Must-have apps for this school year
Last week we brought you information on Pocket Points, the app that helps you stay off your phone to be more productive. What about using that smartphone to help you be more productive? Well, there’s an app for that — several actually.
Inbox by Gmail:
It’s likely that as a student, you use Gmail in some way (Aggiemail is hosted by Gmail), but you’re probably still using that boring, old red-letter app that came on your android device, or that you downloaded after getting Google Chrome on your iPhone (if you didn’t, 2008 called and it wants its Safari browser back). Inbox by Gmail is the improved version of the stock app that turns your email into a to-do list. Need to remember to preorder the new “Pokemon: Sun and Moon” game? Pin the email to the top of the list and when you get home and buy it, swipe right to mark it as done, archiving the email. Additionally, the app can group emails by category, so if you’re like me and you get 10 twitter notifications, 3 Tumblr notifications, and the better part of 100 facebook notifications in a day, you can view them all in a single email and then delete all of them at once.
Headspace:
I’m sure you’re busy with your 24 credits of classes and internships, your two jobs, and a bit of sleep if your schedule allows. After a day like that, it can be really difficult to unwind. Headspace: “Your gym membership for your mind,” is a guided meditation app that was launched in 2012. Personally, I like to wake up and immediately listen to one of the free 10-minute meditations. The voice over is high quality, non-judgemental and well paced. It’s a great place for beginners to start with meditation and it really can set a good tone for the day. You could also subscribe to the service to get access to a huge library of meditations, including ones to help you get to sleep, keep motivated and even help with self-love and kindness.
Microsoft Arrow:
If you have an iPhone, you already have a pretty decent user interface, but for android users, each company has their own interface and some of them can be rather cluttered, to say the least. For those who feel that your home screen is working to keep you distracted, like the Samsung Galaxy default which takes up half of the screen space with today’s weather, Microsoft Arrow declutters the screen and puts the most important things front and center. It does so by tracking how many times you open any one app and makes it easier to access it the more you use it. Swiping left and right also brings people and recent notifications to the screen, making it easier to use while removing the somewhat obsolete 5 pages of shortcuts that come standard on android phones.
Canvas:
It’s rather likely that you’ve already used the desktop version of canvas, but a small survey conducted at the USU Bookstore found that a majority of students don’t use the app. In fact, with almost the same majority, none of the students asked had even installed. The Canvas app advertises that it will be faster and easier than just using your browser. In practice, however, the app is just a bit off. This could be because the files my instructors use happen to not be supported by the app, but I haven’t ever had a class with a really smooth interface, so your mileage may vary. That said the app is a bit faster than using your phone’s browser and it allows you to stay connected to the USU server for easy access at a moments notice, usefull if you wanted to check for any assignments before you marathon catch up on Game of Thrones.
Hopefully armed with these four apps your next semester will be a little easier. Whether it’s using the Inbox to quickly parse through multiple emails, getting yourself a bit of Headspace, just keeping your android home screen less cluttered with Arrow, or looking up that notification your Instructor just sent you in Canvas.
How about you? What apps do you use to keep productive? Let us know on Twitter @TheUtahStatesman or on my personal account @Cat_StClaire