One of the items on the micro site is a list of the Top 10 Paid iPhone Productivity Applications.
I am presuming this is based upon data from Apple and download information over a time period. However it is worked out, this is great data from Apple as you can see what other people are downloading in order to use their iPhone and iPod Touch as a productivity device.
So, below is the list from Apple along with links to Productivity Apps in the iTunes store.
The big shock for me is that my favorite GTD app on the iPhone, Omnifocus, is not on the list!. Maybe the cost of OmniFocus puts people off, and also the fact that you do really need the Mac App as well in order for it to work to the full effect.
The only real GTD or Task based item on the list is Things, which comes in at number 8!. Maybe
The category within iTunes for Productivity is quite big and covers a lot of areas. It is however interesting to see which applications are selling the best from Apples point of view.
What do you think? Are you surprised by this list of the top 10 Productivity Apps?
On the page they also mention some great Podcasts and material that is available via iTunes including the Getting Things Done audio book by David Allen. I have listed to the Audio book a few times and it is great as a recap whilst you are traveling and otherwise wasting valuable time.
Check the site out and I hope you find it useful. I am going to do separate posts with the Top Paid and Free productivity apps, according to Apple.
In the past couple of days, both the Mac and iPhone/iPod Touch versions of Evernote have been upgraded.
For those of you who have not seen Evernote, it is an application that allows you to capture and process notes. These notes can be text, photos, web clippings and much more. Evernote is available as a Web application, a Windows application, a Mac application, and an iPhone/iPod Touch application.
The Mac version is now at version 1.16 The improvements for this version are as follows:
You can now create bulleted and numbered lists, tables, and horizontal rules within your notes using the spiffy new note toolbar. We’ve made a bunch of smaller tweaks and enhancements that are less noticeable, but will make typing notes a lot better.
Ever wanted to type a link into a note, or, better yet, remove one that was already in there? Well now you can. Just CMD+click, select Link from the menu, and choose Add. To remove a link, hover over the link, CMD+click, select Link from the menu, and choose Remove.
This is one of our releases aimed at improving many aspects of Evernote that you may not see. Trust us, these changes will make your overall experience with Evernote much more positive.
The iPhone and iPod Touch version of the app is now at version 1.5. The main updates to version 1.5 are as follows:
Voice Notes are now available on iPod Touch when the microphone headset is used.
Enhanced support for European mobile carriers.
Improved camera orientation handling
Misc bug fixes
I still use Evernote and must admit that it is a great application that I could probably get a lot more out of. I will have to start to look for new ways of using it.
Do you use Evernote? If so I would love to hear how you use it so please comment on this post.
This blog post is worth reading as it will save you time, just as it saved me time. I use AwayFind as my email solution and do not get paid anything for telling you that I use it. You are getting the best type of recommendation for this product as I am a Raving Fan of it and believe that it can save you time.
I get a lot of free invites and requests to check things out but after a few days, I did manage to log in to the account that had been created for me and check it out. I am happy to say that I was very happy with what I saw.
Awayfind is not just a web tool,
it’s a blueprint for escaping email, with a handbook and a community to ensure your success.
In a nutshell, AwayFind is a web application that provides you with a web contact form that you can use in your email signature or auto-responder that enables people to contact you. There is also a methodology and associated free eBook once you sign up with simple, clear instructions on how to configure the system in order to reduce the burden email puts you under.
So, somebody sends you an email. Your auto-responder thanks them and tells them you are not checking email frequently so if their matter is urgent to please contact you via the AwayFind contact form. If the matter is not urgent, the email stays in your inbox ready for you to read it at your will.
If the matter is urgent, they will fill in the contact form and you will be contacted immediately via your preferred method.
Once you have an account you can login and from here you get your AwayFind Inbox and a very simple control panel. The first thing you want to be doing is editing your contact form.
This contact form is the form that you will direct people to in order to get in touch with you and it is the key component of the AwayFind service.
You can really personalize this form with your own details and logos to make it look an extension of your corporate branding.
Once this is complete, the next important step is to set how AwayFind reaches you. This is the method of contact once somebody completes the AwayFind web contact form. This is an important part. If you are not checking email, there is no point using your main email address as the contact method. It kind of defeats the purpose.
The way I use this is twofold. I have entered my cell phone number so that I get an SMS message and I have also cleverly entered my MobileMe email address.
As I use an iPhone and MobileMe, these emails are pushed to me and it does work pretty neat. I do not use the MobileMe address for much else so I know when I get an email on that account it is an important one. I sometimes have data and no cell coverage and sometimes cell coverage and no data. So, I always know I will get the urgent message.
Once AwayFind is configured you need to set up your mail server to send the auto-responder, for which instructions are available via AwayFind for the major mail server vendors. AwayFind even produce some sample auto-responders for you to use.
Well, I have been using AwayFind for the last month or so. I check email twice a day, or when I need to. I have stopped mail notifications and I manually check email on my iPhone.
I am totally free of “notification twitch”, that common complaint suffered by anybody who has ever owned a Blackberry!
I get on average two or three urgent requests a week. I have had no complaints out of people who email me, just curiosity about the system and how much time it is saving me.
If you want to save time and check email only twice a day, or less, then you either risk missing the occasional important time sensitive emails or you sign up to AwayFind.
I do realize that this will not work for everybody as unfortunately some people would not get away with this in their working environment due to the outdated attitudes of their superiors. However, give it a try, make them try it and I am sure, that you will see the benefit of the system.
I know this has sounded like a long sales pitch, but it is a subject that I am passionate about and I am full of enthusiasm for AwayFind. I wish them every success.
Have any of you tried AwayFind?, any views about the service or methodology? I would love to hear.
Remember the Milk is a task management application which enjoys some of the widest support options of any similar program. It fits in nicely with the Getting Things Done methodology as it combines many of David Allen’s key concepts into one tidy, convenient app which can greatly encourage better productivity and lower stress for its users.
From the Remember the Milk Website:
Take your tasks anywhere with this feature-packed application. See tasks located nearby, add and complete tasks on the go, organize upcoming tasks, and sync it all seamlessly with Remember The Milk.
The program hosts excellent visuals and functionality. Everything looks superb and the layout of every tool has been properly developed to encourage ease of use and a genuine desire to come back to the system daily.
Every version of Remember the Milk has been given due attention too which means that whether you’re accessing it via a computer, Blackberry or iPhone, the same convenient navigation and solid layout will be represented across the board. Remember the Milk uses the same design ethic embraced by so many other GTD developers by keeping everything as simple as possible.
All of the most common features necessary for proper implementation of the GTD system are represented here. Perhaps one of the most interesting (and innovative) features is the “Locate Your Tasks” option which places your various tasks on a Google map for easy access and grouping.
Little touches such as this go a long way toward extending the functionality of Remember the Milk as well as helping in setting it apart from the competition.
The program allows for other important features too. Tasks can be designated for reminders (issued by various SMS platforms) or easily synced and shared with as many collaborators as are desired.
“Quick Add” makes the addition of new information incredibly simple and convenient and the ability to customize your priorities goes a long way toward helping to make the whole package come together.
Remember the Milk allows users to group their various tasks into any number of categories such as headings like “personal”, “work”, “call” and more.
The ability to customize your lists into as many or as little grouping as desired is something that will no doubt be very welcome to those using the application and it really helps to expand the user-base from people who only want to use the program minimally to those who require the presence of very in-depth choices.
If there is a major drawback it is really only in the download for iPhone users which requires a small payment to take advantage of. This shouldn’t prove much of a problem considering the incredibly diverse number of options which can be taken advantage of however. Remember the Milk is accessible through offline Google pages, Google Calendar,Gmail Gadget, Twitter and Blackberry phones. The latter is perhaps the best salve for users who don’t have an iPhone but still wish to make use of the program while on the go.
The blog and help sections of the main page go a long way toward providing a solid support basis for the application as well. While a forum would be a welcome addition, Remember the Milk has such a robust blog archive that almost every question and scrap of news regarding the system can be quickly and easily accessed.
Overall Remember the Milk is certainly one of the best task management applications currently available for users to get onto no matter which version of the service used. The aesthetics, functionality, loads of essential features and great range of support all add up to make Remember the Milk stand out from the crowd of similar applications.
As part of writing this review I signed up for an account with Remember the Milk and I am trialling it aside my usual application, OmniFocus.
It will be interesting to see how I get one with Remember the Milk and I will report back with my findings.
What do you think, got any comments about Remember the Milk or cool tips for using it for Getting Things Done? I would love to hear from you so please comment below.
I have been using NetNewsWire on my Mac as my main RSS Newsreader for quite a while now.
I love RSS news feeds and I utilize them to make my own tailored news feed, delivering me the news I want every day. I love explaining RSS to people not in the know. It is like taking the parts you like out of every print newspaper and getting it delivered to you daily, free of charge. NetNewsWire on the iPhone is one of my most used applications on the iPhone. The ability to sync what you have read between the phone and your desktop via the Newsgator sync service is awesome. This means that once you read something on the phone, it is marked as read on your desktop the next time you launch the desktop news client.
I always find a spare five minutes here and there to catch up with reading my news on my iPhone. There has up to now being a slight problem.
I subscribe to a lot of RSS Feeds. Some of the feeds I read religiously, other are mailing lists that I skim for useful information. This is all good on my desktop, but on my iPhone I find it annoying to have to download all the feeds and also the interface on the iPhone is more restrictive and I find myself having to scroll around a lot of the time looking for my “killer feeds”, of which there are probably around 15.
Well, I have just found a little gem of a feature that is available on the iPhone version of the NetNewsWire application. The cool little feature is the ability to choose what feeds you show on the iPhone.
Simply, swipe across the feed that you do not want to show on the iPhone and select delete. You now have the option to remove the feed for good, or to just remove it from the iPhone.
I know this is a little feature, that maybe you already know about but this is a productivity tip that has improved the way I read news.
I have now reduced my feeds from around 80 to my killer 15 that I want to keep up to speed with when I am out and about.
Hope this has been of use, as usual, would love to hear your comments.
Whilst we are on the subject of feeds, don’t forget to subscribe to the feed from this site and get our productivity and time saving updates direct to your favourite news reader!
Evernote have just released version 1.4 of their fantastic note taking application for the iPhone.
The biggest feature for me is the ability to mark a note as a favorite and then view it when offline. This means that you can now use the power of the desktop client to utilize the file storage capability of the Evernote iPhone application.
I tend to add a lot of documents to Evernote from the Mac client, so the ability to mark these as favourites and always have them on my iPhone is a feature within Evernote that I have been waiting for.
There are so many ways to use Evernote and it seems that every time I speak to another Evernote user they enlighten me with some great way of adding another little trick to my ever growing arsenal.
With the local file storage capability it may replace my need for the file syncing applications on the iPhone as I will be able to do pretty much what I need on the iPhone.
As well as this, version 1.4 also brings:
Tips and suggestions on creative ways to use Evernote
Signifcantly faster loading of notes, searching, and filtering
I cannot believe that I have never done a Top 5 list on this blog. In fact I have never done a blog entry based around a list before so here goes.
What better place to start than with a list for my Top 5 Productivity Tools on the iPhone.
I love my Apple iPhone. it has to be the single gadget that has most affected my productivity. Being an advocate of the Getting Things Done methodology, I love to talk about ubiquitous capture, and the iPhone is my capture device of choice.
In my opinion, Apple have brought together an amazing collection of tools that you can carry around as a single device in order to help you achieve what is required from your working day, as well as leaving some room for the fun and social aspects of the iPhone.
Here are my Top Five iPhone Apps for Productivity.
Calendar – Bit of an obvious one this but my life runs around my Calendar. The built in Calendar application is one of the most used apps on my iPhone. I sync to my desktop using MobileMe which now works fantastically after the initial teething problems. I can enter an appointment on my iPhone or on my Mac and they sync in the cloud without having to do anything. What a great technology and it means my calendar, and work schedule is always on my iPhone.
OmniFocus – OmniFocus is the current GTD application that I use. I have multiple projects configured both for my home and work lives and this application is in constant use. I capture my thoughts to OmniFocus and they sync again over MobileMe back to my Mac. I have not really played with the location aware profiles yet but I am sure I will.
EverNote – I record all my receipts and photo notes straight to Evernote. I have every invoice and purchase order in PDF from my business as well as all the other files that I want to share between multiple locations stored in EverNote. The Web application, Mac Application, and iPhone application make this a killer note taking and storing app for me.
iBlueSky – I recently reviewed iBlueSky, the newest Mind Mapping application for the iPhone. I have found myself using this app rather than creating paper Mind Maps. The developer assures me that my little niggles with it are being addressed in a later version for which I cannot wait.
Zenbe – Zenbe for me is about making lists. OmniFocus in my opinion is too heavyweight for simple recurring lists so I have tended to create these in Zenbe. These sync with Zenbe on the Internet and the very simple click process for ticking off your list items makes this my list manager of choice.
I would love to hear from the rest of you to see what your best apps are for productivity on the iPhone.
I blogged earlier today about the new Using your iPhone to Get Things Done micro site that Apple had just released.
In the last 
