Office² HD is one of a select few quality iPad apps that allow Microsoft Works users to access, work on, and keep MS formatting. Microsoft made a lot of late Q4 entries onto the App Store and many are hinting at and hoping they will bring their own mobile suite of productivity apps to iOS soon. Until that happens, however, students and business people who are PC/MS users have had to rely on third-party apps, which have real limitations, particularly when it comes to advanced editing and layout on Apple tablets.

ByteSquared aims to change that. A recent update to Office² HD offers Word users near-desktop quality creation and editing tools for both .doc and .docx files.

Simon Bates, CEO, states: “Office² HD’s latest update transforms mobile office productivity from a secondary method of completing office tasks to a powerful and even preferential manner of quickly and efficiently keeping in touch with your office. I feel this new version easily makes Office² HD the app of choice for editing Microsoft Office documents on iPad.”

We won’t know if it’s “preferential” to an MS app until there is one, but it’s a big step forward and both Word users and Apple should benefit from an app that puts iPad productivity solutions to non-Apple-devoted hands.

$7.99

Office² HD

iPad Only App - Designed for the iPad

Our Rating: :: PRODUCTIVE
Read Our Full Review >>

Released: 2010-04-01 :: Category: Business

Car Trip is an inexpensive app that helps users while driving. It keeps track of the exact distance till the destination as well as plans the most advantageous route to take to get there.

For the fuel conscious, it also calculates how much fuel is required and how much it’ll cost the driver, according to the average speed of the car. It might be a feature already available on some cars but for those of us with older cars, it’s an extremely useful concept for long trips.

The app is laid out in a simple manner and even keeps track of the next five days of weather reports which is useful for planning ahead.

For the planning obsessive who’s working on a budget, Car Trip is an ideal way to organize an all important long distance trip.

It’s out now, currently priced at $0.99, before returning to its original price of $1.99 soon.

$0.99

Car Trip

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-01-15 :: Category: Travel

Originally designed for the iPhone, Appigo’s Notebook app has gone through a major update and is now a universal app designed to play nicely with the iPad as well. The productivity app is well known for offering a simple user interface and solid feature set to create, share and edit notes. The new 2.0 version is now optimized for Dropbox syncing, which allows the user to share notes on all iOS devices as well as Mac and PC platforms. In addition to sharing between the user’s devices, this new support makes sharing with friends, family or colleagues even easier.

The update plays off the company’s thought that adding a powerful collaboration tool was necessary for its users. The new version adds a familiar notebook interface with full-screen editing capabilities and overall the update seems to be a cost effective productivity tool for users with multiple iOS devices. The notes are saved in standard text format and is compatible with PC and Mac text editing applications. Notebook is available on the iTunes App Store for $4.99.

$4.99

Notebook

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad

Our Rating: :: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Read Our Full Review >>

Released: 2008-09-12 :: Category: Productivity

Car ownership is great when everything is running smoothly. It’s not so great when said car gets a dent in it however. There’s no app out there that could magically fix the car for free but there is an app that could help get the best price for fixing the dent: DINGIT.

DINGIT enables the user to take photos of the dent, enter details about the car then submit it to the DINGIT.com website. The site then does its magic and sends the photos and information to auto body shops around the local area in order to receive the best estimates for a repair.

Users get up to 5 estimates within days, sent straight to their email inbox thus saving them time in consulting companies themselves. An estimate on how long the repair will take as well as the price is also offered, plus additional services such as courtesy cars or pick up/drop off services.

This app could be a huge timesaver for those unlucky enough to have a dent in their car and a very busy lifestyle.

DINGIT is out now and it’s free.

FREE!

DINGIT

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2011-12-21 :: Category: Productivity

Recently, a startup named CloudOn launched their eponymous app that offers users the ability to edit Microsoft Office files on their iPad. The app supported Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and Excel spreadsheets, all available through CloudOn’s WorkSpace technology. As well, it supported Dropbox synchronization for uploading and editing files from the cloud-based storage service, and the ability to open attachments from the email client in the app directly. The app also launched for free, which compared to most apps with similar functionality was a steep discount.

Astute readers will notice the usage of past tense throughout the article so far. That’s because a free app with the ability to use Microsoft Office on the iPad was apparently quite popular. The app launched on January 3rd, and was so initially popular that CloudOn had to pull the app from the App Store in order to meet demand. They’re currently accepting invitations to get back in to the service when the app relaunches, though no date has been offered for when it will be back up for download. Until then, we’ll have to suffer the tyranny of editing our Office documents on our computer, or with pricey paid apps!

FREE!

CloudOn

iPad Only App - Designed for the iPad
Released: 2012-01-03 :: Category: Productivity

There’s no question that the iPad has changed, or at least begun to change, the way we create and consume media as well as organize our personal and professional lives. One app new on the App Store that promises to help with this is Forms by PBF. The company has pegged it as the personal database for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch with the ability to create custom applets without writing a line of code.

It features an in-app function called Forms Builder, which makes it extremely easy to create highly customized forms. Easy to setup, the app allows the user to define the data that they’d like to organize and create a custom form for projects such as a recipe list, sales charts, workout schedules or even an inventory manager. It also allows the user to share their database between multiple devices by simply exporting and then importing or over-the-air with use of a URL that can be clicked on the additional device for instant access. The Forms app is universal and available on the App Store for $9.99.

$9.99

Forms by PBF

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2011-12-11 :: Category: Utilities

With the Web eventually came gobs of written material and sifting through it has become a chore to find the good information. Sure, using RSS feed readers is nice, but they’re sometimes clunky and take time to curate and setup. Nick D’Aloisio, a 16-year-old kid from London, might have an answer in his new app called Summly. The app works to simplify the way people browse and search the web by automatically summarizing search results, webpages and news articles.

The interface seems easy enough in that the user simply enters a search term or enters a URL and the app automatically provides the top information from the source in a bulleted list as well as the link to the full article. And Summly seems to be onto something as researchers from MIT tested the company’s patent pending summarization technology and found that it indeed was accurate in providing precise results. Best of all, it can produce results in any language, but is optimized in English, French, German, Dutch and a few more. The app is available now on the App Store for free.

[ via Gigaom ]

FREE!

Summly

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2011-12-13 :: Category: Productivity

Mint.com is a service that I wish would come over to the British shores. For now though, I’ll just gaze longingly at how the already excellent personal finance app has now been optimized for the iPad and improved upon.

Built with the iPad and iOS5 in mind (which is now a requirement to install Mint.com Personal Finance), the overview screen has been redesigned so that users can quickly get a snapshot of their finances as well as the latest alerts and bill reminders. Cash and pending transactions can be entered to ensure the most accurate view of the user’s finances, plus detailed transactions are viewable. Multi-touch graphs make everything easy to understand, particularly for those who work best with visual imagery, so its users always know where their money is going.

It’s a sizeable enough update that re-establishes Mint.com Personal Finance‘s position as a great app for all US and Canadian users in their quest to keep an eye on their finances. It’s out now.

FREE!

Mint.com Personal Finance – manage your money, budgets, expenses and bills

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad

Our Rating: :: AVERAGE
Read Our Full Review >>

Released: 2008-12-18 :: Category: Finance

We rather liked Elements Dropbox Powered Text Editor when it was first reviewed last year. Developers, Second Gear Software, were obviously determined to make it all the better by releasing a significant update in August of this year and they’ve gone one better by releasing yet another major update in the form of Version 2.1.

The most significant addition here is that of iCloud support. Elements 2.1 now allows the user to sync their settings, appearance preferences and scratchpad contents between different devices thanks to such support. Something that’s particularly ideal for those who use the app on both iPhone and iPad.

As well as that, there’s now the ability to copy the Markdown generated HTML preview to the clipboard enabling writes to transfer their words to the CMS of their choice, ideal for those using an CMS that Elements doesn’t yet support.

Along the way, Second Gear Software has also fixed numerous bugs and changed a few minor things. Most curically, Elements now requires iOS 5 to run.

The update is available now for free for existing owners. Those yet to give Elements a try can purchase it for $4.99.

$4.99

Elements - Dropbox And Markdown Powered Text Editor

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad

Our Rating: :: NOT PERFECT, STILL GOOD
Read Our Full Review >>

Released: 2010-08-17 :: Category: Productivity

People who regularly go on business trips know the problems behind keeping track of the all too vital expense receipt. That tiny piece of paper makes all the difference between claiming back the gas or hotel bill with an employer, and having to pay for it out of a hard earned pay cheque. This is precisely how people end up with wallets and bags full of random pieces of paper, all in a muddle.

Lemon – Receipts Refreshed should solve all these problems. Users can simply scan their paper receipts in and the app turns these images into information that’s taggable and searchable, making it easy to consult at a later time. Individual items are listed along with the tax added upon payment. It’s an ideal way to keep everything organized and save users from having to keep a bundle of paper in their wallets. It’d even be useful for those who just need to curb their spending and keep an eye on where all the money is going!

Lemon – Receipts Refreshed is out now and it’s a free download.

FREE!

Lemon

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2011-09-19 :: Category: Productivity

One of my favorite things about the iPad offers is how visually stunning so many apps can look by utilizing the extra screen space that the device offers. This is particularly prominant when it comes to Pearltrees.

Originally solely a website, Pearltrees, is an app that allows users to organize, discover and share everything they like on the web. Its developers hope that it’ll help users cultivate their interests by allowing them to store websites for future reference and to share with others. It’s different for a number of reasons. Holding all the information within Pearltrees means that users can retrieve their information from any PC or iPad device, this also enables users to share amongst a community of more than 200,000 people. There’s also the visually stunning side of things that quickly captivates its audience.

The term pearl, in this context, comes from the fact that an individual pearl holds anything the user finds interesting while a pearltree is a collection of web pages as a form of folder system. It’s so much more beautiful than a folder structure though. Take a look at the screenshots below. It’s very minimalist in looks but while offering a huge wealth of information if the user so wishes. It also lends itself perfectly to the touch based interface of the iPad making it the ideal app to browse and relax with.

Social functions come in the form of being able to team up with others on their pearltrees and thus invite people to join in. The ‘Visual Discovery’ feature enables people to find new interests related to their favorite topics through a similar method.

Pearltrees is just the glorious kind of app that lends itself to simply relaxing on the sofa one evening and taking in the many, many delights that the internet can offer. Amazing what a change of perspective can do to something we all take for granted!

FREE!

Pearltrees

iPad Only App - Designed for the iPad
Released: 2011-10-12 :: Category: Productivity

Managing time is the key to achieving a lot of things in a short amount of time. It’s also nowhere near as easy to do as it should be. Fortunately there are apps out there to simplify life with HeadFinder being one of the latest and brightest of the bunch.

With three quick and easy taps, users can keep track of their appointments and errands through HeadFinder. Using a notepad/calendar style appearance, it’s easy to see exactly what needs doing at any one time. Keeping track of the timings for each day means that the app is ideal for anything from important work meetings to simply remembering to feed a pet or spend time checking personal email. Everything can be assigned a time limit so life can be made as simple or as complicated as the user wants.

No matter how complex life gets though, HeadFinder remains simple to use with at most two or three taps adjusting everything and taking the hassle out of time management.

It’s out now, priced at $0.99.

$0.99

HeadFinder - Don't Lose Your Head! (Reminder and Reminders)

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2011-08-29 :: Category: Productivity

With numerous tools out there for optimizing productivity, it is about time that a developer decided to design an app that is open-ended enough that it can be used for multiple purposes.  The new software Cloud-Word is the kind of outlining application that is easy enough to be accessible to everyone, while still providing enough complexity to be a productivity Swiss Army Knife.

Want to take notes?  Cloud-Word has your back.  Do you need to brainstorm easily and on the fly?  Once again, Cloud-Word has your back.  And this isn’t even beginning to touch on the audio recording and text playback options…

Without question, this currently free app should be an indispensable part of any active businessperson’s arsenal. Be sure to give it a download before the developer wises up and decides to actually charge for it.  It is only a matter of time before they see the error of their ways.

$1.99

Cloud-Word

iPad Only App - Designed for the iPad
Released: 2011-08-26 :: Category: Productivity

Scheduling meetings should be simple and easy to do. All too frequently, it’s not that simple with the problem of having to juggle the best times for everyone. eMeetMe Schedule Meetings will hopefully solve that problem.

It’s an app that enables users to identify the best time and date for everyone invited meaning a much better chance of a full house when it comes to attendees. Synchronising with the iPhone calendar, the app makes meetings of all sorts, whether they be business or pleasure, much easier. Users simply choose some potential dates then choose from their contacts who they want to invite. An email wings its way to them and they simply tick the relevant boxes to state when they’re able to make it and a reply is sent back to the meeting planner.

eMeetMe Schedule Meetings works out the best time for the meeting then a couple of taps and confirmation messages can be sent out to everyone who is attending. As simple as that and hopefully removing all the stress of planning!

Two versions of eMeetMe Schedule Meetings are available. The free/Lite version and a more comprehensive service that costs $0.99 and offers group creation options to make things even faster.

FREE!

eMeetMe Schedule Meetings Lite

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2011-06-28 :: Category: Business

$0.99

eMeetMe Schedule Meetings

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-09-14 :: Category: Business

Another week means another note making productivity app. Fortunately Notes n Tasks is an attractive yet never overcomplicated app that does exactly what anyone could need of it.

The app adapts to every need, whether it be for a specific project or simply the grocery list for the week. Users can enter information easily as well as supplement such notes with due dates or a label to mark it as important. Organizational tools are available with the ability to create groups and then assign notes to their respective category. Everything is appealing and easy to get to grips with.

It means that Notes n Tasks is an ideal iPad app for keeping track of everything that needs doing in an ever busy world. It’s inexpensive at $1.99 with future updates promising iPhone compatibility, push reminders, location revelant information and cloud synchronization via Dropbox and iCloud. Surely the ideal time to hop on the Notes n Tasks train?

$0.99

DaWaDoWa - Da war doch was

iPad Only App - Designed for the iPad
Released: 2011-08-26 :: Category: Productivity

Back when barcode reading software was new to the iOS, there were tons of different pieces of software vying for the attention of the iOS consumer base.  These tools did the heavy lifting for the price-conscious shopper.  Though these apps were great, those that wanted to use barcode information for purposes other than shopping didn’t have quite so many options.

Lets just say that you had a piece of software on your PC that managed the inventory of a warehouse you maintained.  Previously you would have to buy expensive external scanners to record the barcodes of items coming in and out.  However, if you combined your existing PC applications with the toolset of the application iCody it would be simple for your iPhone to record a barcode and wirelessly beam the data to your computer.  Don’t fret if you are using Linux or Mac operating systems either, because it is cross-platform compatible.

If you are still unsure about what all the hype is about, check out this informational clip about the tool.  It may very well change the way you do business.

$7.99

iCody WiFi Barcode Scanner

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2010-04-17 :: Category: Utilities

Remember back in the day when a clunky alarm had to be set and placed on the bedside cabinet every night? All it did was tell the time and make an annoyingly loud noise at a set hour. The presence of the mobile phone and the likes of the iPad ensure that morning risers can use such a device instead of an alarm clock now but how about an app that includes so much more functionality than simply the time? Enter Smart Alarm Pro, an app from Swedish developers Grsoft Labs that sets out to offer numerous useful features for the morning.

Besides the ever useful clock side of things, which offers different colored LCD displays, 12 or 24 hour format and a vertical or horizontal mode, there are also 20 different alarm sounds to choose from or the ability to select a song or playlist for the alarm music. Vibrate functionality can be switched on or off and the alarm works even when the device is locked or switched to silent mode.

More intriguingly is the ability to view the weather for the day which shows the current weather as well as the predicted weather for the time that has been set on the alarm. The option to view a 7 day forecast is also available.

Positive quotes also feature prominently in order to motivate the user to feel more prepared and ready for the day and there’s the ability to view RSS based news too. Imagery can also be added too for users who like to be wakened to the sight of sometthing in particular.

There’s even a useful flashlight feature too for the poor users who have to wake up while it’s still dark.

Smart Alarm Pro looks set to be the Swiss army knife of alarm clock apps and it’s out now priced at $0.99.

$0.99

Smart Alarm Pro Clock & Weather plus

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2011-07-13 :: Category: Utilities