“Oooooh! I have an iPhone and I have an Android! I know my life seems pretty great, but you know what I don’t have?”
A conscience, or a soul? Because, someone with two high end personal phones is clearly a drug dealer or at least a hired gun. You sicken me you law breaking strumpet.
“No! Time; managing my day to day is always so stressful. With 5-0 always up in my grill there ain’t enough time in a playa’s day. If only there was a way I could minimise my dilly-dallying on these wonderful devices and maximise my productivity/profiteering.”
Well, despite my reservations about your dangerous and incredibly unethical lifestyle I may be able to help you. In my many years as a SINGLE smartphone owner and app aficionado, I’ve come across a few applications that may be of use to you. Saddle up bucko, because we’re about to go garter-deep into the deep and dark gadget sea.
Contents
Raileasy
The Ultimate Train-Times Guide
Available on: iPhone and Android
Price: Free
Look at you; you important tout of a business person, you. You’re about to embark on a business trip from your offices in Leeds to sell your fascinating product to the big boys up in Edinburgh. On behalf of Britain and indeed the world, I for one can say that I am more than impressed. Well done you. Wait. How are you getting there? Oh? Oh!!! Oh. By train… and you don’t know the times? If there was only something that could help you. Hold that ridiculously fancy smartphone, there is! The Raileasy app; no longer will you dive guns blazing into an ad-funded fire fight that is the first page of Google sourced train time vendors. Raileasy allows you to simply enter your location, where you’re headed and what date the whole thing takes. Raileasy takes care of the rest providing a clear list of times around what you’re looking for, complete with the opportunity to buy tickets for that particular ride online.
Their image might push buying tickets, but we’re all over the free train timetables
“Well, well, well this all sounds the hunkiest of dory but what if I don’t know what the closest station is to me? What if I was thrown out of a moving car blindfolded with only my phone and my dignity intact and I needed to get to the nearest station NOWWWW.”
Well I suggest you take a deep breath. Open up Raileasy and use the ‘nearest’ option on the app. It’ll tell you the closest station. No worries.
Soundhound
The Music Locator
Available on: iPhone and Android
Price: Free
Picture the scene: you’re watching TV. I know, it’s glorious and exciting – but wait, it gets better! During your box-watching experience you hear melodic tones, the likes of which you’ve never heard before. Music so beautiful and pure, your ears feel like they’re about to melt off under the pressure of its divine whimsy. There’s just one problem: you have no idea what that song is. It’s merely a backing track to the theatrical experience and within the next few minutes you may never hear it again. Hold that thought. With the free app Soundhound you can easily, and at no expense to yourself, have the device listen to a chunk of the track. It’ll compare the sound online to match it to the exact track you’re looking for. Within seconds you’ll be delivered the artist, track name and album.
We tried speaking our name to it, and it came up with a particular Sir Mix-A-Lot song. Should we be insulted?
“But, but, but it all happened so fast. It finished before I could open up the app. Sadface.”
Two things: A) Never annunciate an emoticon, it’s wildly depressing. B) Never fear my glum chum, with Soundhound one can even hum the rough outline into the device and it’ll try its best to give you a matched answer. It’s that good.
Facebook Messenger
The Free Texter
Available on: iPhone and Android
Price: FREE
Unless you are living under the world’s heaviest rock and smoking the world’s strongest crack, chances are you’ve heard of Facebook. To some people (not saying myself, but not-not saying myself) Facebook can be an almost imperative tool for organising social and sometimes professional life.
We’re sure all the contract providers love you Facebook…
“But I already have the Facebook app on my phone, look!”
I am looking, and if you’re using 3g or Edge, chances are it’s not loading as fast as it could, if at all. Facebook Messenger is great for cutting out those bulky jpegs of last night’s shenanigans or the endless slew of baby photos your recently bloated friends are spewing across your news feed. Using this app, you can simply get to business, connecting with those you hold most dear by having a neatly organised list of contacts and chat conversations. It’s like texting, but instead of eating away at contract allowances, or actual money (if you’re a pay as you go high roller) the only thing you’ll be gnawing away at on your device is battery life and modest chunks of data. And all for the humble price of nothing. You can’t lose.
Awesome Note
The Life Organizer
Available on: iPhone
Price: £2.49
“Two pounds and forty-nine pence? Sorry, I didn’t realise I was Alan Sugar and can burn through money like toilet paper.”
I know, I know. Nearly two and half pounds is an awful lot of money for an app, but please, hear me out. Let’s say you’re making plans or an appointment with which your life and career may depend on. It’s at three-thirty on Wednesday, are you free?
“I don’t know; I’ll have to check my outrageously huge diary which is either on my computer which is twenty miles away at the office, or physically written down in my notebook in my bag… like a caveman.”
Woah there, slow down Usain. Wouldn’t it be easier if you could store all your appointments, deadlines, shopping lists, general to-do’s and basically your entire organisational life in one humble product? Awesome Note has the answer: yes. Yes, you can.
Seriously, where are you getting all these phones from?!
Through Awesome Note you can sync all this information up into your Google account and docs. Anything you want to log can and will be logged through this highly intuitive app. It’s more than a blessing; logging as many reminders as humanly possible you won’t miss anything again. It’s totally worth every penny.
Cloze
The Social Networking Organizer
Available on: iPhone and Android
Price: FREE
You’re a trendy person and you have a lot of fingers, but where are those fingers? They’re in many pies; pies filled with the salty meats of social networking. What kind of meats you ask? Why the best kind, with each one more delicious than the last; Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and of course your personal Email. Now I hope you like blenders because I’m about to show you a way to mix each of those pies into one hearty meal/app; ladies and gentlemen I give you, Cloze.
If you want to work on your laptop, ipad and phone simultaneously, you should probably rethink your priorities
Clozer is an all-purpose social networking app that combines all of the above sites and tools into one easy and manageable inbox. It sifts through all the contacts you have connected to it and creates somewhat of a scoring system, making the people that matter most to you the priority. In other words Clozer allows you to focus and manage the most important parts of your networking life faster, keeping you on top and more aware of the pertinent information happening around you. Imagine you’re a fire fighter, taut and muscular, standing at the brink of a towering inferno. Clozer points out the women and children first and stops you getting lost in the misty smoke of spam and ne’er-do-wells. It is the Swiss Army Knife of social interaction.
Well, that completes our tour of the gadget sea. I hope that was as informative for you as it was arousing for me. I know you’d love to hear more, but I’m just one man. The last slither of technologically-informed cake I can serve you is to head over the Apple App Store or Android Market Place to get your fill on these life-enhancing goods. Enjoy.
Let me know in the comments if you have any of the apps in this list, or if you have any others you’d like to recommend. Join in the conversation @SensibleReview on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook.
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