KUALA LUMPUR, March 7 — Can you imagine life without your smartphone?
The fact that most of us can’t shows just how smartphones have revolutionised the way we work, play and communicate with one another.
The availability of useful applications these days has only increased this “dependency.” For instance, Grab has gotten you to the remotest of spots in Puchong and Foodpanda has come to the rescue often when your in-laws dropped in at dinnertime without warning.
Well, there are many more apps available on App Store and Google Play that will enhance your life.
Here are some of the best:
1. Malaysia Calendar 2018-2020
Having a good calendar is akin to having a great personal assistant — it keeps your daily agenda flowing smoothly.
Without it, most of us will likely miss appointments, forget special occasions and disregard deadlines.
Although all smartphones come with a built-in calendar, this app has more to offer as it perfectly combines Malaysian public holidays, school holidays, Chinese lunar calendar, Islamic calendar and Hindu calendar all in one place and even allows the user to filter holidays by location.
2. CamScanner document scanner
Scanning receipts, notes, documents or even sketches is easy with this handy app.
Using the phone camera, you can keep tabs on your spending — for example — by scanning all your receipts and automatically convert them to PDF format before storing them for retrieval later.
CamScanner can also auto-crop and enhance the scanned images.
3. SoundHound music recognition app
Ever had a tune stuck in your head and not remember its title? This app enables you to identify the song, be it a hit by Siti Nurhaliza or Bruno Mars.
Simply tap the orange button on its homepage to instantly identify the song and get its lyrics.
Even by just humming the melody or singing a few lines, you can still find the song title!
4. MyFitnessPal calorie counter
You’ve eaten more than your fair share of Prosperity Burger this season and had unthinkingly polished off the morning’s nasi lemak.
Well, weight watcher, an app called MyFitnessPal will help you count the calories.
By entering your personal details like height, weight, fitness goal and by selecting your location, it will calculate how much you have consumed.
And that includes Malaysian dishes.
With easy-to-use steps, you can get the skinny from the apps’ extensive database of more than five million foods.
Its built-in barcode scanner will provide the nutritional value of each item. And if you’ve cooked a dish, you can type in the recipe and the app will estimate its nutritional information.
5. Google Translate’s Word Lens
Toss that bulky French For Dummies language guide book! Now you can say Oui to that trip to Provence without fearing you’d get lost in translation.
Google Translate, which supports 103 different languages (59 of which operate offline) has an innovative feature called Word Lens which is perfect for off-the-grid travellers.
It prompts users to point their phone camera at a nearby sign or piece of text. It then transforms the original image with an augmented reality text in the user’s preferred language.
6. ProShot photography app
The cameras on your iPhone X and Samsung Note 8 can do wonders but you still can’t get the hang of all the magnificent features.
Here’s an app that will solve the problem.
ProShot combines the most useful features of any photography app into one.
The fact that you can hop between full auto to full manual control over exposure, shutter speed and white balance means you might just become the go-to cameraman-videographer for your cousin Jasmin’s wedding!
7. Any.do task management
Being the CEO of a start-up company means your life is one big hustle... and bustle. You need Any.do to put some semblance of order into it.
This list-making and task-management app helps keep your schedule on track with to-do lists, reminders, notes and the ability to share lists with an “assign” feature.
The app allows you to sync your phone, desktop, web and tablet data to keep your agenda up to the minute.
8. Buffer social posting scheduler
You don’t have to be reality star Kylie Jenner or blogger/influencer Jane Chuck to need this social media management app.
It is mighty useful to anyone needing to handle multiple accounts and schedule posts, as well as view detailed analytics.
The user-friendly app supports Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest. Free users will be able to manage three social accounts and have a scheduled queue of 10 posts per account while premium plans allow users to schedule more posts, handle more accounts and get access to more advanced analytics.
It also allows them to manually select the time zone.
This means that while overseas, they can still schedule a post following the Malaysian time zone.
9. ASKME Malaysia
In search of the best deals? This all-in-one local search app helps you find local businesses, deals and classifieds with a few clicks.
Simply punch in what you’re looking for and ASKME will pull out suitable options near you from their extensive database.
The app features categories such as food and beverage, travel, spa, shopping and gadgets.
