Posts Tagged ‘free iPhone Productivity apps’

Summly App for iPhone Review

Summly app for iPhone provides an easy way to browse/search the web by summarizing search results, web pages, and news articles automatically. It is accurate, while avoiding information overload for the user. Also, the app is language independent, which means it can summarize web contents across different languages. Summly iPhone app can be downloaded for free from Apple iTunes.

How iPhone Summly App Works?

When you search some term in Summly iPhone application, you’ll be returned a set of search results, with automatic summary. In other words, the app will fetch the results and summarize them. So, for the user, they can view the summary before actually deciding whether to head to a particular search result page or not. As per the developers of this application, their algorithm goes through the search results, pick relevant sentences from the source, and put them together to form a relevant summary before you open the search result page. The state-of-the-art technology of Summly uses a combination of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Ontology techniques at its core.

The user interface of Summly App is pretty well laid out. You could see the results large and clear. Further, it is possible to email summary or link directly from the application. You can also copy summary, or open a particular link in Safari browser.

The most notable aspect of Summly is that it reproduces results in any language, although it is optimised in English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Finnish, Swedish, and all other European languages. At the moment, the app works well with news articles and search results that are written in an informative style rather than in a narrative style.

Final Thoughts

Summly app for iPhone is a revelation. There are no similar apps that provide specialised search results that are automatically summarised, saving you both time and energy. Researchers in MIT, who have tested the app, certifies that it returns very accurate results most of the time. Further, the app is language independent, meaning it handles web contents written in virtually any known language on earth. To top it all, Summly is a free of cost iPhone app. Verdict: A must have if you search the web a lot from your iPhone.

LockBox App for iPhone Review

LockBox app for iPhone is a simple secret-keeper application for your smart-phone. It caters to everyone’s basic needs, and none can beat its non-existent price tag. The passwords are restricted to numbers only; but that should not be an issue if you could conjure up a long enough password of numbers.

How LockBox iPhone App Works?

LockBox app for iPhone helps you save and protect sensitive information such as your credit card numbers, bank account details, private notes, pin numbers, or any other secret information that you don’t want others to access.

LockBox iPhone app has six categories – five defined ones and one ‘other – to store/organize your information. Under each category, you’ve got three fields: one each for ‘title’, ‘information’, and ‘Notes’. You can fill in two lines of info under ‘information’ and three under ‘Notes’. However, across categories, this format does not change. In other words, you won’t find any field exclusively named ‘credit card details’ or ‘bank account information’. You have to customize one among the available categories to suit your requirements.

As mentioned, every data you store in iPhone LockBox mobile application is protected by a secret code. It is just that you should remember the codes if you wish to access your info later on.

A notable downside with the app is that you can’t enter clickable URLs anywhere in the fields. Also, you can’t sort or search the entries, which may be a turn off for few. But then LockBox is supposed to be a very basic secret keeper application. You can’t have every feature under its hood.

Final Thoughts

LockBox app for iPhone provides basic protection features; the data is encrypted and protected by your secret code so that only you could access the info anytime. Lack of search/sort feature might annoy few. But then this is a very basic secret keeper app that is downloadable as a freebie from iTunes. Those who require more sophisticated levels of protection may opt for paid ones, or LockBox’s own pro version. Verdict: A handy secret keeper application to have in your iPhone.

iBrainstorm App for iPhone Review

Capturing and sharing the inner most creative genius has never been easier. iBrainstorm app is the first multi device collaboration tool from mastermind and just with a flick of finger; iBrainstorm has set the bar and has redefined the very nature of collaboration.

Features of iBrainstorm App

Share your sessions by connecting up to four iPhones to your iPad.
Draw, Erase and Zoom.
Email your session to everyone in your team.

How iBrainstorm App Works

iBrainstorm turns an iPad screen into a drawing surface and you can use your finger as a black dry erase felt tip pen to make notes, draw or scribble down whatever you want on the screen. To erase any portion of what you have drawn, just tap an eraser button at the top of the screen and your finger switches from marker to eraser. Tapping another button at the top right of the screen erases everything in one blow. By tapping the plus button on the top left of your screen, you can add post-it notes to your canvas. If you hold a finger down on a post-it note, a keyboard appears, allowing you to type on that note. A color palette on the top of the keyboard lets you change the color of the post-it.

Advantages

iBrainstorm app is used to connect to a running session of iBrainstorm on the iPad. It gives up to 4 people the ability to create ideas on their iPhones and flick them over to the iPad making the iBrainstorm process engaging and fun. The app is shared with UX community and is quickly elevated to an integral part of normal User Experience Design Process. iBrainstorm is a free application and is describes as a “creative collaborative tool”. iBrainstorm lets you collaborate in other ways by allowing you to email any image you create during a brainstorming session. Colleagues can look over your work and send back suggestions, but they can’t modify the image you send them.

Disadvantages

iBrainstorm app won’t allow you to change the size of your felt-tip pen, or post-it note font sizes, making it hard for multiple people to see everything on the screen without having to crowd around it.

Conclusion

iBrainstorm application works as advertised and the ability to send contributions from an iPhones to an iPad during brainstorming sessions certainly impresses.

Weave App for iPhone Review

iPhone already got a decent inbuilt calendar application. So what is the requirement for a third-party app, perhaps with some more features? It turns out that there’ll be takers still, especially those who are involved with more serious projects. Weave app for iPhone is an effective to-do application that lets you create list of things that you might want to complete on any given day, alongside having the to-do lists link back to an overall project. Weave iPhone application can be downloaded for free from the iTunes Apple Store.

How iPhone Weave App Works

For short term reminders, you don’t required Weave iPhone application. Scheduling on Weave app is lot similar to setting schedules anywhere else. That is, you can add the length of time of the activity, alongside the description of the same. But for this feature alone, you should not have to install Weave in your iPhone.

The real utility of Weave app for iPhone is in its ability to integrate income and expenses into longer-term projects. Users can make to-do lists, and centralize them to one major project. For example, if you’re renovating your home, you can add to-do lists for various activities such as plumbing, electric works, redoing the floor etc, include the expenses for each one of those activities, and connect the entire to-do lists to the main project (i.e. house renovation). True, an average person’s shopping list does not apply here. But the app might find its big clientele amongst contractors who’ll have multiple to-do lists to handle every day.

The user interface is well laid out and easy to use for most parts. Adding a project, or a new ‘todo’ or income/expense is a matter of few taps.

If to point it out as a downside, Weave requires users to register in order to use the application. Why one must register his/her personal scheduler with a central server defeats all logic.

Conclusion

Weave app for iPhone is a great time management tool to own, if you have lots of to-do lists to handle, and most of those come under a common big project. For others, they can use it as a usual scheduler in place of the calendar app. Verdict: Weave app for iPhone is a good application to own especially if you dabbles with lots of tasks-to-do every day.

Dolphin Browser App for iPhone Review

Dolphin Browser is one of the most popular web browser apps for Google’s Android. It is the most intelligent mobile web browser available that allows you to interact and engage with the web through your mobile device in the easiest, most intuitive way. Dolphin Browser is now available for iPhone users to experience browsing at a more user-friendly level.

Features of Dolphin Browser iPhone App

Tabbed Browsing Functionality – Having been accustomed to Tabbed Browsing on desktop browsers it’s quite awful to have to settle for something less on a new technology device.

Speedy Browsing – If the sites were not fast enough then the tabbed functionality would be a failure and so in Dolphin Browser it had no trouble switching and browsing through the various tabs quickly.

Magazine style layout with Thumbnails for Web pages – Webzine is a tab within Dolphin Browser iPhone app where you can add your favorite sites as thumbnail images using the webpage’s RSS feed.

Built for better readability – The Webzine allows reading snippets and articles by swiping from right to left and there are also links to the original article if you want to check the original post.

Awesome add-ons – Though browser add-ons are popular, Dolphin Browser has tons of helpful add-ons including Last Pass, Read Late, Translate, Web to PDF and more.

Facebook and Twitter Integration – Facebook and Twitter Webzines are integrated in the browser and you can definitely attempt to do a social thing on a browser.

Pretty Solid Bookmarking Feature – The Bookmarking feature helps you to access the search history, most visited and bookmarked sites at the tap of a button. You can import bookmarks from your default browser or from Dolphin Browser and you can also create Bookmark folders. For this, just press the Menu key on the device and tap Bookmarks. Then tap Quick Access and press the Menu button to tap New Folder.

Speed Dial Goodness – The Speed Dial view gives you the most visited pages and reopens the last closed tab and providing you with a more user friendly browsing experience.

Gestures to Launch WebPages – iPhone Dolphin Browser app have the best ability to launch WebPages by gestures. There is also the standard set of gestures that come by default that let you go back, forward, top and bottom of a page and more.

Conclusion

Dolphin Browser app for iPhone has the more advanced features and the better browsing experience. You can search for a popular website you love reading and it appears as thumbnail images on the webzine page. To read the particular story you just need to click the thumbnail. Easy navigation between stories is accomplished well with buttons to go back, jump to the top of an article, and refresh a page and more.

With its support of browser tabs, gesture based commands and add-ons offering everything from password management to video downloading tools, Dolphin Browser app for iPhone is splendid.

My Contacts Backup iPhone App Review

My Contacts Backup app for iPhone is the easiest way to backup and restore all your contacts you have in your phone without needing a computer or synchronization. Users can also save contacts in an Excel friendly format. To reinstate saved contacts, one simply opens the vcard format on the desired device, and the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad does the rest of the work.

Features of My Contacts Backup App

• There is an offline backup and so there is no need of any server. You can email the backup file to yourself.
• You don’t need any application to restore.
• In My Contacts Backup iPhone app, you can easily transfer contacts between iOS devices using just email client.
• Use backup contacts as VCF or Export Contacts as CSV file.
• You can delete All Contacts in Address Book.

Positives

My Contacts Backup iPhone app offers the quick ability to export all kinds of contact information from your iPhone to vcard format by emailing the created file to a safe address of the user. It doesn’t backup just digits, but also manages everything from email to personal websites to birthdays. It also backup photographs. It even shrinks your avatar photos to save space and does a quicker exporting. My Contacts Backup application makes it easy to backup your personal information. It has the option to share contacts via iTunes and the exporting functionality is quite useable. The interface is simple and it offers a quick to read and easy to manipulate feature set that makes backing up your information a breeze. The app crunches the photos down to size and converts your information to the preferred format and then the app asks where you want to email the backup.

Negatives

The negative side of the application is that you will need an active data connection to receive the saved information as you need to email it before it can be used.

Conclusion

My Contacts Backup iPhone app can be downloaded for free from the app store. It is very much compatible with iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch. With easy syncing options there is no reason to lose a contact’s information ever again. If you are away from your desktop or just concerned about losing data this is a tremendous lifesaver. Though the app is not perfect it has a simple outfit and useful feature set and so the My Contacts Backup app earns recommendation.