Nicole Black, The Daily Record Newswire
In the past I’ve shared my recommendations of mobile apps available for use in your law practice. But life is not all about the law and I figured it was high time I shared a few of my favorite and most-used non-legal mobile apps.
So without further ado, let’s start with NextIssue, one of my favorite apps. It’s available for your iPad or Android device and offers unlimited access to up to 75 different magazines on your tablet — for just one low price each month. Basic access costs $9.99/month and premium access is $14.99/month.
The basic plan includes access to the most recent and back issues of over 65 different magazines, including Money, Inc., ESPN the Magazine, Consumer Reports, Fast Company, Bon Appetit, Food and Wine, Wired and Travel & Leisure. The premium plan allows access to additional magazines: Entertainment Weekly, Golf World, New York Magazine, People, Sports Illustrated, The New Yorker and Time.
Next up, Brewster, a free iPhone and iPad app that helps you to manage your contacts across all of your social networks. Once you download this app, it collects all of your social network contacts into a fully searchable database and also automatically categorizes your contacts. You can create custom categories as well. You can also synch the app with your iPhone contacts, which will update the contact information for all of your existing contacts and will also automatically include your contact’s social media profile photos for all incoming calls.
Google Now is free app that is available for Android and iOS devices. This app is Google’s intelligent personal assistant that is designed to provide you with the information most relevant to your daily life, right on your smartphone. Like Siri, Apple’s personal assistant, the Google Now app responds to voice commands and also provides “information cards” catered to your needs, based on your interaction with your phone.
The information is gleaned from your phone’s GPS data and the data that Google has collected regarding your search history. It then personalizes its results and predicts which “information cards” will be most useful to you, including traffic directions and conditions, information regarding the status of packages being delivered (gleaned from your gmail account), the weather for your current location, and restaurants located nearby.
Another app I use often is Flixster. If you like movies, then you’ll like Flixster. This app provides you with everything you need to know about movies currently playing in the box office and also provides a ton of useful information about movies released on DVD.
Using Flixster you can access the showtimes of movies playing nearby and also read reviews, both from viewers and critics, along with descriptions of the movies and video trailers. You can even buy tickets through the app from participating theaters. It’s a free app and is available for iOS and Android devices.
Finally, there’s Stitcher. If you like talk radio, you’ll love Stitcher. The Stitcher radio app is a free streaming content service that aggregates a vast array of audio content. It’s like Pandora for talk radio. Using this app you can listen to talk radio, podcasts, live radio and more. Shows available include NPR, CNN, Fox, BBC, WSJ, Adam Carolla, SModcast, Joe Rogan, Rachel Maddow, Rush Limbaugh, Fresh Air, Freakonomics, Radiolab, plus over 10,000 more shows and live stations.
Using the app you can create custom stations by “stitching” together your favorite shows. Stitcher then automatically updates your stations whenever new episodes of your selected shows are available.
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Nicole Black is a director at MyCase.com, a cloud-based law practice management platform. She is also of counsel to Fiandach & Fiandach in Rochester and is a GigaOM Pro analyst. She is the author of the ABA book “Cloud Computing for Lawyers,” co-authors the ABA book “Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier,” and co-authors “Criminal Law in New York,” a West-Thomson treatise. She speaks regularly at conferences regarding the intersection of law and technology. She publishes three legal blogs and can be reached at niki@mycase.com.
