40+ Essential iPhone Apps for Freelance Web Designers
For one reason or another, a lot of freelancer designer use iPhone for their daily work. As a full-time freelancer and part-time geek, I also like to manage my daily activities with applications on iPhone too. iPhone based applications have many advantages over software that you have to download and install it on your computer. First, No matter where you are, you can access them anywhere. Also, you can perform almost any task which you do via your computer or notebook.
Nowadays, there are over hundred thousands of iPhone resources available on the web. Instead of spending time on researching for the ones you needed, we pick the top and intelligent one’s for you. Below, you’ll find a collection of Essential iPhone Apps for Freelancer Web Designers by which you can increase your productivity.
Last week at Apple’s iPhone OS 4.0 event, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that Apple has sold 50 million iPhones to date, and there are hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of iPhone apps that have been created. Since last one year, The demand for new iPhone applications has dramatically increased, with thousands of people worldwide downloading additional features and games for their multimedia Smartphones on a daily basis.
Ever since the App Store went live (which launched in mid-2008 and now has well more than 100,000 “apps” approved by Apple), we’ve seen some incredibly attractive software released for the platform. A wide range of different iPhone apps are available for various purpose – whether you want to process a payment, a realistic app for reading novels, or even check the statics of your website – you can always able to find a suitable one for your need.
You may be interested in the following related articles as well.
Feel free to join us and you are always welcome to share your thoughts that our readers may find helpful.
Don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS-feed and follow us on Twitter — for recent updates.
Essential Web Apps for Freelancer Web Designers
Realizing the increasing demand of useful apps across the web, we regularly feature commercial and free software on instantShift, so decided it was time to bring a roundup of highly essential iPhone applications to your attention. Just keep in mind that this list isn’t a ranking list of iPhone apps. So, Let’s start with this compilation that every web developer, designer and freelancer should consider.
Design Applications
Development Applications
Typography Related Tools
CMS or Blogging Applications
File Sharing Applications
Planning & Management Applications
Writing Applications
Connection Applications
Social Networking Applications
Search Applications
Paymant Application
Time Tracking & Billing Applications
Site Monitoring/Analytics Applications
Other Applications
Design Applications
Cliqcliq Colors
Colors is an easy-to-use color picker for discovering, converting, and managing colors and palettes.
If you’re a designer or developer working with CSS, HTML, Flex, Flash, Objective-C or other media-centric technologies, you’ll spend a good amount of time finding the exact colors you want to use. With cliqcliq Colors, you can create palettes based on colors you like best and quickly convert between RGB, HSB, and CMYK as well as integer and floating point scales.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Create palettes of up to 12 colors
- Create automatic palettes from photos
- View palettes in full screen
Ruler
With Ruler, You can measure any object by placing it on the device screen or just next to it. By moving each line limiter one after another you can get a more accurate measurement. In addition it is possible to switch between centimeters and inches on the information screen. Ruler always saves your latest measurement and you can turn back to it anytime.
Application type: Free
Palettes
Palettes is a powerful iPhone productivity tool for creating and maintaining color palettes. Turn your iPhone or iPod Touch into a portable color creation tool. Now you can create a color palette anywhere at any time. Great for creating color schemes. Grab colors from a photograph, a website, or add colors using any one of 5 color models. Quickly find matching colors with support for many different color schemes.
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Save palettes of up to 25 colors
- Create palettes from photos
- Load palettes from websites
ColorExpert
Color Expert contains powerful tools to help artists and designers identify, translate, capture and showcase color.
Designers know inspiration can come anywhere at any time. Just look around. Some of the best ideas are waiting for you in the real world away from the studio. Now with Color Expert, you’ll have the tools to capture the moment, the moment a color captures you.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Quick access to the “Camera” from the main menu
- Easier access to web hex values of colors in all views
- Ability to add custom colors
PixelPipe
Liberate your media with Pixelpipe and get your photos off of your iPhone and out to your favorite social network, micro-blog, photo/video and blog services. With over 110 supported destinations from around the world to choose from the choice is really yours. Free your media and share your life.
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Video uploads from the 3GS at original resolution up to 200MB
- Preservation of geo-location when available
- Support for camera capture from with-in the application.
beamME
beamME lets you easily make new contacts in real life, add them to your address book, connect on social networks and follow up. beamME is the #1 Social Relationship Management App for Professionals *and* the greener alternative.
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Recipients can be on iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Palm, Mac, PC and more
- Define multiple contact cards
- Follow up with new contacts with a single click
- Works even where there’s no internet
Photobucket
Take Photobucket with you on your iPhone! Use this app to capture all your special moments and upload directly to your Photobucket albums. Upload existing media from your local camera roll or new shots straight from your camera. Easily download images to your device for use as wallpapers, contact ids and more. Share with others via email or grab image URL links to post on your blog or favorite social network.
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Completely redesigned user interface.
- Easy access to image URLs.
- Download any photobucket image directly to your phone.
HEX RGB Colors Guide
HEX RGB Colors gives you an easy reference to RGB and HEX color codes. A wonderful reference app suitable for anyone who deals with colors, including: web designers, bloggers, print designers and virtually anyone who uses colors to publish.
Application type: Paid
Development Applications
DatabaseViewer
“Database Viewer” allows you to view and update any database on your iPhone. It also allows to Synchronize any database Wirelessly (3G, EDGE or Wi-Fi) with iPhone.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Synchronize data Wirelessly (3G, EDGE and WiFi) with iPhone.
- Apply SQL Select queries, Filters, Sort the fields
- Find option to search a record.
CSS Cheatsheet
Even seasoned web developers need a quick refresher course in CSS properties and values from time to time. CSS Cheat Sheet for the iPhone is designed to address that need. Use it as a quick reference for topics you’ve already learned but need a few reminders on, or if you’re still a beginner to CSS, use it to better understand what CSS has to offer.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Well defined categories
- Cheatsheet includes descriptions, types, outlines, padding, positioning etc.
- Works offline for study
Source Viewer
Whether you are a web designer or just curious – this application is for you. Source Viewer shows the HTML, CSS and JavaScript source code of any website.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Tags, keywords and CSS attributes are highlighted with a different color.
- Save bookmarks
- Toggle word wrap
- Copy and paste code to clipboard
Typography Related Applications
WhatTheFont
Ever seen a great font in a magazine ad, poster, or on the web and wondered what font it is? Whip out your iPhone and snap a photo, and WhatTheFont for iPhone will identify that font in seconds!
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Snap a photo right within the app
- Choose saved photos from the Photo Library
- View font details in Safari or e-mail a link to yourself
- In-phone image processing optimizes upload for speed and accuracy
FontShuffle
FontShuffle is the fastest mobile source of typographic inspiration. 650+ font families are sorted by visual similarity. Without any previous knowledge about type design, you can quickly discover 6 typefaces of similar style in just two taps by navigating the simple category menu. Choose the list view to examine up to 24 similar typefaces.
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Quickly discover 6 typefaces of similar style
- Bookmark up to 5 favorites
- Display your preferred font in a customized sample text
- Topple the screen to have a look at the basic glyph set
CMS and Blogging Applications
BlogPress
BlogPress is fast, easy to use, rich featured blogging App for iPhone, iPod Touch and also iPad!! Now you can write your blog or travel log on the road, share news and photos with your friends in real time. BlogPress can also work with your favorite social networks: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Picasa!!
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Comes with video upload feature
- A text-image-mixed layout editor
- No limitation and easy-to-use photo uploader
- Twitter & Facebook intergradations
WordPress
With WordPress for iPhone OS, you can moderate comments and create or edit posts and pages. All you need is a WordPress.com blog or a self-hosted blog running WordPress 2.9.2 or higher.
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Moderate, edit, or reply to comments
- Write, add photos, check your spelling, and even create links without having to write a single line of code or HTML.
- Location Mapping
- Add as many photos as you like
Pingle
Pingle is a client for the Ping.FM social networking aggregator service. With Pingle, you can use your iPhone to post text, photos, and location updates to all your blogs, microblogs, and social networks at once.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Supports Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, FriendFeed, Flickr, WordPress, LinkedIn, and more.
- Post pics from the camera or photo library
- Location integration with automatic privacy controls (“fuzzing”)
- View your post history
iBlogger
iBlogger brings real mobile blogging to the iPhone for the first time. Compatible with nearly any blog (WordPress, ExpressionEngine, MovableType, TypePad, and many more), you can blog with Pictures, Tags, Categories, Links, and Location at the touch of a finger. All this in an easy to use, robust application which has the quality and polish you expect on iPhone and iPod Touch.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Easily configure your blog in seconds
- Post your thoughts
- Include tags to help promote your blog
- Tested on Wi-Fi, 3G and EDGE networks, works great
File Sharing Applications
Files
Store and view documents on your iPhone or iPod touch, transferring them easily from any Mac or PC. Just a Wi-Fi connection is required to connect to Files lite and transfer documents. Once on your iPhone you can read documents anywhere, no network access required.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Multiple file type supported
- Using Wi-Fi, transfer documents
- Files’ PDF reader handles large documents with ease
- Local and remote access to Files can be secured via password
Air Sharing
With Air Sharing, you can Mount your iPhone or iPod touch as a wireless drive on a Mac, windows, or Linux computer, over Wi-Fi, or connect from your computer’s web browser. Drag-drop files between your iPhone or iPod touch and your computers. View documents in many common formats.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Familiar Finder-like file browser
- Use of Bonjour and WebDAV (like iDisk) for easy connection
- Controls to prevent or to delay iPhone auto-lock
- Syntax coloring of source code
ReaddleDocs
ReaddleDocs is a complete document and file management solution for your iPhone and iPod Touch. It can catch documents from almost any possible source you can imagine: Windows, Mac or Linux computers, various web sites, email attachments, MobileMe iDisk and other online file storages and even other iPhones. All files are saved to your iPhone or iPod Touch file storage so you can enjoy reading them anywhere!
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Read all common office documents
- Save documents from the Web
- Transfer files to your iPhone without Wi-Fi
Quickoffice Files
Quickoffice Files is the FIRST and ONLY full-featured Microsoft Office productivity suite for iPhone with integrated access to multiple cloud services; MobileMe, Dropbox, Google Docs, and Box.net directly from your iPhone. You can have continuous and convenient access to your same content across multiple devices, such as from office workstations to home computers, laptops, iPhone or iPod touch using your existing user account.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- No desktop application to install
- Create, Open & Edit MS Office documents
- Transfer desktop files via Wi-Fi
- Advanced Notepad Editor
Planning & Management Applications
OmniFocus
OmniFocus brings task management to your fingertips. Keep track of tasks by project, place, person, or date. Bring up a shopping list, agenda items to discuss at work, things to do at home, and any other lists you need.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Easy to use inbox is where you can quickly add items as you think of them
- OmniFocus can help you decide what to do next based on where you are.
Things
Things is a beautifully focused and amazingly intuitive task manager. Other todo applications either oversimplify or are too difficult to use. Things instead offers the perfect balance between ease of use and powerful features. Effortlessly manage to-dos, notes, due dates, and projects. A smart today list and the scheduling feature allow you to work as effectively as possible – every day.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Filter by Tags
- Sync wirelessly with the desktop version of Things using Wi-Fi
iBlueSky
iBlueSky is a brainstorming and mind-mapping solution for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Collect and organize ideas you have at odd moments, and then email the complete project in PDF and PNG formats to any contact. You can even print a hard copy of your work from the PDF file.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Huge page size
- Clipboard: cut, copy and paste branches
- Double tap to zoom in and out
- Translucent/auto-hiding toolbars
Writing Applications
Jott
Jott for iPhone app puts the power of Jott voice-to-text conversion just a couple of taps away. It’s free for Jott subscribers and replicates most of the functionality in Jott’s call-in service. Your notes and messages are always backed up on Jott.com and are synced over the air. Sign-up for the Jott service at www.jott.com, then download the app.
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Send emails and texts to your iPhone contacts and Jott Groups
- Take notes, set reminders, and manage your lists
- Better recording screen
Ever Note
Evernote turns the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad into an extension of your brain, helping you remember anything and everything that happens in your life. From notes to ideas to snapshots to recordings, put it all into Evernote and watch as it instantly synchronizes from your iPhone to your Mac or Windows desktop.
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Create text, photo and audio notes
- Auto-synchronize your notes to your Mac, PC, and Web
- Magically makes text within snapshots searchable
- Mark notes as “Favorite” for quick access
ShapeWriter
ShapeWriter is a revolutionary text input method that frees you from the constraints and frustrations of a conventional method. Simply slide your finger on the gesture-keyboard and lift to complete an entire word. ShapeWriter’s intelligent algorithms can turn the single gesture stroke into your intended word.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Automatic spacing and capitalization
- Case key for cycling through all possible capitalization cases
- Backup all notes via email
Connection Applications
Fring
ring is a multi-award winning mobile application that lets you make free voice calls, free video calls (one way) and live IM chats directly from your iPhone and iPod touch. fring operates over multiple connection options (3G, Wi-Fi, GPRS, Edge) directly from one integrated friends list. You can also see your friends’ real-time status and share your own; make yourself available at all times using push notification.
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Fring calls over Wi-Fi and 3G
- Instant Messaging
- Multiple Connection types
Thumbtacts
Thumbtacts allows you search your contacts using one hand. To find a contact, touch an option (a letter or character string) to proceed to the next set of available matches. Don’t see your match? Touch the “More” button. To view additional matching results. You can review your selection so far in the top field. If you make a mistake, simply touch the “Back” button to go back a step, or the “Home” button to start over.
Application type: Free
Social Networking Applications
Tweetie
The Twitter client that redefined Twitter clients is back, and it’s even better. Rewritten from the ground up with a fast and powerful new core, Tweetie 2 offers the most polished mobile Twitter experience around.
Application type: Paid (Soon to be Free)
Features include:
- Seamlessly handle multiple Twitter accounts
- Full persistence: more than just caching tweets
- Live-filter your tweet stream
- Follow, unfollow, block and unblock from multiple accounts simultaneously
Twitteriffic
Twitterrific is a fun application that lets you both read and publish posts or “tweets” to the Twitter community website. The application’s user interface is clean, concise and designed to take up a minimum of real estate on your Mac’s desktop.
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Clean, concise UI with small desktop footprint
- Supports multiple Twitter accounts
- Auto refreshing at user defined intervals
- Replies and direct messages are displayed inline
NetNewsWire
NetNewsWire is an RSS reader for iPhone — you can read news from the millions of weblogs and sites that publish RSS feeds. Because NetNewsWire syncs with Google Reader — and with NetNewsWire for Macintosh and FeedDemon for Windows by NewsGator — if you read an item on your iPhone, you don’t have to read it again on your Macintosh or other computer. It’s automatically marked as read everywhere.
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Twitter integration
- Instapaper integration
- End articles via email without leaving NetNewsWire
Reader
Reader is a news-feed reader for the iPod/iPhone Touch that supports many of the popular feed types including ATOM and RSS. Reader is designed for people who love their news feeds and have a ton of content to browse through. Categorization and quick sorting features allow you to fly through your feeds much faster than ever before.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Search Feeds
- Use categories to keep everything in order
- Browse/sort through your feeds in a variety of ways
Search Applications
Google Mobile
Voice search is improving all the time, and Google brings the best we’ve seen to date. Its stellar iPhone app uses the accelerometer to activate search. When you hear a beep after lifting the phone to your ear, start speaking your search term. The accuracy of the listening software combined with the newly added MyLocation feature brings (mostly) spot-on search results that are localized to your whereabouts.
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Search by voice
- Tap suggested web search queries
- Search Google Maps, Images, News, and Shopping
Byline
Read and search the latest news from your favorite sites and blogs, even when you’re offline. Simply use your free Google Reader account to subscribe to websites you’d like to keep track of. Byline will automatically stay in sync and bring you new content, putting thousands of RSS and Atom feeds at your fingertips.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Two-way syncing with Google Reader
- Sort items by date or by their source feed
- Built-in web browser for online and offline browsing
- Create and share notes
Payment Application
PayPal
PayPal’s mobile money application is the faster way to send money with your iPhone® to friends and family anytime, anywhere. It’s much easier than going to the ATM to withdraw cash, writing checks, and sending gifts the traditional way. And you can manage your PayPal account right from your mobile device. All of this with the security and protection you get from PayPal.
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Send, Withdraw funds from your PayPal balance and more
- New “Bump” feature passes contacts when iPhones touch
Time Tracking & Billing Applications
FreshBooks for iPhone
MiniBooks puts the popular web invoicing software FreshBooks in the palm of your hand. Manage your clients, send invoices, run timers, and record payments, all while on the go. Plus, MiniBooks fully synchronizes with your FreshBooks account, so you have access to your account even when you’re off the grid.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Create, edit, and send invoices
- Manage multiple timers simultaneously
- Timers keep running even after you’ve quit the app
Jobs
Jobs has just the right features to make it a powerful time tracker, but none of the fluff, so it is intuitive and lightning fast to use. Creating time sheets has never been simpler—add a job, then press play to start tracking. Each job features an hourly rate, initial fee, associated client and total time spent on the job, broken into sessions.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Multiple timers
- Session enabled
- Supports most of the different currency
Daylite Touch
Daylite Touch is a business productivity manager for the iPhone and iPod Touch, designed to be used with Daylite on the Mac. Daylite Touch helps you manage your business and your team, keeping everyone on the same page and helping you stay on track and deliver on time.
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Multitask home screen
- Multi-user productivity
- See what’s coming up, at a glance
Site Monitoring/Analytics Applications
OSCStats
OSCStats offers you the most important sales reporting and statistics of your OSCommerce shop in your pocket. OSCStats displays detailed sales reports and statistics including the calculation of monthly and annual forecasts for your sales. It also shows the actual states, number of orders and how many customers are online in the shop.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- You can access several different OSCommerce shops
- Income until today, order average until today
- New customers registered today
- Displaying how many customers are now online in the shop
Ego
Ego gives you one central—and lovely—location to check web statistics that matter to you. With support for Ember, Feedburner, Google Analytics, Mint, Squarespace, Twitter and Vimeo, you can quickly view the number of visits to your website (including daily, hourly and monthly numbers), feed subscription totals and changes, how many people are following you on Twitter and more.
Application type: Paid
Analytics App
Analytics App is the premier app for Google Analytics you’ve been waiting for! Analytics App gives you access to your Google Analytics data from anywhere, so whether you have a spare minute at the park, or need to share some data during a meeting, this Analytics app puts your Google Analytics at your fingertips.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Supports multiple logins and multiple accounts
- Dashboard report for a nice overview
- Secure connection directly to Google
- Works on Wi-Fi, 3G or Edge
Mint Stats
Mint Stats allows you to quickly see how many people have visited your site today. This application integrates with Shaun Inman’s Mint site analytics ( http://haveamint.com/ ). It provides statistics for the past 24 hours.
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Hourly totals for views and uniques
- Daily total for views and uniques
- Manage multiple sites at once
- Authenticates with username and password if necessary
Ping
Network Ping is a software test tool for maintaining and debugging network problems on a local area network (LAN). You can get an easy view for a full subnet on a single screen.
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Ping a single IP address
- Ping a subnet to give an overview for 255 IP addresses
- Traceroute, to determine the route taken by packets across an IP network
- Telnet console, for simple access to a router or UNIX Server
Other Applications
Air Mouse
Mobile Air Mouse instantly transforms your iPhone or iPod touch into an in air, wireless remote for your computer! Sit back and use this remote to surf the web, browse your photo library or control your music player from the comfort of your couch. Mobile Air Mouse uses the built in accelerometer to translate your hand motions into mouse movements on your screen.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Accelerometer based mouse controller
- Application switcher
- Remote keyboard with function and arrow keys
- Sleep/Wake your computer
Binaural beats
Binaural beats helps you concentrate, relax or fall asleep by inducing the brain to perceive different brainwave states such as: beta alpha, theta, and delta. Combining with different nature sounds, you can make your own themes for many purposes such as: Sleep induction, study aid or headache treatment etc. Blocking noise from the outside world, no more distraction!
Application type: Free
Features include:
- Separately configure the volume of all 3 sound layers
- Interval (loop) setting for ambient noise
- Programmable application shutdown timer
FTP On The Go
An FTP client for the iPhone and iPod touch. All the features of a desktop FTP client and more; a very powerful app. With FTP On the Go, you can fix your website, and view files on your FTP server, from anywhere. Out of the office and need to edit a file? Need to view the latest document on the server? Have to upload new photos when on location and don’t have an Internet connection on your laptop? FTP On The Go can do them all, and more.
Application type: Paid
Features include:
- Browse, upload, and download
- Built-in text editor
- Built in web browser
Resource Link worth Mentioning
Find Something Missing?
While compiling this list, it’s always a possibility that we missed some other great iPhone applications. Feel free to share it with us.
This article has been shared on favSHARE.net. Go and vote it!
I think is a great post for those who have an iphone. I don’t have. :D
Great collection, very nice!
Nice Blog dude :D , Bookmarked your blog
wow thank you dude!
…. wow, designing from your iPhone, who’d of thunk it, but I would think the screen just wouldn’t be big enough to show much !! :)
That’s a comprehensive list! Thought I’d throw in with my own app if you’re interested in viewing source code. Code has a bookmarklet that lets you view source code directly from Mobile Safari, and also includes a find feature to help you navigate the code. Check it out at http://codeapp.ca.
Thanks!
Aaron
awesome collection.. very ful dude…
Nice list! Very useful indeed. I will try to use all of these but I think i just cherry pick some! But all in all, these apps are really useful, no doubt about it.
Excellent list, but surely NetNewsWire and Byline should be in the same category?
Wow!Great Collection.This is most useful for me.Great information.Nice sharing dude.
Very Nice dude!!!
Anders Ross has created a fantastic list here. The very thorough description leaves the reader with decent knowledge of each app on the list. Great post.
Excellent list, but surely NetNewsWire and Byline should be in the same category?
really useful apps, some of these me using and also enjoying after read your helping article.
Amazing and ravishing collection.
Wow!!
must try dose :P
Cool post!!
So nice and cool post, good job, thanks alot!
well, for more iPhone apps, can go to appolicious.com, where you can fin moble apps you’ll love; for iPhone tips and video conversion, then iFunia iPhone column is the right place.
So nice and cool post, good job, thanks a lot!
well, for more i Phone apps, can go to cluetechnologies.com, where you can fin mobile apps you’ll love; for i Phone tips and video conversion, then iFunia i Phone column is the right place.
Cool…. it helps a lot for the web designer… Good Job…
great list of iphone apps, some I defo will be downloading as I dont have them all.
good apps collection
Thanks to apple for designing such kind of applications for free lancers what not i guess every app has its own use in the world of web.These apps cover file sharing,social networking ,data management ,papal,design and management which will be useful for every web designer.Most of the daily tasks cab be done using these advanced tools. cool post keep on updating such a kind of important info.
For Sale In My Town.com can assist you with a variety of real estate services, such as assisting buyers to find their next real estate property or securing financing on their new home.
Wow.. never see site complete like thats..
thanks for the post . very well info
Thank You
What an amazing delivery timing and service! I am really glad that I chose them for my work! Not disappointed a bit! I would suggest them to everyone! They are great!