Smartphone Apps: Evernote And Spotify Are 2 Must Haves

Chances are you probably have a smartphone. Chances are you probably have a few apps downloaded to your smartphone. And chances are, if you’re like me, you are constantly looking for apps that actually have a purpose and help you get things done. If that is the case, then you are in luck because I have two apps to tell you about that will: A) Help you remember things for later and B) Help entertain you throughout the day. The first app is definitely my favorite and my latest obsession: Evernote.

So what is Evernote and what does it do? Evernote is a program, app and web application that replicates your “notes” across all interfaces. Crazy, right?

Let me give you a brief history of how I got to Evernote and how it works, exactly. I need to remember a lot of things both personally and professionally. I try to write things down on a pad of paper or random slips of paper. I’ll let you guess how this book ends! Paper gets lost or I don’t have it when I need to refer to it. Not convenient. Since I have my smartphone with me at all times, I started searching for an app that would allow me to create and organize electronic notes. I tried a few with not much luck. Then one day, while perusing the Internet, I ran across a Google+ post by Kevin Rose, my favorite Internet entrepreneur, that listed his favorite apps. Evernote was one of them. I checked it out and fell in love!

Now for the nuts and bolts: How does Evernote work? It’s pure genius really. You probably run a PC or Mac. Great. Install the Evernote desktop client for your platform. This is the most feature rich version of Evernote. You can create highly formatted notes with pictures and actual files contained within each. Awesome. So you probably have an Android or iPhone smartphone. Download the app for your platform. Now you can access your notes from anywhere! Take a picture with your phone and toss it in a note with a check list. No problem. Like a certain wine and don’t want to forget it? Take a pic of the label and put it in a note. The possibilities are endless!  

Are you on a public computer and don’t have your smartphone with you? That’s OK. Just use the web version of Evernote! The web version is cut down but it has the necessities for what you need to do. The really powerful feature of Evernote is that you can create notes and add tags to them in order to search on them later. I have a ton of notes now so searching is a great feature that allows me to find notes fast. Also the ability to create different notebooks and place individual notes within those notebooks allows me to organize effectively. It’s all very intuitive and easy to use. Lastly, make a change on your desktop and it replicates to your phone. Make a change on your home computer and it replicates so that you see the changes on your work computer. It’s unstoppable. Great use of the cloud!

Now that I’m highly organized and won’t forget anything, I need to be entertained. I listen to music on my Android phone. You probably do, too. Maybe you use an iPhone. I’m OK with that (not really). What if I said that you could have access to all (mostly all) music for $10/month, unlimited? Enter Spotify. All you have to do is import or create playlists. No more purchasing single songs or albums from Amazon or iTunes. Not bad, right? Well how about the ability to download those songs to your phone so that you don’t have to constantly stream music and eat up your data plan? Maybe you know you won’t have Internet access from your phone but still want to listen to music, say, when you’re on a flight. Not a problem. You have the option of downloading the music to your device. Powerful. Maybe you don’t have playlists or don’t want to take the time to create them. Spotify is social. You can subscribe to playlists from friends or go to websites such as sharemyplaylists.com and select playlists from other users. Not bad! You can listen to music on your computer by downloading the program or listen via your smartphone by downloading the app. Both have intuitive interfaces that work rather well.

To sum it all up: Get organized in a very powerful way with Evernote’s cloud replication across all of your computing devices. And then get entertained by Spotify’s music streaming by sharing playlists with friends or downloading them from the web. Either way, the cloud is here to help across all platforms and devices!