Jobs has succeeded in transforming the way we consume information in both our personal and work lives. With their intuitive interfaces, sleek lines and quality craftsmanship, it’s easy to see why so many of us now carry an iPhone, iPad, or both with us wherever we go. Raise your hand if you have an iPhone or iPad? If you haven’t got your hand up, chances are the person next to you does.

The iPhone wasn’t the first smartphone, nor was it the first with a touch interface, but it revolutionized the way that we browse the internet on our cells and consume data. Even if you don’t have an iPhone, your Android, BlackBerry or Windows Phone handset have all been influenced by this device.

And this brings me to our obsession with smartphones.

We’ve all been there, checking our emails on our smartphones at midnight, 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 6 a.m. We now shut the office doors and immediately start working again on the train, the bus and in taxis. We are permanently connected. According to a national survey by Telenav, a third of Americans would rather give up sex than their smartphone. They’d also be willing to wave goodbye to chocolate, caffeine and exercise before they parted with their beloved device.

UK adults and children are just as bad. UK communications industry regulator Ofcom has discovered that 60 per cent of teenagers describe themselves as “highly addicted to their smartphone.” Almost half (47 percent) of teenagers and 22 percent of adults also admit to using their device on the toilet.

Our cell phones have now transformed from a device for contacting and playing Snake to becoming a central part of our personal and working lives. The mobile workforce can now check emails on the move, hold video conferences, proof documents and log in to check their bank balance when sitting on the train or working from a cafe. Our obsession has been fueled by just the right apps to help us accomplish these tasks.

With more than 400,000 iPhone apps and more than 300,000 Android apps now available, what are the apps that today’s web workers should look at using to aid productivity and increase efficiency? Below are just some of the apps that I find indispensable:

• CamCard: This great app takes a picture of a business card and automatically adds the information to your contact list. No more rummaging through pockets trying to locate the contact details of the people you met at various meetings and events.

• Evernote: A popular tool with remote workers, Evernote enables you to quickly capture anything. Whether it’s a photo, a screenshot or a web site, whatever you capture is stored, processed and made searchable.

• Huddle: With Huddle’s iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry apps you can access my company’s cloud-based collaboration platform and manage your projects, files and people from any location, at any time of day.

• Twitter: Yes, it can be dangerously addictive, but having Twitter on your mobile ensures that you are constantly connected to the latest updates from your community and you can track what is being said about your company.

• 1Password:  How many times have you sat on your iPhone/iPad trying to remember one of the numerous passwords you have for a wealth of websites and apps? 1Password securely stores the information required and logs you into websites immediately.

• Skype: If you’re on Verizon Wireless’ network, Skype mobile gives you free Skype-to-Skype calls and IM.

• QuickOffice: Access, create, edit, and share Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations.

• Expensify: This fantastic app allows you to capture your expenses and receipts from any location. You can track everything and build your expenses reports on the move.

• Bloomberg Mobile:  Keep up to date on the latest international business news, stock quotes and company descriptions, etc.

• Instapaper:  Ever found a great article that you just don’t have time to read? Instapaper ensures that you can come back to it later.

What other mobile productivity apps do you use and love? Let me know in the comments below.

Hear VMware’s CTO Stephen Herrod talk about the three key pillars of enterprise mobility — apps, data and people — at Mobilize, September 26 and 27.

Andy McLoughlin, Co-founder and EVP Strategy at Huddle, can be reached on Twitter @Bandrew. 

Image courtesy of Flickr user Symic.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• A Media Tablet Forecast, 2011 – 2015
• Report: How Mobile Cloud Computing Will Change Tech

If your team mostly works in the cloud, it can be a hassle to scan in documents and get them uploaded to the right place. ScanDrop makes the process more efficient by giving you the option to scan documents directly to cloud file storage apps like Dropbox, Evernote, Google Docs and OfficeDrop Online. You can also create a PDF immediately from a scanned document, letting you skip file format conversions.

ScanDrop works with Google Docs’ OCR feature to convert scanned documents into editable text. Other features built into ScanDrop allow you to change the order of pages or delete a few entirely. You can also organize and tag files.

The application is available for both Mac and Windows, although the feature set varies between the different platforms; the Mac version is the most recently upgraded. ScanDrop for Windows is currently available for free from OfficeDrop’s website, while ScanDrop is priced at $9.99 in the Mac App Store. The list of scanners that ScanDrop will automatically work with is impressive, listing not only well-known brands, like HP and Epson, but some more specialized tools, like NeatDesk.

Truly Going Paperless

I can see a virtual team making great use of ScanDrop: whoever is in charge of physical documents and checking the actual mail box can scan and upload files in a matter of minutes. With a little planning, it might be possible to eliminate the office entirely, beyond having a post office box.

ScanDrop is still listed as being in beta, so it’s possible that new features — perhaps a few more applications that you can send your scans too? — will be available in the future.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• The Future of Work Platforms: An Overview
• A Media Tablet Forecast, 2011 – 2015
• The Future of Workplaces

The free Android app can be downloaded through the Android Market, and will soon also be offered through the Amazon App Store. It provides more functionally than the current iPad app as it allows you to take a photo with your phone’s camera in lieu of using a scanner, giving you more flexibility while you’re on the go. The text contained on the documents you photograph becomes searchable, in the same way that text in documents scanned in through the OfficeDrop desktop app do.

Using OfficeDrop, you can connect a scanner directly to many cloud storage apps, including Evernote, Dropbox, Google Docs and OfficeDrop’s own digital filing cabinet, which allows users to organize, search, share and access documents from anywhere. If you’re concerned about security, the Android app and the other OfficeDrop apps and services use a fully encrypted system to protect your files and data.

OfficeDrop also offers mail-in scanning services, similar to Shoeboxed, where you can mail documents to the company and have them scanned and added to your account. Its online Digital Filing System starts at $9.95 per month for 10 GB storage ($44.95 per month for teams). Mail-in scanning services start at $19.95 per month for home office use and up to 50 scanned pages per month, going up to $99.95 per month for the Paperless Team account.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• A Media Tablet Forecast, 2011 – 2015
• The Future of Workplaces
• Mobile Q1: All Eyes on Tablets, T-Mobile and AT&T

Once you’ve signed up, bookmarks can be added via the website or (much more conveniently) via Firefox and Chrome extensions, as shown in the screenshot above. These add-ons are a bit fiddly; you must be signed in for the Chrome add-on to work, while the button for the Firefox add-on is hidden down at the bottom-right of the window. It also took me a while to figure out how to clip content from a web page.

Once saved, pages can be tagged, shared with contacts and made public (note: this effectively publishes a public cache of the page you’ve saved; there may be copyright implications in using this feature). Editing bookmarks/saved content like this can only be done via the website, not at the time of saving it with the extension. Bookmarks can also be imported from Delicious, Firefox, Chrome or any other service that lets you export your bookmarks in Netscape bookmark format.

By default, the website shows your saved pages in “fancy” view (thumbnails) and displayed in chronological order, but you can switch to a list view if you prefer. Bookmarks/saved content is searchable via the search box, although, strangely, it doesn’t seem to include page titles in the search. Mobile support is provided via a mobile-optimized version of the website, which works well, and there are also RSS feeds available: a private feed that contains all of your bookmarks, and a public one only containing those you’ve marked as public.

Copyto.co is free for storing up to 50 bookmarks, which should be enough to give the site a try to see whether you might find it useful. More than that and you’ll need to purchase a subscription, which costs $15.99 per year, or $1.99 month. While Copyto.co is similar to traditional social bookmarking services like Delicious (recently sold to Avos Systems) and Pinboard, its clipping functionality also means it’s competing with note-taking apps like Evernote and OneNote. Combining bookmarking and clipping services means it’s something of a compromise. As a simple bookmarking service, it works pretty well, although it doesn’t have the more-advanced social features of Delicious, and it’s more expensive than both Delicious (free) and Pinboard (one-off payment of $9.33 currently), plus, I find its extensions to be a little clumsy. As a general-purpose clipping tool, it’s nowhere near as powerful and flexible as Evernote, and once again, its extensions aren’t as well-designed. However, it’s still a new service, so I expect the developers will work on making the extensions easier to use, and I can certainly see Copyto.co being useful for certain use cases: researchers who need to clip and share specific portions of webpages with others, and developers who often to grab code from the web, for example.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• A Media Tablet Forecast, 2011 – 2015
• The Future of Work Platforms: An Overview

The new Android version lets users share documents and notebooks (groups of documents). Shared documents can be edited if both users are Premium subscribers, and Premium users can also view shared documents offline.

Evernote for Android now has the ability to share notes directly to Facebook, Twitter and other services. It has also added the ability to include map locations in notes (a feature that its competitor Catch has had for a while).

Evernote for Android’s interface has also been revamped, making it easier to navigate, while it also includes a more useful home screen widget. Evernote Premium users can now set up a PIN to lock the app. At over 3MB, the program is fairly large as Android apps go, but it can now be moved to an SD card.

Meanwhile, the note-taking alternative Catch, which I wrote about a few months ago, has added a new premium version that supports file attachments, including images, sound files, PDFs, RTF files, and Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. It’s also added the ability to share notes via Facebook, Twitter and email, although Catch does not offer shared editing.

Both services are available in free and premium versions. Evernote Premium allows users to upload any file type up to 50MB in size, totaling up to 1GB per month, for $5 per month or $45 per year. For the same price, Catch Pro also allows uploading of 1GB per month.

I still find Evernote more compelling than Catch. And while the latter service’s simple interface will appeal to some, Evernote’s enhanced sharing capabilities will be helpful in many collaboration situations.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• A Media Tablet Forecast, 2011 – 2015
• Mobile Q1: All Eyes on Tablets, T-Mobile and AT&T
• A Global Mobile Handset Platform Forecast, 2011 – 2015

Once installed, Trails stores the text and images that you clip onto pages that it calls “spreads.” These are viewable in a sidebar  (via View->Sidebar->Trails or a keyboard shortcut). You can create as many spreads in your booklet as you like, and they can be can be set up as one-, two- or three-column pages.

Adding content to your booklet is done via some new Firefox context menu items: As you’re browsing, highlight some text or select an image and right-click to select to add it to your booklet. Before text is added to the spread, it pops up in a window giving you the opportunity to edit it. Content can be deleted and edited after insertion on the page, too. Trails automatically puts the URL a particular snippet or text or image came from below each piece of content on the page, as well as recording the time and date that it was clipped on.

Once your booklet is complete, it can be printed, exported in PDF format or published to the Trails Public Library online.

As a note-taking tool, Trails is nowhere as powerful and flexible as more full-featured, multi-user solutions like Evernote or OneNote.  However, it does fit seamlessly into a Firefox-based workflow, and as the booklets that it creates are nicely-formatted and can be exported as a PDF, it makes for a very easy way to share well-presented research with colleagues or clients.

Trails can be downloaded from the Mozilla Add-Ons repository.

(via ghacks)

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• What Does the Future Hold For Browsers?
• A Media Tablet Forecast, 2011 – 2015
• How to Ride the Freemium App Wave to Success

Update: On Friday, the company published a post on the Delicious blog saying that the service is not shutting down, but that there is no longer “a strategic fit at Yahoo” for it, and that the company is “in the process of exploring a variety of options and talking to companies right now” about finding a home for the service elsewhere.

• Licorize. Like Delicious, pages can be bookmarked using a bookmarklet, a Chrome or Firefox extension, or via the website. Licorize offers more features than Delicious, though. With each item you add (Licorize calls them “strips”), you set what type of bookmark it is (idea, to-do, goal, reminder, regular bookmark, etc.), and optionally add tags, assign it to a team member and associate it with a project. Depending on what type of bookmark you set the strip as, you also get some additional fields to fill out. For example, to-do strips have a “done” checkbox, while milestone strips have a due date. The basic free version doesn’t include project functionality or the ability to add team members; a premium version with full functionality costs $5 per month, or $49 per year.
• Pinboard.in. Pinboard is a “back to basics” bookmarking service. It’s similar to Delicious, but has a stripped-back user interface and is designed to be extremely fast to use; it’s good for users who had grown frustrated with Delicious’ sluggishness (there’s a comparison of the two services here). Note that Pinboard isn’t free. There’s a one-off charge to register (the charge increases by a small amount with each new signup; it’s currently $7.96). Users can also pay for archival accounts that allow local archiving of bookmarks for a cost $25 per year. Note: Bookmark import is running slowly at the moment, presumably because many users are currently migrating accounts from Delicious.
• Diigo. Diigo goes beyond simple social bookmarking by providing a wealth of features, including collaboration and web page commenting tools; Mike Gunderloy thought it to be the most comprehensive online bookmarking service available. It’s particularly useful for group research projects. It includes a Delicious import tool and client apps are available for iPad and Android.  The service is free and is advertising-supported; education accounts are available.
• Evernote. Evernote is a primarily a multi-platform note-taking tool, but it also works well as a repository for bookmarks. While it lacks Delicious’ social features, it’s a favorite of many of the WWD team. As well as the web app, there are native client apps available for Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Palm Pre and Windows Mobile. A basic Evernote account is free; Premium accounts are available for $5 per month or $45 per year, and offer greater upload capacity and improved collaborations and sharing features. Evernote provides support for Delicious users switching to the service here.
• Google Bookmarks. If you just want somewhere to store your bookmarks in the cloud, Google Bookmarks might just do the trick. There’s a bookmarklet for adding new items, and it offers ways to organize your bookmarks via lists and labels, and you can also share and collaborate on your lists with others. Google Bookmarks is free, but you’ll need a Google account to use it.

What Delicious alternative do you recommend?

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):

• Enabling the Web Work Revolution
• Report: The Real-Time Enterprise
• Who Owns Your Data in the Cloud?

Catch’s web interface is pretty bare-bones, but it’s easy to use while offering more options than Paprika. Catch notes can include text, images, links, map locations, and Twitter-style #hashtags. The interface includes full-text search of notes, plus sorting by date and tag.

Specific notes can be made public if you wish to share them, and other Catch users can comment on shared items.

One can capture data by sending it to your account through email or by importing a TXT or CSV file. The service can accept HTML text, but the interface doesn’t really render HTML as one would expect on a web page.

Catch is available on Android, iPhone, and iPad. The mobile apps can use location data to show maps, and to “show notes nearby” a location. The apps have offline access to notes, and are password-protected.

If you prefer a desktop app, you can turn Catch.com into a desktop app for Mac using Fluid. There’s also a Google Chrome extension, and Catch synchronizes with the cloud and mobile devices over a 256-bit SSL encryption.

The service offers an open API, so developers can create their own apps to sync with Catch. Catch itself offers no less than four Android apps: AK Notepad, Catch Notes, and the specialized Catch Health Tracker. Compass takes advantage of Catch’s location awareness to power a navigation app. All are free, and show what can be done with the platform, but there aren’t nearly as many apps for Ctach as are available through Evernote’s Trunk.

Catch is currently ad-free, and does not limit how much data you can capture; currently there is no information as to whether the company plans to charge for the service.

On the whole, I don’t find Catch to be compelling enough to make me switch from Evernote, but it may be of interest to those who like Catch’s location features, or don’t like Evernote’s freemium model.

What do you use for note-taking?

Notebook sharing is an incredibly useful collaborative feature that has been available in the Evernote web app for a while now, but it wasn’t available through the desktop client. In the Evernote 2.0 beta, you get “in-app sharing,” which means that you can share notebooks, as well as view notebooks that have been shared with you, right from within the Evernote for Mac interface (shared notebooks are available through the “Shared” tab in the left-hand panel). Note that while most of the notebook sharing features are available to everyone, you can only elect to allow other users to edit your shared notebooks if you’re a Premium user.

Notebook stacks are a new way to keep notebooks organized, providing a way to visually group notebooks; they work a little like folders. You can now drop related notebooks into their own stacks (so I could have a stack for WebWorkerDaily-related notebooks, for example), then view or collapse them as needed. Stacks are synced with the rest of your notes, so once this feature is supported in clients for other platforms, your stacks will also appear there.

To get the beta, you  need to click on the “Update to Beta versions” checkbox in the “Software Update” tab in Evernote’s preferences and then check for updates. Today’s release may still be unstable or buggy; you certainly shouldn’t rely on it for critical work. There’s no timeframe for when the Windows version of Evernote will get these features, although Evernote says it’s in the works.

Let us know what you think of Evernote 2.0 Beta for Mac in the comments.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):

• Enabling the Web Work Revolution
• Report: The Real-Time Enterprise
• Who Owns Your Data in the Cloud?

But how can you focus on note taking when you have other things on your mind such as networking, the other sessions you have to attend, and possibly some additional work you have to do? Here are three things you should keep in mind:

• Remember that being present and attentive is your priority. This means actively listening, looking at visual aids, and paying attention to the lecture itself. While you can record audio, video, or view live tweets, these must be for reference only and not a substitute for the real thing. It makes no sense to sit in an auditorium for an hour only to repeat that hour via a recording because you were too busy taking notes or getting to know the person beside you to digest the finer details.
• Know why you’re taking down notes. Is it for faster recall or to record your own insight? Will you be using your notes to write a blog post or make a presentation at work? The reasons behind your note-taking will help you determine the best approach and tools to use.
• Get as much information as you can about the tech specs of the event beforehand. Will there be free internet access available? How reliable is it and will be be available throughout the entire venue? Will you be able to plug or charge your devices easily? This information can help you choose your tools accordingly.

With that out of the way, it’s only a matter of getting your notes down as efficiently as possible.

Using Tools to Improve Note-taking

According to a research paper on note taking, in an academic setting the average note-taking speed for students is 0.3 to 0.4 words per second, while lecturers speak at around 2 to 3 words per second. With this speed discrepancy it’s no wonder that most people find it hard to jot down concise yet complete notes. Still, there are ways to work around this:

• Don’t rely solely on text-based notes. While many of us are used to pen-and-paper note-taking methods, the difference in speech and writing speed means that we can’t rely on them alone. This is why we should look beyond written notes. We could include mindmaps, photos (of important slides, for example), or audio recording. Some apps that allow you to record in a variety of formats include Evernote, Springpad, FolderBoy (which Charles reviewed here), and Notepub.
• Use fast tools. Don’t just look for fast loading time or responsiveness, but note your own speed when using the tool. This means that some options aren’t ideal for many people, such as alphanumeric keypads and apps for handwriting or speech recognition. You can even use SMS abbreviations, shorthand, macros, and word completion apps to increase speed further.
• Process your notes. Directly after the lecture is the best time to enter the second phase of note-taking: information processing. This is where you’ll start to consult external sources for additional information and make connections among the things you’ve learned. You could do this by organizing all the material you’ve gathered and by making annotations. Some handy annotation tools include Apollo and A.nnotate.

Taking a cue from student life, don’t be afraid to borrow the notes of other attendees. You can borrow notes directly from people you have a strong rapport with, or wait for bloggers to post their own notes or articles summarizing the talk. They might include some points you’ve missed or make connections that you didn’t think of. Just be sure to offer to share your own notes and express that you’re looking for something supplementary. You don’t want to leave the impression that you’re asking them to do all your work for you.

It may take a lot of practice to become very effective at note-taking, but the important thing is to get better each time.

Share your note-taking tips below.

Photo by stock.xchng user christgr

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Enabling the Web Work Revolution