Thursday 1 August 2013

With so many apps to choose from are there any that deserve a permanent place on your home screen?

To date there are over 900,000 (apple) apps and more are being created by the minute; but are there any gems amongst them that can become a part of your ‘creative workflow’? More importantly do they assist you in your day to day job, helping you to deliver better ideas and idealogies?

I’ve always tried to stay aware of different ways to help feed the creative process and stimulate the creative juices. Here are a few of my personal favorites that have made it into my own creative work flow.


Flipboard
The more you ‘feed it’ the better it becomes.


This is probably my favorite and most used app. If you have an iPad, then you’re doing yourself a disservice by not installing Flipboard. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a big ‘Tweeter’ and I’m rarely on Facebook. But I keep up with exactly whats going on, on both Twitter, Facebook and many more, using Flipboard.

Flipboard is an app that makes browsing many different internet feeds pleasurable. It basically takes any content you feed into it and lays it out in a magazine style format, if you want to read the full article it’s just a click away. You never leave the app and once you’ve finished reading the article or viewing the video in its original format it’s just a click to get back to more of Flipboard’s content.


The content is always changing in time with the content providers you are following and the most current feeds are displayed on your ‘Cover Stories’. There is always something of interest but if for some reason you happen to get bored of the content, easy change it, add new providers, change the focus of your content providers and you’ve got a brand new magazine.

Take a look for yourself: http://www.flipboard.com

Some feeds into my Flipboard include:

Vimeo, Wallpaper Magazine, Total Film, Creative Review, Design Week, Cool HuntingCo.Design, Eye Magazine, It’s Nice That, My Modern Metropolis, Colossal, Twitter (my own feeds).


Flipboard has just brought out an update which takes things a step further allowing you to create your own magazine from the content. I’ve not used this much yet, but it looks like a good addition to Flipboard’s offering. Suffice to say the app is constantly evolving and what was an already amazing app, might just have got even better.

Whilst writing this blog I’ve also discovered a button which can be added to Firefox. The button when clicked will add the content directly into one of your newly created Flipboard magazines.
Flipboard is one of those applications that you’ll install, use and instantly fall in love with.

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Dropmark
Dropmark-it like its hot.



We use Dropmark at Idealogy for collective collaboration. Dropmark enables you to build folders of content for brainstorming sessions, be it project related or just things you like. You can add images, web pages, videos or even music. It’s all viewable within the Dropmark app and enables you to browse a selection of websites all full screen and ‘live’ one after another. Think tabs but much better.

Take a look for yourself: http://www.dropmark.com
also available as an iPhone app: http://dropmark.com/apps

Other similar apps worth your consideration:

http://www.gimmebar.com
http://www.getpocket.com

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If This Then That,
or that, or this, or that, or even that.




IFTTT (pronounced Gift minus the ‘G’ apparently) is a great little tool and once you start using it you might even forget you are. It allows you to create ‘recipes’ and connect the things you do everyday on the web.

So lets say you take a picture with Instagram, IFTTT can instantly add it to Drop Box, post it to Twitter, add it to Facebook or send the image to you in an email, the list is endless. And with contributors creating recipes all the time it’s constantly evolving.

If the recipe you want isn’t there, simply, create your own.

Take a look for yourself: http://www.ifttt.com

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Earning their place on your homescreen or tool bar.

I’m sure you’ve got your own favorite apps that you use on a regular basis, but have any of them been good enough to earn that place on your homescreen? With so many to choose from and so much competition for any one type of app, it takes something special to earn a permanent place in the higher echelons of the homescreen. Let alone be good enough to stay there, fending off the competitors and the dreaded delete button.

For now I’m happy with my choices, they work for me, but with the speed that everything moves in the world of apps I’m sure there’s something else waiting, something that will make our lives easier, something that we just can’t do without.

Then there will be yet another app fighting for your attention and that elusive place on your homescreen.

Chris.

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