The prominence of BYOD and being able to work out-of-office from a tablet or iPhone has lead to an abundance of business apps for Android and iOS. CBR has found ten of the most helpful business apps on the market to make you more productive when working from your tablet or smartphone.
iOS
Documents Free mobile office suite
FREE
Ranked as the number one overall business app on iTunes with over 15 million users on iOS, the free version of the Documents Mobile Office app now comes with full iCloud support to open up your working capabilities.
The app lets you edit and manage spreadsheets and text files on you iPhone, working both online and offline, allowing you to sync files to Google Documents, Dropbox and SkyDrive accounts and open files on your PC or Mac.
Files can be opened using Microsoft Word and Excel, Open Office, Numbers, and all major office suites.
Basecamp
FREE
Basecamp is the world’s number one project management app – and rightly so. The app is highly rated on the app store thanks to the clean and efficient layout that allows users to manage projects with ease by reading messages from colleagues, posting comments, adding and completing to-dos and see your end milestone.
Basecamp for iPhone allows you to track your projects on the go shows you the latest news on your projects and lets you view progress as team members complete to-dos and upload files to give you an overview of how your project is coming along.
It works with Basecamp Classic, so if you part of any Classic projects they will be listed below your new Basecamp accounts.
Salesforce Classic
FREE [basic version]
Salesforce Classic is built on the Salesforce interface to give you access to your account information on your iPhone. You can quickly look up account activity before important calls or meetings and log details from phone calls and meetings right after they take place. Dashboards allow for easy management to allow you to respond immediately to new leads and customer requests.
The free version allows you to create, edit and delete capabilities on the standard CRM data and have your Salesforce Admin enable Mobile Lite for your organisation.
The full version requires Unlimited Edition license or add-on mobile license but allows you to fully customise options with mobile access to custom objects and configurations.
Genius Scan
FREE [basic version]
Genius Scan turns you iPhone into a pocket scanner so you can quickly scan documents on the go as JPG or PDF.
The Genius Scan scanner technology includes smart page detection, perspective correction, image post-processing. It allows you to build PDF documents with multiple scans. Its also a great way to archive receipts and hand written notes and save handwritten memos for later reference.
The app detects the page frame and automatically corrects perspective, enhances the scan post-processing, creates PDF documents with multiple scans and exports documents to iBooks or any app able to read PDF.
You can upgrade to Genius Scan+ from within Genius Scan. In addition to email, Genius Scan+ provides easy upload to Box, Dropbox, Evernote Expensify and Google Drive and SkyDrive, printing with AirPrint and of course, no ads and customizable email signatures.
Dragon Dictation
FREE
Dragon Dictation is a voice recognition app that allows you to speak and instantly see your text or email messages, saving you precious time in the office. In fact, it’s up to five times faster than typing on a keyboard.
You can dictate status updates directly to Social Media applications including Twitter and Facebook or send notes and reminders to yourself.
It’s been described as a ‘game changing’ application with outstanding accuracy and ease of use. Voice-to-text transcriptions that may be sent as SMS, Email, or pasted into any application using the clipboard and it provides a Convenient editing feature that provides a list of suggested words with a Voice driven correction interface.
Android
OfficeSuite Pro 7
£4.83
It’s always handy to be able to write up a document or a spreadsheet on the move. You don’t have to wait to get back to the office to write something up on Office: work on the move. OfficeSuite Pro lets you create templates from Word, Excel and PowerPoint with free hand drawing in Word and PowerPoint documents. Just as on your desktop, you can insert tables, lines, shapes and images in text documents all from your tablet or smartphone and all charts are supported in text and PowerPoint documents.
The app has been downloaded on over 120 million devices in 205 countries and is listed as the number one app on the Google Play store in the business category – a true testament to its efficiency and usability.
The app usually retails at £9.65 but is currently reduced to £4.83 so buy now!
Jump Desktop
£6.09
As a remote desktop application, Jump Desktop lets you control your computer from your phone or tablet. The streamlined user interface gives a great desktop experience for remote working. The new version has Windows 8 Touch support and is easy to configure for PC or Mac with built-in support for encryption on RDP and VNC client.
The remote app can work through Wi-Fi and 3G, so no need to worry about router settings and you can use your Google account to setup and manage computers automatically. Android supports all external keyboard keys and shortcuts with right mouse clicks supported by external mice, making the experience very PC like.
File Manager (Explorer)
FREE
A great way to manage your saved computer work, File Manager has a fresh UI design to explore files on shared folder, FTP, FTPS, SFTP and WebDAV and popular cloud storages such as Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and Sky Drive.
To make searching easier, it boasts three sets of commercial icons for more than 80 different file types, toolbar and menu items in a list and grid view for file explorer. It can cut, copy, paste and cancelable progress dialog, Compress and decompress files, and steam media from LAN/FTP/WebDAV/Cloud without downloading.
A file shortcut on your Home screen makes for easy access and a built-in text editor, image gallery and swf player is great for organizing content on the go.
PrinterShare Mobile Print
FREE
Until the Mopria print alliance makes mobile printing universal, this handy free app allows you to print anytime, anywhere from your Android device. PrinterShare allows PDF files, office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), invoices, photos, emails from Gmail, contacts, agenda and other digital content from device internal memory, SD card or cloud source such as Google Drive/Google Docs.
You may configure many print options including paper size, page orientation, number of copies, page range and print quality.
With the free version of the app you can print a test page to determine compatabilty as not every printer is supported, print via Google Cloud Print and print 20 pages in Remote mode over the internet. For unlimited printing and to unlock premium features, you need to purchase PrinterShare Premium Key (8.45)
James Caan Business Secrets
FREE
Great for a bit of inspirational business reading, this app provides some great advice from James Caan, one of Britain’s most successful and dynamic entrepreneurs.
Famous for taking a seat in TV’s Dragon Den, Caan is sharing more than 100 of his business secrets in video and audio format in this app. The app covers people and hiring, raising money, managing finances, growing your own business, overseas expansion, marketing, social media, leadership and exciting strategy.
Also included are the audio book versions of James’ best-selling books – his autobiography ‘The Real Deal’, ‘Get The Job You Really Want’, and ‘Start Your Business in 7 Days’
