SOMETIMES we run into brick walls making them sync with mobile devices.
MANY of us use standard email calendars, tasks and notes to manage our lives, but we sometimes run into brick walls making them sync with mobile devices. Those walls include feature limitations and incompatibility between, say, an Apple mobile device and a desktop PC. Awesome Note addresses the first concern and tries to deal with the the second.
Awesome Note is the closest I have seen to a phone app mimicking the vinyl-covered organisers you buy at newsagents. When you open the app, you see a series of configurable tabs. The app handles note-taking, to-do lists, diaries, birthday reminders, shopping lists and projects, and you can attach photos, maps and drawings. Notes can be shared with the web over WiFi and through iTunes.
Awesome Note can sync documents with the Evernote app and Google Drive, and there are plans to extend syncing of events to the iPhone calendar. Increased syncing capabilities with Apple, Google and Microsoft calendar systems would make this app even more awesome. The more syncing options in future, the better. The app is available for the iPhone, iPad and Galaxy Note.
RATING: 7/10
Calendars+ $7.49
READDLE'S Calendars+ app is not cheap but it specifically targets Gmail users wanting to access and maintain their web-based Gmail calendar on their iPhone. It also works with the built-in iPhone calendar.
Calendars+ has a beautiful interface and handles multiple calendars, recurrent events and multiple reminders.
The app can alert you, email you and send you an SMS reminding you of an event, all at different lead times. And it has drag-and-drop capabilities. You can graphically move an event to another day with your finger on the phone screen. It has day, week, month and list views, and you can manage events online and offline. In our tests we added new entries to the iPhone calendar and they magically appeared in Google calendar and visa versa. Readdle offers a free version if you want to try before you buy. Available for iPhone and iPad.
RATING: 8/10
Phoster $1.99
BUCKET Labs' new app Phoster offers a quick way to design posters on an iPhone. When you add a poster, you choose from dozens of predefined templates, which can be square, landscape or portrait-shaped. You can add photos from your phone as poster backdrops, add and change the predefined text, and you can drag text around with your finger. Effects and decorations are available to complete the design. You can share the final poster on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, email and print it, or upload it to other apps such as DropBox and SkyDrive if they are installed. Our only concern with Phoster is that image resolution isn't exactly fantastic if you want to create large posters. Available for iPhone and iPad.
