This month we take a look back over last year’s apps and provide you with the greatest hits of 2014. Business apps are important for a number of reasons and they are becoming more crucial to businesses achieving their goals than ever. Take a look and see if anything takes your fancy.
Private Wi-Fi
Connecting to public Wi-Fi when abroad can be a risky game of Russian Roulette since most Wi-Fi signals are unencrypted. It still amazes me that many business travellers ignore this and still use them for important work that would be a disaster if it fell into the wrong hands. With Private Wi-Fi, you essentially become invisible to would-be hackers. Private Wi-Fi encrypts all data going into and out of your device, acting like a personal VPN. Traffic is routed through Private Wi-Fi’s secure servers. Private Wi-Fi also assigns you a temporary and random private IP address that cannot be traced through Private WiFi’s servers, nor can anyone find your real IP address or location. Available on iOS with plans starting at £1.49/ month
Uber
Take a lot of taxis? This app could just save you time and money. Uber connects users to drivers in more than 70 cities through 20 countries. It’s an on demand service and you can link it to your paypal or credit card so you never need to worry about having cash on you. It allows you to sit back and enjoy the ride, it will even email you the receipt for your journey so you can easily fill out your expenses. Available on iOS and Android.
Skype
Most people will have heard of Skype by now but you may not be using it on your mobile. Hold your video conferences through this free app and you may never look back. You will have to accept that as with anything in life, you get what you pay for. The quality can sometimes be poor but more often than not you will be able to use Skype from anywhere in the world that offers you the appropriate connectivity. You can use the service from your mobile or desktop and gives you the ultimate flexibility for zero cost! Available on iOS, Android and Windows Phone
Any.do
For a lot of small business owners their day always starts with a long list of tasks. Any.do is making a name for itself amongst the numerous organisational apps out there. The app allows you to easily add tasks to your to-do list and cross them off when they are complete, or you can defer the task to another day. Any.do allows you to move your tasks around so you can fit them in as your schedule changes throughout the day. Available on iOS and Android
GDocs
Many business folk have defected away from the traditional comfort zone of Microsoft Office to the forward thinking arms of Google Docs. Managing your documents in the cloud is easily done via GDocs which gives you access to Google Docs online, you can view and edit documents through a Web browser. Currently GDocs can edit text documents and view spreadsheets and PDF files. GDocs can view your documents online or download the text files for editing (and sync them back when you’re done). The app lacks advanced formatting options, but it’s a promising start considering that the program is still in beta. Available on Android for free.
For Fun - Dude, Your Car
There isn’t anything much funnier in this world than watching a man’s face when you break the news that something terrible has happened to their car. Dude, Your Car allows you to execute the perfect prank on your work colleagues. By taking a photo of the car in question the app will allow you to photoshop in scratches, clamps or even flames leaving you to sit back and watch the panic spread across their face. That has got to be worth £0.99