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Top 10 Financial Apps That Are Actually Worth Using

Steven Finch — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:24:00 +0000

There are so many financial applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch already, but how do you know which ones are actually worth using? Mint has put together a great list of the top 10 Financial applications everyone should use, so I thought I would post our top 5 and then let you head over to Mint to see the rest.

Bloomberg Mobile (Free)

Bloomberg

Wall Street Traders swear by the Bloomberg Terminal to analyze real-time financial market data, place trades, and get news and price quotes. Bloomberg Mobile isn’t quite the same thing but it is a beautifully designed app that provides up-to-the-minute news, stock quotes, company descriptions, and price chart and market trend analysis. The My Stocks feature is a more detailed replacement for Apple’s stock Stocks app. And Bloomberg Mobile takes full advantage of the iPhone’s position sensor by providing larger charts when you rotate the phone to a horizontal position.

Mobile Banking (Free)

Bank of America

Bank of America’s iPhone app, Mobile Banking is little more than a wrapper around its existing mobile site (which isn’t optimized for the iPhone) but if this is your bank you’ll still find it useful. You can use it to check available balances, pay bills, and transfer funds on-the-go 24/7. Its best feature is its ability to find the nearest ATM and Banking Center locations using the GPS in the iPhone, something that isn’t possible with the mobile site. BofA’s Online Banking Guarantee is its assurance that you won’t be responsible for any unauthorized transactions and it uses advanced encryption technology to prevent unauthorized access to your accounts and to protect your online identity.

PayPal (Free)

PayPal

In Japan many have thrown away their wallets in favor of paying for everything from train tickets to beer from a vending machine with their mobile phones. We’re not quite there yet but the PayPal app provides a tantalizing glimpse at this future. It provides complete access to your PayPal account allowing you to check your balances and send money to your friends and family, all from your iPhone. It supports 16 currencies and is secured by your existing PIN or password. It’s a good start but I’d like to see it go further. Missing is any way of displaying your transaction history and I’d also like to see it use the notification indicator on the app icon to show when money has arrived in your account.

Loan Shark ($4.99)

FoggyNoggin Software

Designed to help you navigate the often treacherous waters of financial lending, Loan Shark provides a number of features that let you calculate and compare loans from different vendors. You can calculate any component of a loan, including payment, interest rate or loan amount, see the full Amortization Table for the loan’s lifespan and play with “what-if” scenarios that let you determine the effect of making extra, higher, or lower payments. Loan Shark can help you determine how long it will take to pay off that credit card, determine how close you are to paying off your mortgage, and compare the cost of different loans, among many other uses. Kudos to FoggyNoggin Software for an easy-to-use and good looking interface that works well on a mobile device.

Bonus feature: Lets you locate nearby banks using the iPhone’s location-awareness

Tipulator (99 cents)

Tap Tap Tap

Tipulator stands out in a crowded field of tip calculators (it’s often said that the true test of how successful a new platform will be is how quickly a tip calculator appears for it) by marrying cute graphics with easy-to-use number dials. You can probably split the check without it but you won’t have as much fun doing it. And for 1/3 the price of your last latte, you owe it to yourself to at least try it.

Google Reader Changes Design But Not Sure For The Better

Steven Finch — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 11:35:12 +0000

Google Reader has for a long time been my RSS reader of choice. The design has been simple, easy to use, lots of customisation options, ability to group and more.

Last week Google released a new version of Google Reader and I thought I would take a little time and review it for everyone.

(old)

(new)

Key changes include collapsible navigation, updated look and feel, friends get promoted and more bundle feeds.

Friends get promoted

Shared items have grown up and gotten their own section in the navigation pane. You can collapse this entire section and use the title to see everything your friends have shared, or leave it open to track friends with shared items. (Don’t forget that you can add new friends in “Sharing settings“.)

More bundled feeds!

Previously Google has some default bundles that you could subscribe too, in a variety of areas. Previously this was very limited and there were only about 10 areas. Now they have added huge amounts of bundle feeds for pretty much every major niche. If you go to “Browse for stuff” then you can see bundles.

Collapsible Navigation

Each section of the navigation pane now has its own options menu and minimize/maximize controls. You can collapse each major section of navigation down to one line and focus on only the things you choose to use.

Updated look and feel

The look and feel has changed a lot in this new version of Google Reader. I personally would have liked it if there was an option to return to the old version or at least have a variety of versions. The new version is very neutral, with white and a very light blue being the main colours. However, I find post a lot harder to read in this new version. Recently Gmail received a variety of themes in which users could choose from, I really hope this isn’t too long in coming to Google Reader.
Overall

Overall the changes to Google Reader were needed, except in the case of changing the colour scheme. I think the colour scheme changes are definitely a step backwards, but this can be changed when hopefully they release a themes range to choose from.

Strands.com Launch Mobile Version of People Powered Discovery

Steven Finch — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:25:57 +0000

Strands.com will today be announcing the launch of the full mobilization of the Strands.com experience.

The planned launch is for Noon PT today, but here is a sneak preview on what you will be able to do with the mobile version of Strands.com.

- View recent activity from your friends
- Check and reply to your inbox messages
- Like and dislike things in peoples Strands
- Comment
- View images and click on links to blog posts and bookmarks
- Check out recommended posts
- Save things for later viewing once you get to your computer

The new mobile version can be found at: http://m.strands.com, but is in private beta.

OpenX Launch Their Own Hosted Advertising Server, Which Im Sure Is The Best!

Steven Finch — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:02:22 +0000

OpenX has today launched its much anticipated hosted ad serving solution. OpenX Hosted is free to publishers serving up to 25 million ad impressions each month and professional and enterprise packages are available for larger publishers who need the additional services and support to manage their businesses.

OpenX Hosted version has been in beta testing since January 2008 and contains exactly the same software found in the original OpenX Ad Server. The new product allows publishers to use the software to operate all aspects of ad serving while OpenX provides all the hardware and back-end infrastructure, leaving publishers free to focus on their advertising revenues.

OpenX Hosted’s feature-set enables publishers to manage their advertising campaigns across multiple direct advertisers and ad networks, prioritize and optimize their campaigns, and use sophisticated targeting tools. Importantly, OpenX Hosted also enables publishers to maintain tight control over which advertisers are permitted to see their data and advertise to their users.

As you can see from the home page of the hosted version, there are some improvements. This home page aims to provide users with some very basic stats to make sure they aren’t going to go over the limit, as well as the community stats and news.

A few changes have also happened over at the Inventory page, in which seems to be a lot simplier in terms of design as well as some great graphics.

Overall

Overall the new OpenX hosted version is great for web publishers to control their own inventory. The limit of 25 million ad impressions per month is great for publishers, and allows OpenX to have a nice additional revenue stream. However, what I haven’t mentioned already is that OpenX are in Alpha of a new Ad Marketplace, in which I’m sure will be their main revenue stream in the near future.