'Net Features : ios

10 iOS Apps for Internet Professionals

Allison Howen — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:45:00 GMT

Mobile has changed everything – from the way we advertise and format emails to the way we design our websites and interact with colleagues when away from the office.

In fact, the biggest benefit of mobile may be that it connects us with our surroundings regardless of where we are located. This makes it easy for Internet professionals to stay connected with their colleagues, important data and even their business’s social profiles while on the go.

That said, Apple’s popular App Store contains hundreds of thousands of applications, which can make it very time consuming for business professionals to discover the best apps to keep them connected with their businesses. Luckily, Website Magazine has sifted through the App Store and has highlighted ten top apps for Internet professionals below:

Vine

Since its January release, Vine has taken the App Store by storm. In fact, this free video sharing tool is currently number one in the app store, and has been leveraged by everyone from retailers like Urban Outfitters to the White House. Businesses can use this app to spice up their Twitter feed and engage their followers with short video snippets.

Google Drive

Need an important file while away from your desktop? No problem. Just download the Google Drive app and sign up with the cloud service to receive 5GB of free storage. By doing this, you can save all of your important files to the cloud and access them from any device, any browser and anywhere. This free app allows users to edit and create Google documents and spreadsheets, share photos and view documents offline.

StratPad

StratPad helps business owners create plans and strategies for their enterprise’s success directly from their iPad. It provides tutorials and a toolkit to help users create business plans, map out their goals and produce data-filled graphs and reports. Reports can also be easily shared via StratPad, and the app even integrates with Yammer to allow teams to discuss reports together. The app comes in a free version as well as multiple paid versions that range from $9.99 to $54.99.

Zendesk

Zendesk’s updated iPad app includes new customer history features and a reporting dashboard, which helps keep companies aware of their performance from anywhere, at anytime. The reporting dashboard allows managers to monitor data and metrics with three different views: the leaderboard, ticket activity and first response. The leaderboard view gives users a quick glance at metrics like customer satisfaction, solved tickets and response time, while the ticket activity view provides details on the volume of tickets, efficiency and quality of agent responses. Conversely, the first response view contains an interactive dial that lets users discover how long it took to respond to customer inquiries across various time periods. The update also offers customer service history on a company or customer level, which allows service teams to gain insights on previous interactions so they can better address customers' individual needs.

Foursquare for Business

While Foursquare might not be the most popular social network, businesses should maintain a presence here in order to increase their visibility. And with the Foursquare for Business app, brands can increase their visibility while on the go. This app allows social media managers to create updates to be shared on Foursquare, Facebook and Twitter. Moreover, users can use this app to manage multiple business profiles, turn specials on and off, as well as monitor other important data like recent check-ins.

Adobe Eazel for Photoshop

If you’re a designer who wants to create art work while on the go, look no further than Adobe Eazel for Photoshop. This art app is a companion app to Adobe Photoshop CS5 software, and enables users to create works of arts with their fingertips. Moreover, artwork can be sent directly to Photoshop CS5, where they are re-rendered at a higher resolution and can be saved in any file format.

GoDaddy

Purchase domains from anywhere with the free Go Daddy app. Not only can this app be leveraged to buy and manage domains, but also to purchase hosting, Web Builder, SSL certificates and more. Additionally, users can access their Go Daddy email from within the app’s Mobile Workspace feature, as well as store and access files from the Online Storage file manager. And if those features don’t make this app an instant-download, then perhaps access to the company’s Internet-only commercials will.

Analytics Tiles App

Got analytics on the brain? If so, consider downloading the colorful Analytics Tiles App. This engaging app allows users to monitor and interact with performance data. The apps interface is customizable, as it allows users to add and remove reports (tiles) via drag and drop functionality. Tiles can further be customized with a variety of color options, and users can view additional details from a report by tapping on its tile. It is important to note that users must also have a Google Analytics account with at least one active website in order to use the app.

OfficeTime – Time & Expense Tracking

Track all of your hours and expenses from your iOS mobile device with the free OfficeTime app. This time tracker allows users to track time by project and category, track time with multiple hourly rates, run multiple timers and work offline. Moreover, users that upgrade to the paid version have the ability to export time data to Excel or Numbers and track an unlimited number of projects and categories.

Website Magazine

We couldn’t compile a list of the top iOS apps for Internet professionals without mentioning the Website Magazine app. This updated app (which is available for iOS and Android devices – including tablets), allows users to access the Website Magazine daily blog, read current and previous issues, as well as explore information within each topic channel.

Bonus: Not enough apps? Discover additional top mobile apps for Web workers here.

The Most Popular Smartphone Is...

Allison Howen — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 18:30:00 GMT

Here is the proof that 2012 is the year of mobile…

A recent study by Nielsen reveals that two thirds of new mobile buyers in the U.S. are now opting for smartphones, which has led to more than half (54.9 percent to be exact), of U.S. mobile subscribers now owning a smartphone.

And although this is good news for the mobile market, as well as for Web workers who are already monetizing off of this new channel (retailers, marketers, affiliates, etc.), it is not good news for some companies who have put many dollars into mobile, yet are still being left in the dust – we are talking about you, Microsoft.

The Q2 smartphone study shows that the Windows 7 phone is only used by 1.3 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, while other Windows phones only make up 3 percent of the market. This means that less people have a Windows phone than still have a Blackberry, since RIM devices make up 9 percent of the U.S. smartphone market.

The study also reveals that Android leads the smartphone market in the U.S., with 51.8 percent of smartphone users owning an Android device. And Apple is currently in second place, with more than a third of smartphone owners (34.3%) using the company’s iPhone. However, it is also important to note that Apple has the highest manufacturer share of smarphone handsets. Additionally, among smartphone owners who bought their device during June 2012, 54 percent said they chose an Android phone, while 36 percent bought an iPhone.

Create an iOS-Ready Site with This New Tool

Michael Garrity — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 03:00:00 GMT

International domain name registrar and cloud hosting provider Gandi wants to help you be iOS-ready with its latest product, Gandi Basekit.

This new website creation tool was built for compatibility with Apple iOS devices, meaning iPhones and iPads. Customers create sites that will be easily, automatically viewable on these mobile devices; and, of course, they will be hosted by Gandi.

Oh, and it’s totally free.

Websites can be created using HTML5 and CSS style sheets, an important component in developing for iOS, which doesn’t support Flash. This does away with the need to set up Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) or Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) systems for similar functionality.

The tool comes with a variety of features and benefits for users. For instance, it was designed for ease-of-use, and offers preconfigured and customizable theme templates, so users can start building their websites in no time. That being said, it also comes with a powerful infrastructure for more advanced developers, providing tools that allow experts to directly edit their sites’ HTML and CSS codes using preset or user-supplied graphics and images.

And, one cannot forget the integrated social media tools (including link installation for the most widely used social media sites), e-commerce integration with a Google Checkout widget for payment functionality and intuitive content management that allows users to edit block text, add more blocks, reposition images and add a submit button or navigation menu using a simple drag-and-drop interface.

Basekit is the latest in Gandi’s portfolio of free tools. It is currently available for all of Gandi’s customers.

Marketers: Make Way for MightyMeeting

Michael Garrity — Thu, 03 May 2012 07:00:00 GMT

Thanks to modern technology, professionals can conduct meetings and collaborate from seemingly anywhere. Mobile sales and collaboration solutions provider MightyMeeting is attempting to take it to the next level with a recent update to its iOS application.

The MightyMeeting app was built to help Web professionals conduct online meetings and deliver presentations face-to-face directly from their iPhone and/or iPad devices, and these new updates will now support nearcasting and voice conferencing, among other things.

The app offers support for images, documents and spreadsheets in addition to presentations and demo videos, allowing users to manage, share and present materials from their mobile devices. It will now also provide a team meeting option so attendees can take turns presenting content from their devices, which was designed to help share news and updates among groups that have a mix of local and remote attendants. Users will even be able to create a list of “Favorite” files, and then others can access and save those files locally on their individual device for offline access.

The biggest update, however, is support for nearcast meetings, which lets up to 16 devices quickly connect in a peer-to-peer network to share presentations, demo videos and much more. Nearcast works over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, and can also be used to share content even without an Internet connection.

Finally, voice conferencing will be coming to the application, allowing meeting attendants to join remotely from any part of the world. Like nearcast, this feature will work over Wi-Fi with no additional long distance or data usage fees.

Think Inside the Box with Enterprise App System

Michael Garrity — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:00:00 GMT

It’s time for enterprise-level companies to starting thinking inside the Box. Specifically, the cloud services company of the same name, which has just released numerous enterprise-class applications that will use a Box.net cloud-based workspace and create a “virtual desktop” around it. This new app system is called Box OneCloud.

The idea is an attempt to position Box to be a major force in the post-PC world by establishing a cross-platform cloud system that lets users create and edit all of their files from within the cloud. OneCloud will be the first mobile framework built for enterprises that brings together mobile content and the applications designed to work with it.

The new solution comes in the form of four premiere apps for the iPad that are meant to represent best-in-class functionality and implement a round-trip connection to Box. When a file is edited or modified outside of the system, it can be saved back to Box in its original location.

These apps include the following features:

- QuickOffice allows users to edit Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents on-the-go, with any important changes that are made automatically saved back to the Box account.

- PDF Expert from Readdledocs is for adding annotations to documents by drawing, highlighting or making notes on the files, and then saving them back to Box where the changes can be viewed by the whole team.

- PaperPort Notes lets users record ideas and to-do items while they’re out and about with tools like voice dictation and recording, for when sitting down and typing is just not an option.

- Finally, Adobe’s popular EchoSign e-signature platform helps with signing crucial documents electronically with the greatest of ease, as they can be opened, signed and sent back all from an iPad.

All of these apps will be directly tied to an enterprise’s Box account, making files accessible to anyone within the organization. To find more compatible apps, users can open a file in Box and click the cloud logo on the top menu. A dropdown menu will appear and list all of the compatible apps installed on the device; it also features a button that will let users add compatible apps that aren’t currently installed.

Handwriting Recognition for iOS Apps

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:25:00 GMT

Apple fanboys (and fangirls of course) have entered into a state of near hysteria over the release of the third generation iPad. That perhaps overly intense focus however might lead them to overlook some fabuously interesting tech now available for iOS.

Phatware just announced availability of its writePad SDK 3.0, which enables software developers to incorporate handwriting recognition into their iOS apps for iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touch devices. The WritePad SDK now boasts a handwriting recognition engine which is packaged as a single static library for all of its 11 supported languages into a single application.

The WritePad SDK recognizes natural handwritten text in a different handwriting styles including cursive, print and a mix of the two. it also recognizes dictionary and non-dictionary words such as names, numbers and mixed alphanumeric combinations. The best part however is that it does not require a user to train the software to achieve any notable level of accuracy.

WritePad SDK evaluation is free, while commercial redistribution is royalty-based. You can see the tech at work firsthand via Phatware's Writepad app in the video below.

Mobile Web Usage is Doubling Every Year

Linc Wonham — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:00:00 GMT

Global Internet usage through mobile devices – not including tablets – essentially doubled from 4.3 percent in January 2011 to 8.5 percent in January 2012, according to Web analytics company StatCounter.

StatCounter also reports that the use of “mobile devices”, referring to smartphones and feature phones only in their research, to access the Internet has doubled year-over-year since 2009.

“While global Internet usage through mobiles is still under 10 percent, the pace of growth is remarkable,” says StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen.

StatCounter also announced the latest numbers regarding the world’s leading mobile vendors, mobile operating systems and mobile browsers, based on research covering all traffic to the StatCounter network. That data includes more than 15 billion pageviews monthly on a network of more than 3 million websites.

Most likely driven by its dominance in India, Nokia is still the world’s leading maker of mobile devices (again, phones only) in terms of Web pageviews, and Symbian maintained its lead as the top OS in the StatCounter sample. But both brands’ numbers are clearly in decline while Apple’s devices (not even including the iPad) and iOS are making dramatic gains.

Apple is the second-leading mobile device-maker worldwide but leads the U.S. and U.K. markets, and its iOS was also second worldwide with 24 percent of the Web pageviews in the StatCounter sample. Apple’s operating system was first in the U.S. with 45 percent of the views, just ahead of Android with 39 percent. Worldwide, the Android OS was again just below iOS for third place.

The Android browser was tops in North America with a 37-percent share of the pageviews, but second worldwide with 20 percent and behind Opera’s 24 percent. Apple’s Safari browser finished slightly behind Android in both samples.

The takeaway for website owners is of course the exponential rise in mobile access to the Internet since 2009 – about a 100-percent increase in each of the past three years. This should come as a surprise to no one, but it is interesting to see the numbers from different research reports from time to time. The global use of mobile devices to access the Web in 2009, according to StatCounter, was 0.7 percent. It jumped to 1.6 percent in January 2010, 4.3 percent in January 2011 and now 8.5 percent in January 2012.

BrightCove App Cloud Available

Administrator — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 22:30:00 GMT

Wouldn't it be nice if you could develop that next killer app in the cloud? Well you can! Cloud content service Brightcove has made App Cloud, an end-to-end platform for the development, deployment and operation of native apps for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, available to the general public.

App Cloud combines an open HTML5 Web development model with "intelligent" cloud services to accelerate app development, optimize performance, measure effectiveness, and enable dynamic updates to installed apps. Developers use HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and the App Cloud software development kit (SDK) to create apps.

“The App Cloud beta program has been very well received over the past few months, and we have been impressed by the quality, breadth and creativity of the apps developed by our beta users,” said Ashley Streb, Vice President of Technology at Brightcove. “Now, any organization can take advantage of App Cloud to easily build, deliver, and manage dynamic, custom content apps across multiple devices for a superior end user experience.”

Brightcove indicated that more than 1,200 individual users have participated in the App Cloud beta testing program and several App Cloud-powered apps are currently available for download through the iTunes App Store and Google's Android Market including apps from the U.S. Department of State and Lifetime Networks.

Smaato Measures Mobile Fill Rates and CTRs

Michael Garrity — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:00:00 GMT

A quarter two study by mobile ad optimization platform Smaato was released today and finds that ad inventory has been increasing at a faster rate than budgets, ulitmately leading to a decline in advertising fill rates.

The study was put together to look at a variety of mobile Web-based topics, including mobile ad adoption, fill rates and the overall effect on mobile ad network performance.

Another discovery that the study unearthed is that phones using Windows' mobile operating system had much higher clickthrough rates (CTRs) than iOS, Android, Blackberry and Symbian, both in the United States and across the globe.

Mobile Ad Networks
According to the study, the average ad network fill rate, worldwide, was 18 percent in quarter two of this year. That represents a 2 percent drop from quarter one and a 3 percent decrease from quarter two of 2010.

For the top 40 mobile advertising networks in the world, rates varied greatly, from 3 to 58 percent, but among the top 20 networks in the U.S., rates consistently declined from an average of 27 to 19 percent.

Smaato CEO Harald Neidhardt cites both the downturned economy and "an increasingly fragmented market" as reasons for the decline.

However, one bright spot that the study found was that there are typically higher returns for networks engaging in "specialization," such as offering a service like geo-location. Nine of the top 40 global networks that were specialized performed above the average Smaato index despite having smaller volumes than their competitors.

Mobile OS CTRs
Moving past networks and onto operating systems, the study measured the CTRs of various devices using different OS platforms.

Worldwide across operating systems, the highest CTRs to lowest, in order, were Windows Phones (taking the top spot for the second consecutive quarter), Symbian, RIM, iOS and Android, though the Google-owned OS saw its performance increase by nearly 50 percent from the same time last year.

It's a different outlook in the U.S., however, with Windows Phones just barely ahead of iOS, RIM out performing Symbian, and Android still trailing all of them.

Never fear, however, as Neidhardt sees a bright future for Android. "As the trend continues, we will see even greater demand from big brands and advertisers for the Android platform, and therefore greater revenue opportunities for publishers and developers as Android continues to proliferate."

Newsstand App Coming from Digital Publishing Suite

Michael Garrity — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 02:00:00 GMT

I don't know how something like this hasn't been developed yet for the iPad, and how it wasn't Apple that jumped on the idea, but Adobe's Digital Publishing Suite is currently developing Newsstand, a brand new application for iOS5 that will play the role of digital storefront for magazines and newspapers.

First, let's drop some knowledge. Facts and figures show that iPad sales continue to push forward, with over 2.5 million of the tablets sold over the last fourteen months. That's a lot, to be sure, but what's important to note is that with more people buying tablets, the purposes many have for acquiring them are also expanding. No longer are users just young people who want to play games and use the Internet and social media; in fact, now over half of all tablet owners use them to read newspapers and/or magazines.

However, the folks over at Adobe noticed a problem: the discoverability of magazine and newspaper apps is much lower than that of their counterparts, such as games, videos, plug-ins and other content. Moreover, since these tablets have a limited screen area, these reader apps can quickly get pushed to the back. While a Forrester study shows that tablet owners typically download an average of 17 applications, some feel that if iPad owners start (or, in some cases, continue) to download apps as ravenously as iPhone owners, these reader apps will get lost in the shuffle.

But if digital publishing is supposed to be the future, and trust me, publishing companies are banking on it, driving awareness of these various reader apps is crucial. Promoting an app, marketing digital content to print subscribers and leveraging social media are just a few of the methods that companies currently use to metaphoically get their publications into customers' hands. This is why Adobe's Newsstand can be a powerful tool for publishers.

Newsstand will provide readers with access to their favorite subscriptions from one central location as soon as they become available and, this is key, allow the readers to view the issue from outside of the magazine or newspaper's regular application. The application will offer full support for subscriptions so that publishers can created Newsstand-enabled apps, which will drastically incread the discoverability of their content and, if all goes according to plan, increase subscription sales and advertising revenue.

Here's the best part, or at least the most convenient. Applications that are created with Digital Publishing Suite to be detected by Newsstand will automatically be downloaded to the Newsstand app's shelf. This means no long download times to bother with on the user's part; in fact, it means no downloading at all on the user's part. The latest issues of their magazine or newspaper subscriptions will just be immediately placed on their shelf and ready to go as soon as they become available. These Suite-created Newsstand apps will also display on the shelf with the covers of the latest issue, which gives the whole thing a very inviting look.

According to Adobe, publishers will be able to start building apps for Newsstand shortly after the release of iOS5 and the Newsstand application.

Mobile Ad Engagement is Best at Midday

Linc Wonham — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 22:55:00 GMT

While the primary function of mobile ads has been to drive consumers to the Web, many campaigns are increasingly setting their sights elsewhere.

New data released by Jumptap has found that 34 percent of performance-focused campaigns are set to initiate a call or download, rather than direct the user to a website. The report evaluated over 11 billion ad requests made to the Jumptap network by over 83 million unique users. It also revealed that the peak time for mobile ad engagement occurs around midday, as opposed to the early morning or late evening time slots.

Conversely, click-through rates are at their lowest during the morning commute and first hours of the workday.

“Mobile, like PC Web-based advertising, is very measureable,” says Paran Johar, Jumptap’s chief marketing officer. “As such, many brands and app developers are measuring their ROI very closely and allowing consumers to respond to ads in varying ways including click-to-call , click-to-map, click-to-download or click-to-SMS”

The report showed that Android continues to drive the largest share of ad requests on the Jumptap network. Google’s mobile platform increased its share by more than 3 percent from the previous month to 42.4 percent while Apple’s iOS gained less than a percent to 30.3 percent.

While ad requests are handily dominated by Android devices at a growing rate, iOS leads in user engagement with the highest average click-through rates of all the mobile operating systems. These distinctions are important to note as advertisers and developers weigh the importance of reach and engagement and showcase how a cross-platform strategy is critical to a mobile campaign.

Multiple Mobile OS Development Now at AppMakr

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 20:21:00 GMT

Ready to create your first mobile app? DIY mobile app creation platform AppMakr announced it is adding support for both Windows Phone and Android operating systems.

The addition of the two operating systems make AppMakr the only "no coding required" platform to enable aspiring mobile app devlopers to do so on multiple mobile operating systems (the platform was/is previously focused on iOS).

"Mobile is the new frontier for news content, and our users rely on the PBS NewsHour app for news video, audio, and in-depth analysis," said Travis Daub, creative Director of the PBS NewsHour. "No segment of our audience is growing faster than mobile. We're absolutely thrilled that AppMakr is extending support for Android and Windows Phone 7. We will be able to rapidly roll out new apps and updates to support even more devices, and greatly expand our mobile reach."

Interested users are invited to participate in beta testing of the new AppMakr Android and Windows Phone functionality (no charge) be registering for an Appmakr account. at http://go.AppMakr.com/beta. General availability of the new platform support is scheduled for February 2011.

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