and start using.

The first March App of the week is one of my new favorites,  its called simply, Documents 5 (by Readdle).



One of the features that I love about Documents 5 is that it's one of the best apps at combining  your files from some of the top cloud services.  If you use Dropbox, Google Drive, Box.com, One drive, Sugar Sync, Office 365 or a few others, Documents 5 let you combine all the files you wish to from those services into one common app!  That is Awesome!




You'll notice on my Documents page here, I've got files from the Documents 5 app, as well as files from Google Drive (the Montages folder), and Box.com (the Presentations folder).


How great to be able to view all those files from disparate cloud services in one place.  Thank you Documents 5!  And not to leave iCloud out in the cold, Documents 5 also will Sync via iCloud across your iOS devices, very nice indeed.  If that wasn't enough for you, Documents 5 also acts as a full features Web browser, letting you create bookmarks, as well as download directly into the Documents 5 app.

So, if you haven't downloaded it yet, get a move on!  Documents 5 should be on everyones must have list.

The next App that I highlighted is the iTunes Festival App.  If you downloaded the app when I posted about it, back on March 9th, you could watch live, full concerts from the SXSW festival in Austin Texas featuring the likes of Coldplay, Keith Urban, Willie Nelson, Pitbull, just to name a few.  



As of this writing, you can see partial performances from some of the artists, while some artists full performances are still available.  Get the app while you can, those performances won't be available forever, and some of them were fantastic!

The next app to be highlighted in March is one of my all time favorites, Evernote.  Evernote is one of the apps I use regularly.  The ability to write notes on my iPhone or iPad, have those notes sync through Evernote's cloud service and be available on all my devices, is well, priceless!  


Evernote wants to be your "Remember Everything" App.  As stated on their website, Evernote and it's related apps make life more manageable by letting you easily collect and manage everything and anything that matters to you.  I use Evernote to take notes from my client appointments on my iPhone.  When I get back to my Mac, I open up Evernote and can add or change the note(s) I created during the day.  Those changes sync through Evernote's system and are available on all my devices!  



If you are not happy with the simple Notes App that comes with your devices(s), I urge you to try Evernote.  A great new feature, recently added is the ability to take pictures within Evernote of business cards.  Once the picture has been taken, Evernote creates a note, from which you can then save all the information captured from someones card, right into your contacts app!  That rocks!  Another nice feature of Evernote is the ability to create reminders about your notes, or a reminder to buy milk on your way home from work!  Best feature of Evernote is??  That it's free!  There are in-app purchase options, but the basic app, which has all the cool features I've mentioned, is FREE!  So, have you downloaded it yet??  

Next up in March was Camera+.  Camera+ is one of my favorite non-Apple apps.  Those of you looking to get more out of your iPhone or iPad camera, this is a great place to start.

Using Camera + is super easy, and can make a novice photographer look like a seasoned pro!  Some of it's awesome features include:  Touch Exposure and Focus - Simply tapping on the screen allows you to set the exposure separately from the focus (very cool!), allowing you to control how light or dark your picture comes out!  Nice...:).

Shooting Modes - There  are five different modes you can shoot with, Square, which let's you take pictures to better use on various Social sites.  Normal mode.  You can use the Stabilizer feature of the app to steady your iPhone and get the best possible picture.  Theres a Timer feature that will help you get the best selfies possible...Burst mode which will allow you to take pictures is rapid succession.



 Digital Zoom - The Apps zoom gives you up to 6X (notice the bar on the right side of the screen capture below, at 6X) the zoom with advanced digital processing that gives you awesome photos!




Front Flash - How about this cool feature?  Ever wish your iPhone had an available front flash?  Well with Camera + it now does!  Horizon Level - to assist you in taking the most level photo possible.  You'll notice on the screen capture above, the white bar in the middle, that's your Horizon Level.  Clarity - This awesome feature shown below and available through Lightbox, analyzes your photo, makes several intelligent digital adjustments that magically bring out the best in your photos!  That is awesome!




Effects - Camera + comes with some incredible effects to enhance your pictures.  Theres Scenes, which let's you add Flash, Backlit, Darken, Cloudy, to name just a few (have a look again at the above screen cap, it's also in Scene mode).  Then there's Crops, which let's you crop to Square mode, 3x2, 4x3, 4x6 etc etc etc.



The Lab where you can add Clarity, Rotate, Straighten, and Tint and Duotone to name a few.




Filters where can add awesome filters like Retro, Special, I Heart Analog and Hollywood.



Finally Frames, where you can add some killer frames to your already killer photographs...




The next feature I'm going to cover in Camera + is Lightbox  - Lightbox is a unique way to sort through your photos, delete the ones you don't want, and save your fav's to your iPhone's Photo App.  Camera + has some other great features.



You can share your photos to your favorite Social networks, it even syncs with iCloud so you can take pics all day with your iPhone, and edit on your iPad (there's an iPad app as well).



So these are some of the great features that come with Camera +.  There are also 2 in-app purchases available (both at the low, low price of .99 Cents as well).  Not only do I highly recommend Camera+, and I use it very often to take pics with my 5S...:).

Lastly for the month of March was the AiO (short for All in One) print app from HP.  The AiO app gives you document control from almost anywhere!


Regardless of your documents are in the cloud (Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, etc.),   AiO gives you the power to save, share and print those files to an AirPrint or ePrint capable printer.  


Using intelligent mobile scanning technology, the app processes your images as either PDF or JPEG and allows you to instantly save or print.  



Now, if your wondering, why you need this app to print?  The same reason you'd use an app like Camera+, or Evernote.  Yes you can print to effortlessly and easily using your iPhone or iPad, but to enhance your printing capabilities, the AiO app is a must.  

Well I hope you've enjoyed learning about these great apps.  I recommend trying them all.  They truly add and enhance your iPhone and iPads capabilities.

Thanks again for reading, I truly appreciate it and hope my blogs have been useful!

Until next time, best to you and your devices!



























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