iPhone’s seem to the phone of choice amongst the creative community and more and more so are we finding it to become an integral part of the ‘creative way’. For those of you new to iPhone, we’ve put together what we think is the ‘essential’ list of creative and business iPhone Apps if you are a freelance designer. Feel free to post your comments at the bottom of this post.
Peppermint
Peppermint is one of the best colour palette pickers out there. Simply put you choose on colour you want, and the app will use its maths brain to come up with other complimentary colours in a whole range of moods and styles. Peppermint also now supports NCS: The Natural Color System®© is the only color system that describes colors exactly as we see them, which is why it easy to understand, logical and simple to use. Now, you can have global color language that work both in digital and physical world on your mobile device.
Either Analogous, Complementary, Monochromatic or anything else. Take greater advantage with the powerful color wheel. You can now adjust the colors while maintaining the relationships of the classic color harmony you selected. So enjoy, change it to suit your needs.
Read more to check out the rest of the apps…
HTML Swatch
HTML Swatch allows you to quickly and easily find and select colours for use on your webpage. This simple application is useful for both the amateur and the professional web developer that needs a quick and simple way to find the perfect colour combinations for their website.
HTML Swatch Features:
- Logical grouping of colours into simple palette menus
- Detailed Info section explaining web colouring
- Handy tips on colour usage
Billings
Billings Touch is a time tracking and invoicing application for the iPhone, designed for standalone use – or as a companion to Billings on the Mac. Create clients, add new projects, and track time when you’re mobile. Invoice your clients straight from your iPhone – or sync over WiFi to Billings on your Mac. Also keep track of mileage, expenses, and client payments. Billings Touch lets you invoice like a pro, even when you’re mobile.
Things
Things is a beautifully focused and amazingly intuitive task manager. Other todo applications either oversimplify or are too difficult to use. Things instead offers the perfect balance between ease of use and powerful features. Effortlessly manage to-dos, notes, due dates, and projects. A smart today list and the scheduling feature allow you to work as effectively as possible – every day. You can even sync wirelessly with the desktop version of Things (sold separately) using Wi-Fi.
Evernote
Evernote turns the iPhone and iPod Touch into an extension of your brain, helping you remember anything and everything that happens in your life. From notes to ideas to snapshots to recordings, put it all into Evernote and watch as it instantly synchronizes from your iPhone to your Mac or Windows desktop.
Analytics
If you are a web designer, then you’ll be keen to track the progress of your own sites and possibly your clients. You can either do this manually logging in to Google’s Analytics tool daily or use this handy little app to track your stats wherever you are. You must have or create a Google Analytics account (free) to use this app.
- 55 reports, showing data up to 100 rows!
- More reports and data than any other Analytics app
- Supports multiple logins (new!) and multiple accounts
- View multiple metrics for most reports!
- Dashboard report for a nice overview
- Secure connection directly to Google
- The now famous “Today” report that everyone wishes Google offered, and now a “Yesterday” report!
- Customize your date range quickly and easily
- Works on Wifi, 3G or Edge
Air Sharing
Like to keep your files on you at all times? Maybe you want to keep your Photoshop brushes close at hand for all the different offices you freelance at? Well… Air Sharing allows you to use your iPhone as a hard drive. Simply activate the wifi app and you’ll be able to copy all your important files on to your freespace on the iPhone. You can even preview your files on the go too. This app is really essential for any designer working in multiple locations.
Drop Box
Drop Box is a little different to Air Sharing but still invaluable. Using the internet as your ‘USB key’, Drop Box allows you to drop massive files from your Mac in to the cloud. These files are then accessible from anywhere… Just like MobileMe’s iDisk. The Drop Box iPhone app allows you to browse and view your files on your internet based drop box quickly and efficiently. Because the Drop Box is in the cloud, it can sync over multiple computers and your iPhone, so that your files are always uptodate at which ever agency you are freelancing at.
Quota
This handy little app lets you track things, yes… ‘things’… pretty much anything that can be tracked, can be tracked with Quota. Simple things like your Virgin Frequent Flyer points, to the credit left on your phone, Quota will do the job. It’s a great ‘all rounder’ app, but super handy if you need to keep tabs on things like how much internet usage you’ve used in your home office for example. To be honest, this app should be in everyone’s ‘essential app’ list.
Pennies
Keeping a budget and sticking to it is critical when running your own business. Yes, we’ve been there… That design book is ‘only $300′, but that’s your rent money! With Pennies (hopefully) you’ll never have that dilemma again… With just two taps, you can enter your monthly budget and begin tracking your expenses immediately. Pennies features a beautifully designed and extremely simple interface that allows you to record purchases in seconds. You can then view your daily receipts or head to the Overview to find out how you are doing so far this month, along with your top expenses and other stats.
We hope you find the iPhone User Guide’s Top 10 Apps for Designers useful. Please leave your comments below.
Loading ...
Leave a Reply