By R. Wayne Pugh, MAI
Cool Tools for the iPhone
Ih
c
aad really thought I had hit a state of nirvana when I pur-hased my first smart phone. I now had access to my e-mail
nd the World Wide Web, all from any location served by
my service provider. For years, I remained content with my
Palm Treo 700w.
On June 27, 2007, the first iPhone was released, and for
obvious reasons, my level of comfort with my Palm phone
switched to one of discontent. It was now too slow, too
heavy, and most of all dysfunctional in comparison with the
form and function of the new Apple iPhone. Within five
minutes of first sight, I was convinced I had to have one of
these new Apple iPhones. The technological advance was
just too huge.
After previewing the list of iPhone features, it was apparent to me that the Apple engineers just got it. They first
gained recognition outside of the small cult of Apple users
with the release of the Mac computer, then the iPod. And
they did it again with the release of the iPhone and i Tunes,
and again with the release of the MacBook Air and the
iMac. All of a sudden, the rest of the world was realizing
that the engineers at Apple truly understood them in a way
no one else could.
At that time, the only downside was the lack of 3G
connectivity, but with the release of the second generation
iPhone in July 2008, all issues were laid to rest. In fact, the
engineers at Apple even added a little sweetener to the
iPhone with the addition of a GPS, more memory, a two-megapixel camera, and most significantly, an open architecture that allowed third-party providers to develop additional
applications for the phone—and all this for just half of the
price of the original iPhone (with a two-year contract).
It’s these third-party applications that set the iPhone apart
from the other smart phones from Palm, Samsung, LG, Motorola and Blackberry, to name a few. As appraisers, we are
often on the go, and few other tools we have in our arsenal
offer as much productivity enhancement as the iPhone with
its cadre of applications. To give you an idea, i Tunes currently advertises they have over 10,000 available applications on
their servers, many of which are free for the taking.
This article’s focus will be to introduce many of you who
have iPhones or will be purchasing an iPhone in the near
future to a few of the applications that help appraisers more
efficiently cope with daily activities.
Beyond the list of supplied applications such as visual
voice mail, a GPS, SMS instant messaging, pushed e-mail,
weather reports, a Web browser and i Tunes, users can tap a
huge resource of apps that are priced from free to just a few
dollars. Hopefully, you will agree that at least a couple of
these applications can make your day run smoother.
HP12c Lite Calculator
The first business application I downloaded
was the HP12c Lite calculator for just $1.99.
That’s right—an HP12c calculator for just $1.99.
The calculator functions just as the real thing,
in either a horizontal or vertical orientation,
except much faster. This is truly one of the best buys I have
found for real estate appraisers.
Recorder
Easily record field or
daily notes, presentations,
memos, discussions,
interviews and ideas on
your iPhone. Appraisers
can use it as a voice
recorder or a sound
recorder. The program
records for seconds or
hours, and recordings can
be downloaded to i Tunes
for file storage or sharing
with other appraisers or
staff. Recorder currently
sells for $0.99.
