The Top 10 best iPhone apps for enterprise users

Sooraj Shah looks at the apps that can boost productivity when you're on the move

As bring your own device (BYOD) becomes more prevalent within enterprises, the use of enterprise apps has also increased.

Apps that connect to back-office systems that enable users to view analytics in real-time on touch-based devices, along with those tailored for specific enterprise software offerings - such as Oracle's business intelligence app and Salesforce's mobile app - are becoming increasingly popular among business decision-makers.

But other applications designed to boost productivity and generally make life easier for employees are finding their way into the workplace in ever increasing numbers.

In this article, Computing takes a look at the top apps that enterprise users can download on the iPhone to boost productivity.

10. Week Calendar (£1.49)

Apple's pre-installed calendar app is good enough for most of us, but it doesn't quite match up to Week Calendar.

Positives: Users can customise their calendars with colour coding, and it has several different viewing options and is intuitive to use. Unlike the iPhone app, it is also highly graphical.

Negatives: Not a cross-licence app, so you can't load it up onto your iPad for free.

9. Any.Do (free)

One of the many task managers available in Apple's App Store, Any.Do, is superior to its competitors because entering tasks on the app is quick and easy.

The interface is simple and straightforward to use - you can add things to your ‘to do list' for today, tomorrow, upcoming or ‘someday' either by speech (which it recognises reasonably well) or by typing the task in. Thereafter you can share the task with your contacts (if you're logged in through Facebook), add an alarm for when you want it done by, highlight it so you know it's more important than everything else, add further notes, and put it into a personal or work folder.

Positives: It's easy to use; it syncs quickly across each device, and allows you to take control of each day.

Negatives: The ‘moment' feature allows users to play out their day and it looks good - when it works. But it has frozen several times on a blank screen, meaning that the user has to shut down the app or even the entire device and restart.

8. TurboScan

One of the worst things about business travel is the need to file expenses. TurboScan makes this a lot easier, ensuring that instead of carrying a load of receipts with you, you can take a snap of it, crop it, forward it as a PDF, and get rid of your paper receipts. Of course, you still have to file the expenses, but at least you won't have to worry about a receipt being lost - especially if it's one worth a lot of money.

Positives: It's easy to use and has plenty of options. For example, the SureScan 3x function allows you to take three pictures and combine them into a single document. You can name your documents, which is also useful for when you're sifting through a library of files. You can send documents to your email account, Evernote account or Box.net account to store it. You can also send the document as a PDF or JPEG, in black and white or in colour - ensuring that you've got plenty of choices to suit your work environment.

Negatives: The app has problems detecting the edges of a document, but this is not a major issue, particularly as the edges of many documents aren't crucial. Most people will probably still hang on to their paper receipts even if they do use the app, and in some cases, businesses only accept paper receipts as a proof of purchase, rendering the scanned documents only useful for personal record-keeping.

7. Camcard (free, usually £1.99)

Swapping business cards is easy enough at a conference, but keeping hold of these cards and uploading them onto an Outlook contacts list can be a tedious task. With CamCard you can take a photo of the business card and the details are automatically uploaded onto your phone contacts and other email accounts. You can then sync the data across other devices too. At the time of writing, CamCard was offering iPhone users the full version for free, but it usually costs £1.99.

Positives: A feature that isn't present in a lot of other business card scanning apps is to be able to take multiple images at once and import them all together. It processes the cards quickly and reasonably accurately.

Negatives: The iPhone screen is pretty small, and so the interface can at times feel crammed. The scanning function has difficulty reading certain fonts and runs into difficulties when people have added their area codes such as replacing a bracket or parenthesis with a number one.

Honourable mention: CardMunch (free)

LinkedIn members can use CardMunch to take a snap of a business card and automatically save the contact into your iPhone. The information can include LinkedIn's profile data when available.

The Top 10 best iPhone apps for enterprise users

Sooraj Shah looks at the apps that can boost productivity when you're on the move

6. Instapaper

As employees are becoming more mobile, it means that they want to be able to read the things that interest them at any time, whether that be on the tube, on a flight or even while walking. So when colleagues or friends send over relevant links to articles, or when you come across an interesting article but don't have time to read it - you can make a note of it on Instapaper, and then read it in your own time in a personalised newspaper format.

Positives: Instapaper doesn't need a connection to the internet for you to read the articles, as the articles are stored offline, meaning even when you're underground on the tube, you can still read them. It's also very simple to use.

Negatives: Considering this is a paid-for app (£2.49), it's surprising that much of the functionality is available for free - as many may decide to just keep links saved elsewhere, or load up the links on the iPhone so they are ready to view, for free.

5. Evernote (free)

When attending conferences, many professionals conjure up new ideas while listening to an expert. But then the expert makes another point with another five related ideas and you can't keep up. But Evernote allows you to make notes, take pictures (of, say, the presentations that the speaker is using), or make a recording in the style of Louis Litt (Rick Hoffman) on Suits - without the self-absorption, of course.

Evernote will soon be releasing an updated app, with features a form of its Evernote Hello application, which enables you to capture people you meet, their name, email address, and picture and scan their business cards.

Evernote Premium enables additional functions such as more bandwidth, offline editing and a PIN lock on the app for those highly secretive strategic ideas.

Positives: The best note-taking app on iOS in Computing's opinion. Syncing between devices over the internet is also easy.

Negatives: The new rich-text editor is a good idea but can be frustrating to use, while the app could do with GPS-enabled location-based notes.

Honourable mention: iThoughts (£5.49)

iThoughts, a brainstorming app, allows users to plot their ideas while on the move. While a nice idea, the app is probably better suited to an iPad (for which there is a separate version).

The controls are a little over-complicated although a YouTube video displaying how to use the app does help to simplify the process. But it isn't the "pick up and start using app" that it ought to be.

The doodle concept is also great, but the problem with the app overall is that you need a large space for brainstorming - and an iPhone doesn't give you that.

The Top 10 best iPhone apps for enterprise users

Sooraj Shah looks at the apps that can boost productivity when you're on the move

4. Box (free)

Box‘s free cloud storage app allows users to store 5GB worth of data for free. The app allows you to share files from your iPhone with your colleagues, view the latest update to a spreadsheet, and sync files to other devices. It also has file-level encryption, requires a password and has an auto-logout feature when the app is closed - all essential for enterprise users who want to keep their data safe.

Positives: Ability to edit files, access to Box files on other apps, and compatibility with a wide range of file types are all plus points. It also gives users more free storage space than its rivals.

Negatives: In a business sense, I can't see why a user would want to share something on Twitter or Facebook, but it would be better to have the option than not - and Box doesn't offer it.

Honourable mention: Dropbox (free)

Dropbox does allow you to share documents easily on social networks like Facebook or Twitter. However, it only gives new users 2GB of space when they sign up.

3. 1Password (£12.99)

1Password allows you to store all your passwords in one convenient place on your smartphone. All you need is a "master password" and a PIN code to access the app.

Positives: Those annoying websites that generate a password for you will no longer need to be remembered, and the same goes for those pesky services that require one upper case letter, one lower case letter and a combination of numbers and letters. You won't get locked out of anything ever again. It also has a nice ‘password generator' option to make new and random passwords. On top of that, the security issues found with many of these 'all your eggs in one basket' apps isn't there as it encrypts everything using AES technology.

Negatives: The problem with putting all of your passwords in one place is that if your phone is stolen, the passwords go with it. However, the thief would have to know an awful lot about hardware accelerated AES encryption to be able to access them.

The Top 10 best iPhone apps for enterprise users

Sooraj Shah looks at the apps that can boost productivity when you're on the move

2. TripIt (free)

If you're a frequent flyer for business, and hate always having to log on to your work email account to look for your travel itinerary, then the TripIt app is a useful way to ensure you've got all of the information you need on your smartphone. You can send your travel itinerary to TripIt's email address, which automatically identifies your account and updates your app with departure times for flights and check-in and check-out times for accommodation. You can put in as many trips as you like, including past trips (although I'm not sure why anyone would want to put that information up), you can connect to TripIt's "network", and you can track your reward accounts with TripIt Pro (the paid-for version).

Positives: For the most part, the tool is useful and it enables you to look up your flight times without having to search through your work email account or rummage through a pile of papers. It also details check-in and check-out times for your room.

Negatives: If your iPhone App Store is connected through a personal email account, and you don't have corporate email access on your mobile then it may be a lengthy process to email the initial travel documents from your work account to your personal account and then to the TripIt address in order for the information to be uploaded onto the app.

While TripIt can scan a lot of the travel itineraries, Computing found many which it cannot pick up or read, particularly those that are sent with HTML formatting. However, it lets you know it can't read it and you can access it online and update the flight details/accommodation information yourself.

Honourable mention: FlightTrack Pro (£6.49)

The £6.99 FlightTrack Pro app enables jet-setters to ensure that they don't miss a flight and know of a delay as soon as it occurs, as the app gets real-time data from all flights. It works in conjunction with TripIt, so could be useful addition to your smartphone, to make business trips even easier.

There are other options like Flight+ free, but FlightTrack Pro is the best of the bunch.

1. CloudOn - Microsoft Office (free)

While Microsoft finally decided to offer its Office suit to iOS, it is useless unless you (or your business) have already paid for a subscription for Office 365. This means that unlike Windows Phone where Office Mobile is free, the best option for the iPhone in order to write Word documents, look over the numbers on a spreadsheet or flick through a PowerPoint presentation is CloudOn.

Unlike many of its competitors, such as Quickoffice Pro (£10.49), it is free, and is probably the most powerful office tool out there, as long as you've got an internet connection. The iPhone screen isn't really suited to viewing and editing, but the app makes it as user-friendly as it can possibly be. It hooks up to Dropbox, Box, Google Drive or Skydrive to enable users to access documents stored in the cloud.

Positives: If you have an iPad you can access the same Word, Excel and PowerPoint files that you've saved on the iPhone version as they would be stored on the same online storage service that the app connects to. If you're looking for an office app with great functionality, this is definitely the one for you.

Negatives: Lengthy wait times for files to load, and glitches are common, and if you'd prefer to just simply view and edit a Word document, there are simpler apps out there.