By Derek Schou, Associate Editor
There is no denying the prevalence of mobile devices in consumers' daily lives.
From shopping to socializing, smartphone users spend an average of 162 minutes per day on their phones, with 86 percent of that time spent within applications (source: Flurry).
As new mobile apps constantly stream into the app stores, selecting what to download can be rather tricky. To help users with this decision, consider the following list of five fun, useful and innovative apps Web professionals like you should know.
One of the many mobile device features that has dramatically improved over the years is the camera. With smartphones now able to shoot high-definition quality video, many users are now leveraging their devices to capture video. To help users polish their videos, a number of editing apps have emerged. Few, however, are as easy to use as the Clips Video Editor. Clips is a no-nonsense solution that enables users to perform basic editing actions like cropping and sequencing snippets, as well as take it up a notch by adding background music.
Image: With Clips Video Editor users can do simple video-editing tasks like cropping or more complex ones like adding background music.
Effective communication is one of the most important aspects of a successful workplace.
With many people's jobs taking them out of the office today, however, it can be difficult for individuals to communicate effectively with their colleagues. Moxtra takes aim at this problem by allowing users to send messages to their colleagues both as an email and through an in-app chat.
Moxtra also offers more advanced features to users such as the ability to include annotations and multimedia files in conversations. Users can even leverage the app to conduct Web conference meetings with screen-sharing capabilities.
Digital marketing is a full-time job. With the latest version of email marketing platform GetResponse's mobile app, users are able to quickly sign into their accounts to review and monitor their current campaigns for critical stats like opens, clicks and conversions.
Another interesting feature of the GetResponse app is the ability for users to view new subscribers and subsequently add them directly to marketing lists.
In real estate, location is everything. The same could be said of domain names - the more descriptive and accessible it is, the more it's worth. Estibot takes all of that (and more) into consideration when valuing domain names.
Through Estibot, users are able to find out the worth of domain names, see valuable analytics like search volume and PageRank as well as see who the owner of the domain is. Users can also leverage Estibot to obtain contact information for the domain's owner, as well as see when the domain's current registration will expire.
New ideas take a lot of time, energy, persistence and organization to mature into a final product.
MindNode enables users to create a "mind map" or a brainstorming outline for their ideas. Users can also upload their mind map to a feature called MyMindNode, which then allows them to view their mind map on their desktop as well as share their idea through email or social networks.
Apps have become the activity of choice on mobile devices and developers are pumping them out faster than ever to meet demand.
With so many apps available users should take their time when exploring what to download and remember that even if they acquire one they end up disliking, simply delete it and move onto the next one.
See what mobile apps are trending each and every day at Website Magazine's new sister site, ApplicationMagazine.com.