The year 2012 has been fantastic for technology and a great year for apps too! We have seen some very prolific achievements coming from both iOS and Android systems. If you are a traveling businessperson or just a traveling man (woman) who makes a lot of stops all over the world, then you have to review some of the best app inventions for 2012. Here are five contenders for both Apple products and Android phones.
For Apple iOS
1. Camera Awesome helps users take better quality photos. The app offers automatic level-ization as well as auto color adjusting. In addition, the app makes it very easy to share photos across all your favorite social media sites.
2. Khan Academy
This app is like a video version of an encyclopedia, and offers plenty of video tutorials by Salman Khan that cover everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history.
3. TouchTV
How about reviewing all the latest happenings from TV right on your mobile device? The Touch TV app showcases the best clips from cable and broadcast TV. Is this the future of television—viewing it from your mobile device?
4. Highlight
Highlight is one of the best apps we’ve heard of and that’s because it’s all about bring people together. Imagine that, our distant friends on Facebook can now become our real life friends, thanks to Highlight alerts that tell you when a Facebook friend or acquaintance with similar interests is nearby your location.
5. HomeSnap
It’s like having a mini-real estate appraiser with you, since HomeSnap lets users take a photo of a house and then determine its value. In addition, you can see historical data, property information and other important info…with no guarantees on validity, of course.
For Android OS
1. Flipboard
This is an app that is an entertainment channel, since it brings you news, photos and status updates shared by your social graph. It summarizes some of the best news of traditional print media, keeping you in the loop.
2. Google Drive
Google Drive for Android has earned a lot of praise this year, and has actually eclipsed Dropbox in terms of sharing and storing capacity, along with budgeting. Obviously, there is a built in advantage here, since Google Drive is easily compatible with the Google-owned Android system.
3. Airbnb
Airbnb is a vacation rental app, offering real time communication between real estate professionals, vacationers and traders. This app, formerly on iOS, is now available on Android and has actually improved on the original iOS design, making it more Google-centric. Now property owners can instant message each other in real time or discuss any issues necessary. The app is doing exceptionally well, considering there are already some 200,000 listings.
4. Chrome
This app lets you use the popular Chrome browser on an Android-ready phone or tablet PC. You also get complete integration, so accessing bookmarks and browsing history is easy, even across multiple platforms. The Android OS makes it easy, since you can swipe between tabs without having to go through the menu. You can also use the private browsing feature, voice search and other conveniences.
5. Instagram
Instagram is Facebook’s favorite image generator, and these virtual cards have already surpassed five million downloads. It was such a successful venture that Facebook bought Instagram.
2013—The Revenge of Microsoft?
We’ve reviewed all of 2012’s best…but what about the year 2013? Sources indicate that 2013 will be the year of the app download—even more so than we’ve seen. As iPads and iPhones replace desktop computers, more and more people are bringing their online life to the mobile universe. Thus far, Microsoft has been quiet in the app war brewing between Google and Apple, however 2013 may be their comeback year.
Microsoft released Office 2013, which is compatible and integrated with Windows RT and Surface Tablets. Special Microsoft apps to be released include LinkedIn for Outlook, Britannica Researcher (which provides access to thousands of articles), Groupon scans, Bing maps and Pungar Summaries, that will actually scan the Word Document and write a summary of the content automatically.
What about Apple and Google? Apple’s releases include Magic 2013, an online game that will improve graphics, audio playback and multiplayer features. Other exciting developments from Google include Google Sky Map, a real time view of the sky and stars, WordPress and a Four Square app, that offers easy one click check ins, as well as mapping options.
All in all, it’s easy to see that apps are the most creative avenue of technology for the coming years, as people are now discovering the usefulness of a mobile robot servant, as opposed to a desktop PC that merely connects the user to the world.
We can’t wait for other new trends of 2013 to see just how much easier our lives are thanks to our Smartphone buddies.
