Acquire these 5 iPhone productivity apps
By Phil Hornshaw
The news that Apple has acquired Cue, the company behind a productivity app on iOS that combines information like your scheduled appointments with information like traffic data, suggests the iPhone and iPad maker is about to make greater strides in the realm of productivity apps.
We’ve seen similar apps in the mobile sphere already, like Android’s Google Now app that also looks to use lots of different kinds of data to help you with your day-to-day tasks. With Cue’s app now out of the iTunes App Store following the acquisition, though, it seems you’ll have to wait to see what Apple’s up to. In the meantime, grab these useful productivity apps to help you get more done each day.
Organizing your to-dos
One of the big functions you’ll find in productivity apps in the iTunes App Store is the ability to create useful to-do lists. There’s no shortage of apps that let you organize your upcoming tasks, but a few go above and beyond to make completing them even easier.
Evernote (Free) is a great app to start with for anyone looking to increase productivity, simply because it does so much. With an account, you can save notes, to-do lists, annotated images and a whole lot more to a cloud storage location, and then sync all your bits of data to other devices.
Another solid to-do list app is Any.DO (Free), which has as a slick, minimalist design to make keeping your various tasks organized and clear. The app also makes it easy to see the entire monthly view of what you have going on, and you can set tasks and calendar items and adjust their priority on the fly. You’re also able to create lots of folders to keep tasks organized and separated.
If Any.DO isn’t for you, check out Clear ($0.99), another app with a simple interface that’s dedicated to to-do lists and easy task management. Clear is great for making quick notes and keeping clear lists of tasks and for things like groceries.
And if there are tasks that keep slipping your mind, try Checkmark ($9.99). It’s also a to-do list app, but with the added benefit of letting you create timed or location-based reminders for certain tasks, so you never accidentally forget to pick up more milk again.
A little assistance
In addition to listing apps for various tasks, there’s a whole list of apps that function as “personal digital assistants.” Of course, Apple has its proprietary Siri technology – but if your phone’s too old for Siri, you can still have the benefit of a voice-based assistant in Evi (Free). Like Siri, you can talk to Evi to search the web, have emails and texts read to you, and lets you control your phone with your voice to do things like schedule tasks and make calls.
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