Showing posts with label I.T. apps. Show all posts

The Nations Favourite Apps

The UK is now a smartphone country, with 4 out of 5 adults having this almost essential gadget. If I said smartphones are taking over our lives would you think I was being alarmist? Well, when the fear of missing out or FOMO, is making a third of us check our phones in the middle of the night and with the overuse of smartphones causing arguments in households up and down the country then maybe I'm not.

 However, smartphones are a relatively new gadget, being only around for the last 10 years and humans have a tendency to overuse their newest technology, so maybe it will all settle down over the next few years.

But it's not all bad news. Smartphones are a brilliant way to organise our daily lives, entertain and educate ourselves, and keep up with our friends through social apps such as Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. Many smartphones these days have brilliant cameras too, letting us document our daily lives in an easy and fun way.  You can even use your smartphone for streaming open source media that you can't get in your country.

So what are the most popular apps you may wonder? Carphone Warehouse have analysed a database of over 300 app preferences to bring us an 'App Map' of the UK.

 There are no surprises in the most popular apps, but there are in the regional choices. 

As you can see the most popular apps above in the database were Facebook, Google search, YouTube and Facebook messenger, with What's App, Gmail and Twitter not far behind. Nothing surprising there. However, when you look at the regional choices and what the different sexes choose, things do differ.

From the database, women appear to love shopping apps, with Timehop a memory app being the number 1 choice and Goodreads a book app being another choice. The speed of the Internet is obviously of concern to men with Wi-Fi Analyzer and FastConnect being popular, with a password remembering app, a plane tracking app and Steam, the popular gaming app coming up the rear. In the top thirty apps for women, diet and fitness apps are prominent such as Fitbit while men like their sports apps such as Sky Sports.

Regionally things differ too and with income. High earners like µTorrent the download app plus extras like a vpn for torrenting, to help them get the entertainment they would like to watch pre-downloaded so they can watch whenever and wherever they choose, whilst lower income users like Goodreads to help them find their next book. 

Our apps change with age as well, the 18-24 age group like Buzzfeed, Snapchat, and Spotify while the over 50s like Marks and Spencer and the National Trust! It's surprising that my age group, 45-54 like gaming, but it's not shoot-em-ups, more like Candy Crush and Farm Heroes. 

In our household, these are our favourite apps below.

 Mellissa 46
Amazon, TripAdvisor, Paypal, Facebook, Twitter and Trivago

 Marcus 49
BBC News, Instagram, Twitter, Spotify and Sonos

 Jake 20
YouTube, Apple Music, Twitter, Netflix, and Notes

I am a shopper, a traveller and love social apps, whilst Marcus is into his music and Instagram. Jake is a big lover of films, music and Youtube and keeps himself organised with notes.

 What are your favourite apps? Do you like social media apps or are you more of a gamer, or are news apps your favourite or TV, video or film apps? Let me know.

 *PR collaboration
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8 Essential Apps for Managing Life as a Student

The life of a student can be chaotic, especially if you are working as well as attending classes. Fortunately, there are a number of excellent apps that can help you in almost every area of life. Here are some of the best ones: 

Evernote 



Note taking is an essential part of student life. Evernote consistently ranks as one of the top apps in the genre. The free version allows you to take notes and access them across all mobile and desktop devices. You can also take audio notes and searchable pictures of books and classroom presentations. 

SoundNote 

If you prefer to record classroom lectures rather than trying to type while listening, SoundNote is one of the best on the market. The app also has note-taking capabilities. 

 Office Lens 

If your lecturer is prone to making a lot of whiteboard notes and diagrams, Office Lens, a Microsoft Office add-on is a must. The app allows you to take a picture of whiteboards (or other displays) and then convert the picture to a Word, PDF, or PowerPoint file. 

 Wunderlist 

Just because you are a student does not mean that all of your other activities have to fall by the wayside. Wunderlist is a free app which lets you make a note of the events and activities that you want to do and stores them on the cloud. The app will send you email reminders and notifications for date specific events and allows you to check your list from any device. 

Hungry House



Studying on an empty stomach is not a good idea. Cooking at home or going out for a meal is often just not part of the plan. The Hungry House app is one of the highest rated restaurant apps on the market. It allows you to search for restaurants in your area that offer takeaway or delivery. You can sort by type of food, search the menu, and place your order without ever leaving your desk. 

Planners 

One of the keys to reducing stress and success as a student is being well organised. Student planner apps are plentiful, with many of them offered at no or very low cost. The most useful apps send reminders for important events via email or alerts to your device. Timetable is amongst the best apps available and offers a nice clean interface. The My Class Schedule and Class Timetable apps use the standard spreadsheet or datebook style layout. All three are highly rated and easy to use. 

TED 


TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. What started as a conference in 1984 has turned into one of the most critically acclaimed collections of talks, performances, and presentations in the world. TED covers an incredibly wide range of topics and interests in almost 100 languages. The TED app educates and entertains as well as providing a very quotable source of material for research projects and papers. The free TED app provides access to an incredible and growing archive of material. 

BBC iPlayer 

You no longer have to bemoan the fact that you have missed the Dr Who Christmas Special or other BBC television or radio programmes. This free app gives you access to the vast collection of programmes from the past week. 

 Can you recommend any apps to help with organising your life whether you are a student or not?

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Tengi - A New Way To Chat And Also Win Prizes

There's a new chat app in town. Move over What's App as Tengi is here. 

So what's this all about I hear you ask? Tengi is a free chat app that is easy to use and also allows you to win prizes. What does chat make - yes you heard it correctly PRIZES!


To get started it's incredibly simple - firstly you download it on the App Store or Google Play. It's free to download and there is no cost to you for using the app. For each day you use Tengi you get 1 ticket, for each hour you chat you get 6 extra tickets, each time one of your phone contacts joins Tengi you get 16 tickets. Then every Friday there is a draw and you could win anything up to £10,000.
Most messaging apps keep the profits to themselves but Tengi gives 50% back to its users through the advertising revenue it makes. Messages are completely free and are sent using wi-fi or your data allowance. You can send text messages, photos, video and audio, simply, easily. 

Copyright: LDprod Shutterstock


As a blogger, I am testing Tengi out with a group of my friends. You can have a group made up to 100 friends on Tengi, so it's great for a group chat. Maybe you want all your work colleagues in one group, or the mums from school in another, or your cocktail buddies in a third - just add them to separate groups.

If you want to try it out, download it now and as I said it's FREE on both IOS and Android. After you've completed your name you land on a welcome screen. At the bottom of this screen, you'll see "use a voucher" click here and enter BLOG in the pop-up box so they know where you heard it from. The more people that download it, the more prizes that will be won!


But it's not all about the cash, it's about socialising, easily, simply, chatting to work colleagues, chatting to family, chatting to friends, chatting to loved ones.

I'll let you know how I get on soon, maybe I will have a win to tell you about! Don't forget enter BLOG into the voucher code when you download it and if you do let me know below.

Let me know, do you use chat apps? Would you use Tengi?

*collaborative post
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5 Apps To Help You Save Money

Hi, I’m Emma and I blog over at From Aldi To Harrods. I am passionate about saving money - after all, the more money I save then the more holidays we can go on! Today I am going to be sharing five smartphone apps that can help you save money. 
Copyright: GaudiLab Shutterstock

 CheckoutSmart

CheckoutSmart is a great app that gives you cashback on your usual grocery spending, as well as a few freebies along the way. To get your cashback all you have to do is check out the app to see which freebies are available, visit your grocery store and purchase them. Then once you have the receipt simply take a photograph of it and claim your cashback. The cashback is paid out once you’ve reached £5, although you will incur a small surcharge when you withdraw anything under £20, so it is worth saving it up before requesting your cashout.

ClickSnap

ClickSnap has been created by Quidco, and it offers cashback on purchases in the same way that CheckoutSmart does. To get your cashback, check the offers in the app, make your purchases and snap a photo of your receipt. The minimum payout is £1 and it gets added to your Quidco cashback account.

Spendee

If you want to manage your money better then the Spendee app can help. Within the app, you can create various wallets to help you to track your money and set budgets. Every time you make a purchase simply deduct the amount from your wallet and you will have an accurate account of how much money you have towards a particular thing. For example, if you set yourself a monthly grocery budget, but it comes out of your bank account along with other transactions, Spendee will help you to see how much money you have leftover in your grocery budget.

If you find Spendee useful then you can upgrade to Spendee Pro for around £2 per month.

WeQ4U

Are you fed up with having to ring 0845 (or similar) numbers from your mobile phone, leading to high charges on your phone bill? What about the amount of time that you are left in a queue waiting for someone to answer your call? WeQ4U helps you out with both of these problems. Simply open the app, put in the number you wish to dial and dial it through the app. Then if you get held in a queue you can decide to stay connected or get WeQ4U to wait in the queue for you. The app calls a number that is included in your standard minutes, meaning you aren’t charged extra. You can also use it to call 0800 numbers if they aren’t included in your minutes.

Tengi

Tengi is a great app that works similar to WhatsApp and iMessage, allowing you to send messages, video, photos and audio to your friends. The great thing about Tengi is that it has a weekly prize draw, with prizes between £5 - £1,000. You can choose to have your prize paid in cash, Amazon gift cards or even donate to charity. The best thing is that the app is completely free to use, so you have nothing to lose!

I hope you enjoy these smartphone apps to help you save money. If you have any to recommend then please leave a comment telling me about the apps that you love.
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