iTunes App Store and Google Play both have thousands of productivity apps to offer you. The bad news is that most of them are not worth your time. The good news, however, is that we have taken the time to go through them so that you don’t have to. As part of our quest for the best mobile productivity apps, here’s a list of 15 apps that will make your life more efficient. All of these apps are free and support both iOS & Android. So if, for example, you’re an Android geek and your wife swears by her iPhone, there’s no reason to fight any longer! Heck, even if you’re a Windows Phone user, you may find a couple of gems here. Now let’s get to work…
Cloud Services
1.Evernote
You can’t talk about productivity apps without mentioning Evernote. The simple ‘Remember Everything’ app has won critical acclaim for its user-friendliness, ease of use, perfect sync across all platforms among other features. Evernote helps you stay organized, save your ideas and improve productivity. You can take notes, capture photos, create to-do lists and record voice reminders. But the icing on the cake is that these notes can be made entirely searchable and accessible from any device or computer.
There’s a paid premium option that lets you to access notebooks offline, allows others to edit your notebooks and more.
Evernote Supports: iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Mac OS X, Windows & all major browsers except for IE.
2.Dropbox
If all you need is a simple cloud backup solution, look no further than Dropbox. This simple cloud storage service is one of the most popular on the mobile platform and for a good reason: It just works. Have you got great photos from your recent trip? Load them up on Dropbox and share the link with your friends back home. Store documents and edit them in your Dropbox. Access all your files from your computer or tablet. You can use this service to backup and share any file that matters to you. Dropbox is convenient, secure, cross platform and syncing works flawlessly.
Dropbox offers 2-18GB monthly storage for free (monthly storage is larger the more friends you refer to Dropbox). Paid upgrades with larger storage and more features are optional.
Dropbox supports: iOS, Android, Blackberry, Kindle fire, Mac OS X, Windows & Linux.
3.Box
Although Box is not as robust and flawless as Dropbox, it offers larger free storage right from the get go – 5GB. From time to time the company runs promotional offers of 50GB for free, so it’s worth getting on their mailing list. Box is easy to use and as part of the Box OneCloud ecosystem of apps it enables annotation, e-signing and getting more mileage from your favorite productivity apps. It offers most of the features you’d expect from a leading cloud storage service: Accessing, viewing, editing and sharing files right from your mobile, tablet or computer, file level encryption, built in search, and a lot more. Designed with team work in mind, Box makes it easy to share folders with team members and leave comments on files for them. You can also get real time updates on your account activity.
Box offers 5GB for free. Paid upgrades with larger storage and more features are optional.
Box supports: iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Mac OS X & Windows.
4.Google Drive
Google Drive is nowhere near Dropbox or Box when it comes to features or convenience. The reason we’ve included Google’s cloud storage app is that so many of us rely on Google’s ecosystem. Getting started with Google Drive is quick and easy. Google Drive mobile app enables you to upload photos videos and any other file. You can also create, edit and share Google documents and spreadsheets, view animated Google presentations, Office documents and PDFs. The main drawback of Google Drive is its lack of encrypted storage options but with each update the app gets better and better, so there’s still hope. Google Drive offers 5GB for free. Paid upgrades with larger storage are optional.
Google Drive Supports: iOS, Android, Mac OS X & Windows.
Browsers
5.Dolphin Browser
Dolphin is one of the most popular mobile browsers on Android.
It offers a user friendly user interface alongside tabbed browsing, multiple add-ons, smooth animations and more. Browsing is snappy and the look & feel is professional. Dolphin combines gesture and sonar abilities, which make it a perfect much for touchscreen devices. Other features include: One tap share to social networks or cloud services and easy sync between the mobile and the desktop version. No wonder why more and more mobile users choose Dolphin over their phone’s native browser… Dolphin Browser supports: iOS & Android.
6.Opera Mini & Opera Mobile
While Opera Mobile is not the most advanced mobile browser, it definitely is one of the fastest. The browser has reaped users’ acclaim for its user friendliness, responsiveness and smooth browsing experience. Opera Mobile offers sync with your computer or other mobile devices via Opera Link. Sharing is easy as Facebook and Twitter now have built in support in Opera Mobile. Other features include: Text wrapping, zoom, page size and orientation, giving you the best view on your favorite webpages. Although Opera Mobile has its flaws, it keeps improving from one update to another. Those of you on slower or limited data plan can try Opera Mini web browser instead.
Opera Mini & Opera Mobile support: iOS & Android. Opera (desktop version) supports Mac OS X, Windows & Linux.
7.UC Browser
UC Browser is another popular mobile browser. It’s fast, slick, stable and user friendly. UC Browser’s feature list includes: Easy push button social sharing of web pages, multi touch gesture commands, voice control, night mode, a powerful download manager and more. While it doesn’t come without its flaws, UC Browser is constantly improving and reaps acclaim from users and web publications alike.
UC Browser supports: iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Windows Mobile & Symbian.
Practical Information
8.Speaktoit Assistant
If you envy iPhone owners for their Siri, Speaktoit Assistant may be the answer for you. One of the most popular Android talking assistants, the app has received critical acclaim by users and the media alike. Speaktoit Assistant will become your virtual buddy, doing (almost) everything you ask for, with a smile. Natural language technology is used to answer questions, find information, launch apps and connect you with web services such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and many more. You can also choose the assistance’s appearance out of four different personas. Speaktoit Assistant uses cool voices powered by iSpeech and its voice recognition works really well. Finally, a word of advice: Be kind to your Assistant. He/She takes no teasing…
Speaktoit Assistant is free. You can upgrade to Premium for more functionality.
Speaktoit Assistant supports: iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8 & Windows RT.
9.iTranslate
“…The first app to make the legendary SciFi dream of a Universal Translator reality.”
This is how iTranslate developers describe their app.
Judging by the app’s features, the above description may not be an overstatement. iTranslate combines voice recognition, machine translation and voice output to enhance your experience. More than 50 languages are supported, including English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and many others. You can listen to high quality voices in most languages and easily share your translated text via email or social media. iTranslate is tablet ready and includes a landscape keyboard for faster typing.
No wonder iTranslate is the most popular iPhone translator…
iTranslate supports: iOS & Android.
10.Kayak
Do you have a conference next month in London?
Are you planning a trip to Tasmania?
Although there are many mobile travel apps, Kayak is one of the few that let you plan a trip with multiple flights and destinations easily and with great savings. With Kayak you can conduct flight and car search, hotel search and booking, compare flight, hotel and car rental deals, track your flight status and view and manage your trip itinerary. The app is quick and easy to use.
Kayak supports: iOS, Android, Windows Phone & Kindle Fire.
Documents, Administration & Utilities
11.TeamViewer for Remote Control
You’re just away for the holiday but there’s a Word document you desperately need. Alas, it’s on your home computer…
TeamViewer app has been created for situations like that. With this effective tool you can remotely access computers from your mobile device. Be the IT guy and spontaneously support friends and family by accessing unattended computers, even during a phone call. Access your private home computer to edit documents or use a particular software while you’re away. TeamViewer is tablet ready and meets the highest security standards. It can easily access computers behind firewalls and proxy servers. TeamViewer is fast and flawless. The connection to your computer is stable and file transfer works really well.
TeamViewer Free is intended for private use. Business licenses are available on TeamViewer.com.
TeamViewer supports: iOS, Android, Windows 8/RT, Mac OS X, Windows & Linux.
12.Adobe Reader
Introduced back in the early 1990s by Adobe, the PDF (Portable Document Format) file format has been playing an ever increasing role in our digital life ever since. We save PDF files instead of printing, to save paper, we read PDF ebooks, reports, white papers and a lot more. When it comes to mobile PDF readers, Adobe Reader app is a solid choice. With this app you can easily access, manage and share a wide variety of PDF types, including PDF Portfolios, password protected documents, fillable forms and Adobe LiveCycle rights managed PDF. Although Adobe Reader has its shortcomings, the app is handy and super useful, especially if you’re a student or a professional interacting with documents on a regular basis. The app is feature rich and enables you to annotate and comment on PDF documents, organize your documents, share documents and a lot more. Several languages are supported, including English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and more.
Adobe Reader supports: iOS, Android, Mac OS X, Windows & Linux.
13.CamScanner – Phone PDF Creator
Part of being productive is getting rid of clutter. Piles of receipts, letters and business cards mess up your workspace and you can’t focus. This is where CamScanner shines. This super useful tool turns your phone into a scanner and a fax machine. With this nifty app you can digitize any paper documents by simply photo shooting. CamScanner can auto-crop your image, enhance its quality and create an industry standard PDF file. Now you can email it, fax it, upload it to the cloud and more. CamScanner will get the most out of your camera, and the documents it produces are readable and easy to share.
CamScanner free version is ad supported with some limitations (e.g. PDF files generated are embedded with watermark). There’s an optional paid upgrade to CamScanner Full Version to remove advertisements and limitations.
CamScanner supports: iOS & Android.
14.QR Droid Zapper
Rated “5 out of 5 stars” by PCWorld and Android Magazine, QR Droid Zapper is a full-featured, multi language QR utility. With this app you can ‘optically’ share just about anything. Scan a QR code in a magazine and watch a video immediately or create a code from a contact or bookmark and share it with your friends. No typing needed! The app has many features: You can scan QR codes from your camera, browser, SD card or saved image. QR Droid Zapper saves a complete history of every QR code you create or decode. With QR Droid Zapper scanning is fast and effective, even in low light. The app design is great and the user interface makes it easy to use.
Update: For a limited time QR Droid Zapper is offered 100% free & 100% ad free!
Zapper Scanner supports iOS. QR Droid supports Android (these are two versions of the same product, only the platform is different).
15.Flashlight
Download for Android | Download for iOS
You’re in the living room, watching TV. There’s a lightning storm outside when suddenly you hear a crashing thunder. BOOOM! The next thing you know, it goes dark… Damn, you wish you had a flashlight…
With Flashlight on your mobile device, those worries become a thing of the past. This handy app turns your phone or tablet into the brightest illuminator ever. Start up Flashlight from your main screen and use the simple, clean interface to enter Strobe Mode and control light frequency. Flashlight is easy to use, fast and reliable. It supports all Android devices and most iOS devices. There are many flashlight apps out there, but Flashlight by Intellectual Flame Co., Ltd. gives the brightest light by combining the use of the cam light with elegant design. Just don’t leave Flashlight on for too long or you’ll drain your battery!
Flashlight supports: iOS & Android.
