Article Contributed by Jamie Mcdonald
Nearly 220 million smartphones were sold in the fourth quarter of 2012, making up 45 percent of sales for the entire year, Juniper Research reports. Entrepreneurs and small businessmen use their smartphones as a primary tool for business, and with thousands of apps to consider, we’ve rounded up the top ones to keep you organized and on top of things.
Evernote
Evernote acts as a repository for your thoughts and research. Write yourself a note and annotate it with an image or hand-drawn graphic. Save an entire Web page for review later. Create lists and outlines. Highlight and make notes on documents. Upload audio, video, images and documents.
Evernote can be used as a collaborative work space for you and your team. Create libraries for special projects—the information placed in each library can be shared with other team members, so they have access to the information they need wherever they need it. You can sync all your devices with your Evernote data, too; you can access the same information using your Samsung Galaxy as your iPad without any complicated syncing tools.
This app is available for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Blackberry devices, as well as PCs, Mac desktops, laptops and tablets. Single-user accounts are free with 2GB of storage. Business accounts are available starting at $10/month per person, and each team member gets 2GB of storage.
Lastpass
In this age of digital information and security, you need to come up with a better password than your dog’s name and partner’s birthday. Lastpass generates a secure password for you for any website, automatically fills in your passwords and stores them securely as encrypted data. It syncs among multiple computers, lets you import your existing passwords and back up your entire password library. Lastpass is available for free on PC and Mac desktops and laptops. For $12/year, you can purchase the premium version, which will run on all smartphones and tablets.
Toodledo
Toodledo is a free Web-based application that stores your data in the cloud. This is a simple task list that will keep all of your tasks organized and prioritized. The app can be used on a mobile device or desktop, and it keeps them all in sync. You can sort the tasks however works best for you and create views to help you manage them. Create folders to store tasks and move them from folder to folder. Premium services start at $15/year and allow you to create sub-tasks and add graphics. Use this to create outlines for a mini-project management tool. Add-on components support Toodledo on smartphones and tablets.
CardMunch
You encounter a number of people while creating your business network, and this app prevents the inevitable loss of the business card you need to find. It’s been around for awhile and is still a strong tool recommended for the iOS platform. Keep track of all of your contacts by taking a picture of their business cards with your smartphone and allow CardMunch to create a contact for you. Currently, Cardmunch is available only for the iPhone and iPad. It is a free app and worth the time to learn all of its features.
About the Author
Jamie Mcdonald is a tech freelance writer whose best friend is her smartphone and library of mobile apps.