Are you one of the many event planners who wonders what life was like before you iPad? I can’t tell you how many event planning conferences I go to and observe planners clutching their ipads as they hustle from session to session or use it to voraciously type their notes or communicate with their online friends. I am one of you.
The Event Planning Tools Megalist I posted last month was a big hit. So, I thought I’d share a handful of iPad apps that no event planner should live without. Here goes:
ORGANIZATION
- iDisk – I use MobileMe to easily share files across all of my devices. Yes, you can also do this through iTunes, but with MobileMe, I can access my files from anywhere (even if I don’t have my devices with me). I can also make certain files public for easy file sharing and don’t have to worry about storing large files. Take it to the cloud!
- Dropbox – For those who don’t have MobileMe (iDisk) <- I use this app a lot for large file transfers and have added this based on a number of reader comments 🙂
- ContactsP – Searching for contacts on your iPad is a bit of a challenge. ContactsP lets you easily search from any field in your contact list. You can also create lists of contacts and send emails to the entire list without having to add contacts one by one. It will also send you push notification when your contact celebrates their birthday or other momentous occasions. Huge time saver.
- Evernote – I use Evernote religiously to store great information I find around the web, create reminders for myself, record voice notes when I’m on the go from my iPhone, clip interesting quotes and data from articles, eBooks, etc. I often jokingly refer to Evernote as my brain. This great iPad app lets you view and add notes. This is a must for busy planners on the go.
- InformantHD – I’ve tried many different Calendar & To Do apps and this one is the most comprehensive in my opinion. It’ also won Best in Show at MacWorld 2011.
- iStorageHD – Lets you organize all of your documents into tabbed files (just like a filing cabinet). It also lets you access those files from anywhere.
- ACTPrinter – Ever wondered why you always end up printing those so-called electronic tickets, boarding passes, …? No more!Wasted a sheet of paper to remember that “will call” pickup number? Stop wasting paper! Maybe you just want to read documents on the go. ACTPrinter is a virtual printer that lets you ‘print’ documents to view later, when you don’t have wifi access.
SOCIAL NETWORKING
- MyPad – The best iPad app for viewing your Facebook accounts.
- Tweetdeck – Manage your twitter accounts from your iPad.
- Gist – Last year I spoke about Gist and raved about its ability to manage your social connections in one place for free! I have since gone to more comprehensive social CRM tools, but this is still a great, free option for many businesses.
- LinkedIn – Manage your LinkedIn profiles from your iPad.
- WordPress – Yes, you can even update your WordPress blog.
- Flipboard – A beautiful way of displaying content shared in your social networks. It looks just like a digital magazine, but your friends are the editors.
CUSTOMER SERVICE & ENGAGEMENT
- SignMyPad – Need to get a client’s sign off on a revision on site? You no longer have to worry about printing out a document & scanning it. SignMyPad lets your client sign a change order, contract or any other document right from your iPad.
- Chimpadeedoo – If you have a MailChimp account, you can use this app to grow your email database. CAN-SPAM regulations state that you can’t use emails from people who have not explicitly opted in to your mass communications. So, with this app you can create a beautiful email opt in page and let people enter their addresses directly at your event.
TALENT
- Aweditorium – Let’s you serendipitously find amazing indy artists. A wonderful time-passer and a great way to happen upon talent you might never have heard of.
- SoundHound – Hear a song and want to do more research on it? SoundHound is a music recognition tool that identifies the song and artist and includes a link to download the music from iTunes.
TRAVEL
- OpenTable – Book a reservation at a hot restaurant right from your iPad.
- AroundMe – If you’re traveling somewhere unfamiliar, this app uses your location to tell you what is around you (i.e. restaurants, gas stations, pharmacies, etc).
- Accuweather – A basic app to give you weather information when you travel.
- Weatherbug – Our business is often at the whim of the weather. This app lets you drill down on some amazing details including live camera shots within 100 miles from your area, “Find Me” lets you bypass entering your information to give you weather details based on your GPS location, you can even see cloud patterns to estimate incoming weather conditions.
- LogMeIn – Have you ever been somewhere and thought, “Oh no! I forgot to download that file!!”. I have and it really sucks. LogMeIn is an app that lets you log in remotely to your desktop computer from anywhere and control it from wherever you are. I’ve used it twice in an emergency. Definitely worthy of the price tag.
- TouchLCD – A great speaking alarm for the iPad.
- TripDeck / TripIt – Two great tools for sharing your travel schedule with your friends, finding out when & where your connections are traveling and storing your travel itinerary, tickets and confirmation numbers.
- Currency (XE) – Lets you do currency exchanges – super helpful when traveling.
READING / WATCHING
- iBooks – I use this app to store all of my eBooks and continued reading PDF documents. It also allows you to populate your books right from the iBookstore.
- TED – I love this app which lets you search from amazing TED talks and watch inspiring videos.
- GoodReader – A superfast PDF reader for your iPad. What I love about this app is that it also allows you to highlight and markup PDFs – want to write yourself notes, come back to a particular section of your document – now you can.
- TunIn Radio – Lets you listen and record radio stations from around the world.
- FLUD – This app aggregates amazing content from sources like Gizmodo, Fast Company and engadget in one visually inspiring interface.
COMMUNICATIONS
- NoteShelf – I’ve tried many note taking apps and I like this one the best because it has a hand guard (when you rest your palm on the screen, it doesn’t mess up your notes), you can write in different colors, highlight, import pictures, zoom in to your writing, and you can export your notes to Evernote or Dropbox! As a side, I highly recommend buying the Griffin Stylus for the iPad (I got mine from BestBuy) – it’s a lot better than using your fingertip.
- Dragon Dictation – A great voice recognition app that lets you dictate and it will convert to type. As with any voice recognition software, it’s not 100% perfect, but can be a great on-the-go solution for taking notes.
PLANNING
- Mark On Call – I love this app for space planning. It lets you create rooms, item checklists and include details like windows, doors, chairs and decor items simply.
- SuperPlanner – I wrote a review on this app a while back. It is an iPhone app, but also works on the iPad.
- My Measures – This tool lets you superimpose measurements directly on pictures (even more useful on the iPhone where you can take pictures).
PRESENTING
- Prompster – A great app for speakers that eliminates cue cards, flash cards & scripts.
- Prezi – An app that lets you control your prezi presentation from you iPad.
READER ADDITIONS
What tools can’t you live without?
Thank you to Carolyn Ray for inspiring this post.
[on READY2SPARK] Event Planning apps Megalist for the iPad – http://www.ready2spark.com/2011/03/event… #eventprofs
This is a great list of tools. Thanks for the great post!
Dana Searcy
http://www.danasearcy.com
Excellent! Thank you, Dana. I hope you enjoy some of them!
My personal must-haves:
1. Dropbox. I’m a dropbox user, not everyone on my crews is on MobileMe, but it’s universal access to production files.
2. SyncPad, ConferencePad, Airsketch, Might Meeting and a handful of other remote white pad and presentation applications.
3. eProjector
4. Friendly – what I’ve been using to view Facebook on an iPad. (But will def try mypad too!)
5. Kayak – has a beautiful interface for the iPad.
6. Whistle Phone – for free VoIP calls internationally.
And I LOVE TED & Flipbook. Plus can’t wait to try TunIn Radio when I go back abroad 🙂
Thanks Lara!
Midori Connolly, Chief AVGirl
Leave it to the Chief AVGirl to make some great suggestions! I haven’t tried eProjector, SyncPad or Airsketch – I’ll have to check these out!
I am a journalism student at the University of Kansas. I am amazed with how quick technology has changed in just my lifetime. I look back now, and wonder how people seriously ever did their homework without the internet, and can’t believe that students actually depended on books once upon a time. I find it very interesting how even when you enter the career world to this day, people still continue to relay heavily on technology. As fast as technology changes, business firm’s and company’s still continue to make the advancment the center of their growth.
I know! I often wonder what life was like before my iPad 😉
I was just talking with someone the other day about a book that refers to technology as a living organism. An organism that requires us to constantly feed it to keep chugging. Now I wish I could remember the name of the book and author. Very much up your comment’s alley.
Are you using the LinkedIn app from LinkedIn itself? Have they upgraded? The only app from LinkedIn we could find is the one that’s made for iPhone. Hm. Maybe we’ll have to look again. Hopefully they’ve upgraded it by now.
You’re so right. LinkedIn is still just an iPhone app. Thanks for clarifying this. I’m not sure why they haven’t developed an iPad app yet – would work beautifully on a larger screen.
Great list and thanks for the post. You should try Dropbox instead of Idisk. I am a big Apple fan and have a Mobileme account but Dropbox blows Idisk away. There is even some talk that Apple will buy Dropbox.
So true. I use both Dropbox and iDisk – should have mentioned Dropbox. Say it aint true…Apple to buy Dropbox – now that should be interesting.
Posted this on FB today, awesome apps!! I don’t use an Ipad – yet – but already use Mark on Call and Super Planner on my ipod! LOVE THEM. I also use Invoice2Go and myPANTONE.
Aw! Thanks for sharing. Fantastic additions 🙂
I agree with Whitney Starr below (who is also a classmate of mine,) I can’t believe how much technology has changed and evolved since the 1990s. I remember when my school first got a computer! Your list is fantastic. I don’t have an ipad yet, but I do have a few of these on my iphone. TED is a great website. I recently was asked to watch a video on TED by Dan Ariely. It was a very interesting video on why we make the decisions the way we do, particularly when buying products and services. Here is the link: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html
Also, I was introduced and amazed with Prezi about a year ago at a journalism convention in Austin. I wish that ALL my instructors did presentations with Prezi. It’s visually appealing and gets the job done.
Thanks for the list!
Nice! Thanks for sharing the TED link. I don’t think I’ve seen that one.
Yes, I’m a big fan of Prezi…(when used right) it’s a great way to tell a story.
Here are some of the iPad apps I can’t live without:
Pages – great for typing notes and sending them in either PDF or Word format
Penultimate – write with a finger or stylus on the iPad for notes
Slide By Side – tool for viewing PPT presentations in Slideshare
Gowalla – I really like their iPad app, let’s me see where my friends are when they are near me, it’s a location-based app like Foursquare and their iPad interface is really cool. Also allows me to quickly see what tips and recos my friends have made for local venues, restaurants, etc.
Popplet – let’s me mind map ideas and presentations
Nice, Jeff! Thanks for sharing.
I enjoyed hearing what other sites there are for a multitude of situations.
I have another one that could be added to the list:
Hootsuite: a social media dashboard for your facebook, twitter, wordpress, linkedin, myspace and ping. it is beneficial for companies to have one message and be able to spread it across multiple platforms easily!
Lara – thanks for writing up about our app SignMyPad. I read a few of your comments here, and just wanted to share a little insight about SignMyPad.
For your users who use DropBox. You can take PDFs right from the DropBox app and bring them into SignMyPad. Once you’ve signed it, you can use our new DropBox feature and send it right back to your DropBox. Alternatively you can email the signed PDF, Print it (via an AirPrint compatible printer), or send it to another application on your iPad (i.e. iBooks).
Again thanks for talking about SignMyPad!!!
Justin Esgar
CEO
Autriv Inc.
Hello Justin,
Why would you send the signed contract to iBooks, would that be a way of keeping contracts organized on your iPad? That sounds interesting
Hi, I am looking for some advice from professionals. My daughter is graduating from college next month and she will be seeking work as an event planner. We would like to buy her an IPAD as a graduation gift and are trying to decide if me should be getting it through verizon with a mobile network or if we can just buy it from apple and depend on wi-fi service. Any suggestions please? Thank you.