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Mobile apps for small businesses
There’s a flourishing market in smartphone applications, or “apps”, and thousands available. But how do you know which ones are best for you? James Ainsworth trawls through the marketplace to find the best smartphone apps for small businesses
Sales of smartphones are booming – in fact, there are thought to now be some 6.2 million smartphone users in the UK. Alongside the phones is a flourishing market in mobile applications, or “apps”, which cater for a vast range of needs.
As more and more consumers turn to apps to do everything from accessing social media to finding local shops, there is an enormous opportunity for small businesses to reach customers. But apps can also help you carry out other business operations, such as managing admin on the move.
But which are best? Here’s a selection of some that may be useful to you.
Apps for reaching customers
TweetDeck
Platform: iPhone
Cost: Free
This is a near identical replication of the desktop Twitter experience. It can even handle multiple accounts. Use it to respond to customers, promote offers and spread industry news. You can even share pictures of stock.
Alternative: Seesmic, free for Android
Wordpress
Platform: Android, Blackberry, iPhone
Cost: Free
This mobile version of the popular blogging tool offers great usability. If you have announcements to make, observations to record or offers to promote, you can write a blog and publish it from anywhere - then promote it through Twitter.
Alternative: Tumblr, free for Android, Blackberry, iPhone
Foursquare
Platform: Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Pre
Cost: Free
Foursquare uses global positioning data to enable people to share information about specific locations. Users can automatically pick up recommendations for cafes, pubs, shops, and so on, within their vicinity. Some businesses are already using Foursquare as a kind of reward card for visitors who post recommendations.
Alternative: GoWalla, free for iPhone, Android
- If you are a Vodafone UK customer, you can text "Foursquare" to 97886 from your Internet-enabled phone to get Foursquare.
Yell.com
Platform: Android, Blackberry, iPhone
Cost: Free
More than two million companies are listed in this directory, with profiles and mapped directions. Businesses can be called with one click or saved to the user’s phonebook. It makes great use of location-based search.
Alternative: LocalPeople, free for iPhone
Apps for managing admin and operations
ReQall
Platform: Blackberry, iPhone
Cost: £15/year
An easy-to-use organiser, with to-do lists, voice input, alerts and automatic filing of notes using keywords. It also synchronises with Google Calendar and Evernote. Perfect for middle-of-the-night inspiration and it reduces Post-It note clutter.
Alternative: Remember the Milk, £16/year, iPhone
Tap Forms
Platform: iPhone
Cost: £5.49
The more online accounts you open, the more passwords and login details you need to remember. Tap Forms remembers them for you and can be useful in emergencies.
Alternative: 1Password, £2.99, iPhone
Dropbox
Platform: Android, Blackberry, iPhone
Cost: Free
2GB of cloud space: if you have large files you need to send to clients or colleagues, Dropbox will synchronise them across computers and enable you to share them easily. You can also upload photos or video in an instant.
Alternative: SugarSync, free for Android, Blackberry, iPhone
Google Docs
Platform: iPhone
Cost: Free
Contained within the Google App for the iPhone, Google Docs enables you to view and edit Google documents from your phone and save them in the Google storage cloud for access from other devices. Word processing, spreadsheets and PDFs can all be viewed with ease.
Alternative: GDocs for Android, free for Android
FedEx
Platform: iPhone
Cost: Free
The FedEx app allows you to track every move of incoming and outgoing packages. The app can be fully synchronised with the FedEx desktop application and will store any additional notes you wish to add to your live shipments.
Alternative: Delivery status touch, £1.79 for iPhone
As you can see, some apps are very useful and increase productivity significantly. Some merely brighten up your day or, in the case of Tea Round App (iPhone), enable you to resolve disputes about whose round of tea is next.
Apps for business travel
The Trainline
Platform: iPhone
Cost: Free
While not packing quite the punch of the National Rail app, with no live train details, it is easy to use and great for planning ahead or on the hop. Save regular routes for faster search times.
Alternative: National Rail, £4.99 for iPhone
CoPilot
Platform: Android, iPhone,
Cost: £26.99
A satnav for mobile phones with comprehensive UK postcode coverage. Turn-by-turn voice directions guide you hands-free, and you can choose between 2D and 3D viewing modes. The graphics are clear and informative.
Alternative: Garmin Mobile, £79.99 for BlackBerry
Apps are evolving at a rapid rate and they are likely to further alter the way businesses operate – particularly in the area of buying and selling via phones. For example, Square, currently being road tested in America, may well change the face of cash and online payments by making it much easier to buy securely using smartphones.
As a modern small business, can you afford to ignore the flourishing apps market?
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Comments
Although you didn't mention Symbian (Nokie phones), I thought I'd add an app I use daily: Gravity.
At first I used to for Twitter. It supports multiple accounts, photo uploading, lists, saved searches, geo-tagging, tweet scheduling, retweet flagging and loads more - but its just added more.
It now supports FourSquare as well, which is great as they don't have a Symbian app theirselves and you had to use their terrible mobile site and manually add your position.
Google maps is indispensable for me and has got me out of a lot of sticky situations. I'm also a fan of Wordpress and use Twidroid Pro for Twitter on my G1. As a cyclist, I find the Weatherbug application useful so I know what to expect before I head out on my bike, and My Tracks is great at using the GPS to record all the details of a ride including distance, speed, elevation gain and so on. you can then download it to Google Docs and Tweet it to your friends...
Great list! having tried a few different apps for Twitter, I've settled on Echofon for it's great layout and ease of use. They do a free and premium version (ad free), I have the free version and find the ads very non-obtrusive.
Another great app for SMEs is iMindmap - it's another free one with a premium version and it's fantastic for anyone who relies on Mindmapping for organisation.
Also, for biz or personal use, there is an app called Memento, it's basically like a diary where you can keep daily tracks of all your tweets, pics and videos. if you use your iPhone for business purposes then its a great way of documenting.
I haven't heard of Emilys suggestion of Omnifocus so I'm going to go and check that one out now!
Yes, a good list - I'm also going to grab Yell now. Some other handy iPhone apps are WhatsApp, Analytics Agent and Laptop Friendly Cafes.
Nice list. Just grabbed Yell.com for my iPhone. My indispensable apps for business, at present are: thetrainline, Dropbox, Skype, Tweetie &OmniFocus.
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