After the Apple announcements yesterday, I started thinking about how much I use my iPhone. If you have a smartphone, you probably use it for much more than just phone calls and texting. Apps are now a huge part of our daily lives and help us simplify the many tasks we have to complete. I have quite a large number of apps on my iPhone, but there is only a handful that I can’t see myself living without. As a busy public relations student, I utilize these apps to get me through each day without a hitch.
This one may come as no surprise. I love using Twitter to connect with friends, keep up on news and trends and share articles, videos and other media I find interesting. One of my favorite parts about Twitter is being able to follow a live event via a hashtag. If you weren’t streaming it yesterday, you definitely could have jumped on Twitter to read the #AppleLive feed. In the journalism school at the University of Oregon, we are often encouraged to live tweet classes, guest lectures and other events to connect with our peers and faculty.
I am a music junkie. I am almost always listening to music, so Spotify comes in handy on the go. It’s easy to create playlists of all your favorite music and see what your friends are listening to. I can listen to a playlist on shuffle wherever I am with the app. You can also upgrade to be able to select specific songs to play or reduce the amount of commercials that interrupt your playlists.
Bitly is a lifesaver for me. Whenever I find an article I want to read later or post on one of my social media platforms, I paste the URL into Bitly. It creates a shorter URL to use in posts and tracks the engagement after you use it. I can also go back at any time to catch up on articles I didn’t quite get around to reading or posting.
Rookie is a photo editing app. If you love Instagram as much as I do (or just take a lot of selfies) you should definitely try out Rookie. I love how many filter options there are, and you can upgrade to unlock even more. This app comes in handy when you find a picture that comes out too dark or want to touch up a photo.
If you’re on a tight college budget like me or just need a convenient way to track your finances, Mint is a great app for you to try. You can sync your accounts and your credit card to the app and create a budget. Mint will categorize every purchase you make, show your spending habits in graphs, give you advice based on those spending habits and send you alerts related to your budget.
This app gives you a way to repay your friends and family when they loan you money. Let’s say you’re out at dinner and want to split the bill easily. If you all have Venmo, only one person has to give their card to the waiter. The rest can transfer the money on this app and she can deposit it straight into her bank account. This comes in handy more than you think!
This RSS aggregator is amazing. I use this to keep up on all the news I feel I’ve missed out on if I have particularly hectic day. You can customize which sites or blogs you want to show up in your feed and easily categorize them. This gives you a great way to hone in on the news that you find particularly useful.
When it comes time to study for midterms or finals this app is especially helpful. If you have a multiple-choice exam, use STUDYBLUE to create custom notecards to study from. It can filter out the ones you already know as you go along. Say goodbye to carrying around hundreds of notecards during finals week!
Okay, this isn’t an app. However, I do read this email newsletter every single day and had to mention it. Trying to keep up on all the news that is happening around the world can be a bit overwhelming at times. The Skimm is an awesome service that breaks down every piece of important news that happened the day before and sends it to your inbox each morning. How much more convenient can that be?
Which apps are your favorite?
prparfait.wordpress.com 
I am a Spotify junkie myself
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Being a collector of recipes I really enjoy Recipe Gallery. You can quickly download recipes off of the Internet, take pictures of recipes from a recipe book, or write your own recipes with a photo of your creation. This app syncs with your iPad so it’s easy to use a recipe when you are cooking. Another benefit is when you go to the grocery store you take your favorite recipes or new ones to try, along on your iPhone.
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