Apps That Get Me Through The Day

Last year, I wrote a post regarding my favorite tech tools. Now, I would like to discuss iPhone applications.

I wake up in the morning and I turn off my Sleep Cycle app. This application monitors my sleep throughout the night and analyzes the best possible time to awaken me in the morning. Sleep research has established that the best time to awaken a sleeper and ensure that they feel refreshed is if they are at the top of their sleep cycle rhythm—this application uses the iPhone’s accelerometers to pinpoint the best possible time to wake me up. According to the Sleep Cycle’s statistics, I have used the app for over 124 nights—and there have only been two occasions that I did not wake up feeling like I am at the top of the world!

I then rollover and have my morning quiet time using the Reformation Study Bible app. This app was the most expensive I have ever purchased, but it has been the most invaluable. This application offers thousands of commentary notes from today’s leading theologian—including R.C. Sproul’s notes that come preinstalled on the app. The easy to use app also organizes all of my verse notes and easily syncs them to the Internet or to my iPad. With the thanks to this application, I have created hundreds of notes that I will never fear losing, unlike that devotional journal that I once misplaced.

I roll out of bed and it is time for exercise. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for the past month, I have been using the 100 Pushups App, and thanks to it I am now at 90 consecutive pushups every morning. However, if it is a Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday, it is time for Lydia and myself to train for our 5K and our opportunity to utilize the Get Running and Run Keeper apps. (But naturally, before we go out the door we have to check The Weather Channel app to see what we need wear.) The Get Running app has masterfully coached we couch potatoes into running enthusiasts, while the Run Keeper app commandeers the iPhone’s compass and GPS capabilities and logs our distance and our routes.

While running, I use the Rhapsody app to listen to music. I am the type that abhors the thought of buying an iTunes song for .99 and ending up hating the piece. But with Rhapsody, I can listen unlimitedly to millions of songs (that are also in the iTunes collection) for $10 a month. I cannot tell you how much music that I planned on purchasing, listened to it on Rhapsody instead, ended up hating it, and thus saving $15 thanks to the application. The Rhapsody app keeps getting better and better. Check it out, music enthusiasts!

While sitting down to eat breakfast, I organize my day with 2Do. For those of you who I have not yet converted, I subscribe to David Allen’s personal productivity system called Getting Things Done. I have used countless todo lists on the iPhone, but 2Do is the best by leaps and bounds. What makes it even better is that I use a separate app called reQall to vocally enter my todos throughout the day. ReQall dictates my todos and uses this process to update my 2Do app inbox. I use these apps more than any others.

After I have my morning review of my todo list, I have to see what is going on in the world. So, I use the Google Reader vehicle Byline, The Huffington Post app as well as the Drudge Report and Politico mobile app sites.

Now it is off to work, I am sitting at a red light and I see that Lydia sent me a text message to my Text Free app—an application that allows me to send and receive as many text messages that I want at absolutely no cost to me. Of course, it is rightly against the law to text on the road in the state of Tennessee—even if you are at a red light—so I use the Dragon Dictation app that with a touch of a button records my voice and dictates the reply text message. Is the transcription accurate? It learns your voice overtime so eventually it becomes freakishly accurate!

While in my car, I like to listen to a lot of talk radio, yet living in East Tennessee I oftentimes only have the selection of Rush Limbaugh or Rush Limbaugh, so I fire up the WunderRadio app which boasts the most comprehensive radio streaming archive on the iPhone. I see that Neal Boortz is on a radio station up in Alaska, so I choose the stream and listen to Neal in perfect quality.

On my lunch break, a coworker asks to see photos of my European vacation. Photos work great on any iPhone, however, they also take up way too much disk space. That is why I use the Flickr app to store my photos online. I never have to worry about losing my photos in a hard drive failure, or anything of the like.

After work, I head to the local bookstore to pick up a book on theology. I use the Red Laser app to scan the barcode to see that it is actually sold online much cheaper. But I have even more options! Going on the Amazon website, I see that I can buy the Kindle version of the book at a much cheaper price and it can also be synced to my Kindle app on my iPad. I could start reading the book on the way out the door, drive home, pick up my iPad and pick up where I left off!

While reading my e-book, I hear a lot of emergency sirens. Recognizing that Lydia is on the road, I pull out my 5-0 police radio app to listen in to the local police transmissions. I hear that the sirens are for a 459 in progress. Having no idea what a 459 is, I look it up in the app’s glossary to see that a 459 is a burglary in progress and has nothing to do with traffic accidents, so my anxious heart is quickly relieved.

Lydia then arrives at home. We put down our Apple products. We then share a wonderful evening.

I suspect that this time next year, I will have even more apps to share! Below are photos of the apps mentioned above (in the order in which they were mentioned). I endorse each one!