Travel Apps

            After focusing too much on business in our last blog, we would like to introduce a more relaxing topic: Travel apps. When it comes to traveling and booking destinations, applications available for phones, computers, and ipads can be very resourceful for individuals. These applications have made booking and traveling to new destinations much more convenient. There is practically an app for every facet of your trip from booking hotel rooms, confirming flights, and documenting your experiences.

            According to an article in Forbes, one travel application that ranks within their “10 best travel apps” includes FlightAware. This application allows users to get instant updates on their flights including delays, cancellations, booking, or gate changes.  All that must be provided by users is a flight number and immediately all necessary information is available at their fingertips. This convenience and easy accessibility clearly benefits users as well as airlines considering more people will be inclined to book flights. Long gone are the days when you arrive at the airport only to realize your flight has been delayed. How much easier could getting information about your flight be?

            Another application that was listed in Forbes “10 best travel apps” is Jetsetter. Jetsetter is an application that provides its users with the ability to book hotels in a plethora of destinations at discounts as high as 50% off. Jetsetter is a great tool to aid you in planning a vacation simply by providing users with plenty of savings on a variety of hotels. This application also features professional photography of exotic destinations all over the world. Who wouldn't want to get a preview of their potential stay while on vacation and simultaneously receiving a great discount? I would suggest to future travelers to take the time to look into apps such as Jetsetter, it will pay off in the end.

            One application popular among young adults is Instagram which was also featured in Forbes as a travel app. Many may know Instagram as a social media to communicate between friends through pictures, but it also serves as a wonderful application when it comes to traveling. Instagram is a way for people to document their travels through photography and share with their friends. How often, while on vacation, could an application such as Instagram come in handy as a means to share an experience? Instagram also serves to promote businesses and destinations through advertisement to users.

            Another app that can be vital when on vacation or traveling is the North Face Trailhead. This app can calculate your location and provide a list of hiking trails and biking routes in the area. Through the establishment of applications such as Trailhead, users are able to get the most out of their vacations. Have you ever been to a new location and wished you knew all the insider trails and lookout spots to visit? This application takes care of that problem by allowing individuals to have complete access to great experiences.

            All these travel applications have one major quality in common. They are all beneficial in making your travel experience more convenient and enjoyable, as well as promoting a particular business or location. Not only are they extremely useful but they are 100% free! What could you lose by taking the time to check out a few of these travel applications? They are definitely worth taking a look at when planning your next travel. Perhaps they are just the excuse you needed to plan that much needed vacation. To learn more, check them out at Forbes.

Mobile Credit Card Apps

           As detailed in our last blog, office document apps are essential for organization.  But for small on-the-go businesses, it is often difficult to process the many day-to-day transactions they make selling their products in different places and venues.  Small businesses on the move used to have to run cash only shops or process credit cards on laptops (Ferner). This can lead to a slow and lengthy process without a strong Internet connection or wireless hotspot. These kinds of connections are rarely found in certain event venues (Ferner).  Mobile credit card apps come into play significantly for these types of merchants and are quick and easy for the buyer and seller.

          Mobile credit card apps are the next big thing for small business, but how do they work?  They are actually quite simple.  Most of these credit card applications are free and easy to download from the app store on to your smart phone.  Although the app is free to download, you will need to purchase some type of “dongle” to go with your credit card app.  What is a dongle?  It is a hardware device that attaches to your mobile phone to swipe and read buyers credit cards (Ferner).  The dongle attaches into the audio jack of your android, blackberry, or I-phone for a secure connection (Ferner).  From there it is simple to set up your account and start accepting credit card payments.

          There are many types of credit card apps out there, but one of the most popular is called Square.  This is app is practical in many ways for it can be used with or without the proposed Square dongle (Ferner).  Businesses can swipe or type in credit card account information easily this way (Ferner).  Transactions can be processed with no hassle and allow the buyer to sign their receipt on the handy touch screen.  The receipt can then be sent automatically via email to the buyer (Ferner). The best thing about Square that gives it a competitive advantage to other credit card payment apps is the fact that it is device independent and no contract is required (Ferner).  Nevertheless, Square charges $.15 plus 2.75 percent for a swiped card and $.15 plus 3.5 percent for typed-in account information (Ferner).

          Another trendy credit card payment app is called Intuit GoPayment.  It is very similar to Square in some ways and very different in others.  With Intuit you can sign up with your bank account information and funds can be deposited within up to 2-3 days directly into your account.  Intuit is the same as square in the way it can swipe credit card information, but different because Intuit can save you time by syncing your transactions with the various GoPayment software such as quick books to manage your business.  Intuit gives you the option to pay as you go with different swipe rates for each credit card, or you can pay a monthly fee of 12.95 and save more on each transaction you make.  

          Being consumers, we can see that even though these two credit card apps have similar characteristics, they can serve different functions to store and organize your sales in different ways depending on your business.  Credit card apps are just another example of the way mobile business apps are progressing society and technology. Expect more on business apps in our next blog.

Business Productivity Apps

Office document apps are very useful in businesses. All businesses have reports and presentations to compose for many reasons. These apps provide a more user friendly way to get information compiled in a presentable format. Whether it is a simple word document that needs to be created and shared or a complex spreadsheet reflecting a company’s performance during the period, these apps are Great assets to businesses. The apps allow you to access files on corporate networks. Because these apps are available on both the iPhone and the iPad, it is much easier to be mobile. You no longer have to carry around a heavy laptop to meetings. There are many different types of apps within this category that I would like to discuss.

One specific app called Pages is a simple but very helpful app. It has the components of both Microsoft Word and Microsoft Publisher. It is great for creating simple reports and letters. It may also be used to create flyers, cards, or posters for events. There are many different templates and other organizational tools within the app. You can add pictures and charts to documents. The possibilities are endless, and all this can be done from your phone. When the document is saved, it is updated to iCloud so that the document is accessible from any devices connected to the internet.

Another app that is great for displaying information is Keynote. It is very similar to Microsoft PowerPoint but has many more features to make giving presentations much easier. There are many different options to choose from when creating your presentation. Portfolios of all of your work can be easily created with preexisting templates. There is also a showroom template where you can display pictures of a new, upcoming products or a product that has just been released. This app makes it easier to rearrange pictures, charts, and animations. All you have to do is simply drag the objects around with your finger on the screen. You can also purchase a TV adapter to help project your presentation to a larger screen

Almost every business struggles with communication in some way. An app called Shareplus is a mobile version of Sharepoint, which is a program that allows companies to share documents, files, and information with other people within their organization. No matter where you are, if you need to upload files to your boss who is across the country, you can now easily do that. You can record conversations and meetings and save them as audio files and upload them directly to Sharepoint using Shareplus. Wi-Fi sharing enables you to transfer files over a web browser. There is built in data protection to prevent your files from being compromised. Finally this app allows you to access blogs and discussion boards within your company on the go.

All of these office document apps greatly contribute to the overall growth of companies and organizations around the world. I’m sure that apps will continue to improve and get better in many different ways. Anything that can save some time for people who already have a bunch of things to do in their lives definitely has a positive impact on the business world. How has business productivity apps impacted your world?