AppDate: Digitise business cards

In this AppDate installment, SEAN BACHER highlights CamCard, GoToMy PC, Fitbit MobileRun, Instapaper and BatchPhoto 4.

CamCard

CamCard lets users save their business cards and contacts in an electronic format. Simply take a photo of the business card and the app enters the information into the correct fields. For example, the e-mail address will end up in the e-mail address field and the mobile number will end up in the relevant field. Users can set a password on the app and can back all the data up to their desktop computer.

Platform: Android, iOS, Windows Phone and BlackBerry.

Stockists: Visit the store linked to your device.

Expect to pay: A free download.

GoToMy PC

The managers of today spend a lot of time out of the office at business meetings and the like – often limiting the time they have to spend in front of their computer and catch up with e-mail. But, with the GoToMy PC app, the user has a permanent and secure link from a smartphone to the computer. GoToMy PC can access data, files and e-mails all through the Internet.

Platform: iOS

Stockists: Visit the iTunes store from an iDevice.

Expect to pay: A free download.

Fitbit MobileRun

Fitbit MobileRun uses a phone’s GPS to track, log and compare runs, walks and hikes. The app keeps a user’s route history and offers spoken distance and markers while open. When used with the Fitbit Flex wristband, steps are recorded and displayed along with calories burned. Runners also have the option of accessing their playlists directly from the app while on the move.

Platform: Android and iOS

Stockists: Visit the store linked to your device.

Expect to pay: A free download.

Instapaper

Coming across interesting articles is one of the best aspects of the Internet‚Äîand one of the worst things for the overall productivity levels of many. Instapaper saves bookmarks of articles that interest users for perusal at a later stage. Selected Web pages will be automatically saved for later browsing, where they’ll be displayed in a reading-friendly format on a computer, tablet smartphone or Kindle.

Platform: iOS and Android.

Stockists: www.instapaper.com

Expect to pay: Creating an account is free.

BatchPhoto 4

BatchPhoto 4 is an image manipulation application for Windows and Mac OS X that lets photographers enhance and manipulate numerous images in a single operation. For example, they can add time stamps, convert formats and apply special effects to hundreds of photos by selecting one option. BatchPhoto 4 features a cleaner, easier to use interface and comes preinstalled with processes like Auto Crop for automatically cropping photos to a predefined aspect-ratio. Users can specify their own set of instructions and save them as a process to apply to photos when needed.

Platform: PC and Mac

Stockists: www.batchphoto.com

Expect to pay: A full trial version is available, after which BatchPhoto 4 starts at R320, depending on the packing needed.

* Sean Bacher is editor of Gadget.co.za. Follow him on Twitter on @SeanBacher