My Favorite Apps

I'm a software trainer. That's how I put bread on the table. Gadgets? Love 'em! I've been a PDA guy (personal digital assistant) for a decade and an iPhone guy for a year.


Gadgets aren't for everyone. I get it. Remember, I'm a software trainer. But for the right person, awesome!


If you're looking at the iPhone to enhance your success as a person and as a leader, here are some of the apps I heartily recommend.

Five great questions of life: Life * Love * Learning * Labor * Leadership

My Favorite Apps

I'm a software trainer. That's how I put bread on the table. Gadgets? Love 'em! I've been a PDA guy (personal digital assistant) for a decade and an iPhone guy for a year.

Gadgets aren't for everyone. I get it. Remember, I'm a software trainer. But for the right person, awesome!

If you're looking at the iPhone to enhance your success as a person and as a leader, here are some of the apps I heartily recommend.

If you're looking at the iPhone to enhance your success as a person and as a leader, here are some of the apps I heartily recommend.

Holy Bible - Had to start here. It's extremely handy to have your Bible handy at all times and in a variety of translation. I mostly use it in church to track along with the sermon. Then I flip over to Evernote to text in the takeaways for that Sunday morning.

Do I use it when I'm speaking? No, I'm too much of a notes guy. I like everything prepped and printed in advance.

The reading plans are very helpful too. I'm not a January 1 through December 31 reading plan devotee, but I like to use the thoughtful scripture sequences here and there.

Evernote - I mentioned my note taking app. I've tried out a handful of note apps and Evernote has won me over, at least for now. It's a fantastic idea capture device.

Great tip - use the camera to capture information instead of writing it down! And here's the mind-blower for me: Evernote can read the text of your photo! It uses OCR to search the text you've grabbed in your snapshot, so your photos will pull into a keyword search. That's what separates Evernote from the next best thing.

Another great feature is Evernote's combination of app and cloud (online, web-based) access. So all of my saved notes are available from any online workstation. Backed up and ready to go!

Toodledo - This is your to-do list on steroids! As a Getting Things Done system user, I've found Toodledo to be my favorite app with PC sync capability. I can list tasks by priority, length of time to complete, due dates, location, context, tag, goal, star, folder and status. So it can be as simple or complicated as you like.

While it's not free, this is the heart of my organization system and worth the $10 for sure.

The latest Toodledo update includes a location feature which uses the iPhone GPS function to pop up and tell you when you're in the neighborhood to run an errand on your list. Nice!

UYH - This is Use Your Handwriting. The icon says todo because you use your finger to write down 5 or 6 lists for later reference. I find this most useful at work when I want to visit medical staff in our clinic hallways and jot down little reminders of what I need to follow up on later.

The latest UYH update allows longer notes, subfolders, and the ability to email any of the notes to yourself or others. I wouldn't take college notes with it, but I'd jot myself reminders for sure.

Fluent News - There are hundreds of good news sites and apps, but Fluent News has the features I enjoy most so far. Their selection of stories seems objective enough and helpful.

My favorite feature, though, is the push notifications (automatic pop-ups) with significant headlines throughout the day. Seems to be about 3-4 headlines per day, plus the opportunity to scan the full list of headlines. Fluent told me today that Brett Favre turned in his retirement papers. We'll see...


I've got scores more apps, but these are my front line. How about you?