16 Apps Every Business Traveler Should Have
TRAVELER SHOULD HAVE From booking cabs to managing finances, to booking tickets, these nifty apps are a must-have for any business traveler
Truecaller
Abusiness executive’s life is always considered one that includes good management and organizational skills. Being a part of the internet generation, these business professionals have mastered the art of optimizing time. But it takes a lot to be organized in day-to-day business activities. And in recent times this has mostly become possible through mobile technology. Getting their hands on some of the best mobile applications has helped them automate tasks that cannot be mentioned on their priority lists or they tend to overlook or that cannot be completed on the go owing to time constraints. Truecaller’s caller ID and spam protection features can help business travelers identify unwanted spam calls/ messages and prioritize important calls over others. The new Flash messaging feature in Truecaller 8.0 can help people instantly share their location, making it easier to coordinate and stay in touch. Business travelers can benefit from Truecallers latest payments feature in partnership with ICICI Bank, Truecaller Pay, allowing them to send or receive money securely over their mobile phone using the UPI platform. Also, they can use Truecaller’s “Availability” feature to check whether the person they are about to call is busy or not.
Expedia
From planning to booking and beyond, the Expedia App is designed to enhance your journey. Save with last minute mobile-exclusive deals on your iPhone or Android
phone. The app also supports Apple Watch so stay one step ahead with flight, hotel, and car alerts.
XE Currency
XE is one stop app for currency conversions. It even includes rates for precious metals and historic currency charts, but for the traveler, it is most useful for the simple fact that it’s able to convert every world currency. The app also functions offline by storing the last updated rates, which comes in handy if you’re in a place with limited connectivity or trying to save on data.
Google Translate
Going abroad? Translate makes it easy to convert text from one language to another in ways that actually make sense. Sure, you can type in a phrase in your native tongue and have Translate move it into another language. But you can also take a snapshot of a sign, menu, or document with your phone and have Translate convert it to the text. You can speak into your phone in one language and have Translate speak back in another. And you can do it all offline, provided you download the necessary language packs in advance.
App in the air
It is one of the smartest, straightforward, flight tracking app that has the best coverage of airlines and airports. With “Timeline” you are always prepared and you’ll never miss your flight. Text messages notifications will reach you even if you are abroad and don’t have an Internet connection. It even helps you to best manage your time at the airport by breaking each flight into four stages: Check-in, Boarding, Take-off and Landing and notify you on any flight-related change.
Word, Excel & Powerpoint
Microsoft’s Office suite of programs has long been a defacto standard for desktop productivity, and the mobile versions of Word, Excel and Powerpoint continue that tradition. Designed to provide maximum file compatibility and adopting to touch screen interface devices, each of the three apps allows users to view and edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations respectively. Cloud support for services such as OneDrive, Drive, and Dropbox make for easy sharing and collaboration. To get the most out of the apps, use an Office 365 subscription which now comes bundles with many smart phones and tablets.
Practo
Practo is a healthcare app which enables you to find the
best doctors, and book instant appointments and do online consultations with them. You can read details about the doctor such as qualifications, consultation fees, see feedback from other patients and instantly book appointments right from your smartphone.
Expensify
Keeping track of expenses can be a pain while you are more on the move. Expensify can ease the burden. The app provides an easy-to-follow interface for tracking time, miles, receipts, and invoices on the go, then generating on-demand reports as needed. Expensify lets you scan receipts as you get them, after which it automatically pulls out the relevant info from the images and puts it into your records. It can tap into your phone’s GPS to log miles as you drive, and it offers offline functionality for the times when you can’t get a signal.
Duolingo
It is a free and well-designed language learning app. This should not be considered as a replacement for proper language classes or courses, but the app lets you keep updated on vocabulary, before a trip abroad. The interface is designed just like a computer game of puzzles is played, and it steers you through levels that you need to complete before advancing, and you gain experience points along the way.
Live Trekker
Be the storyteller when you travel to Shanghai or Paris, trek in the South-African wild, or sit in silence and endure the beauty of Grand Canyon. The app lets you creates a digital journal of your travels so you can look back on your trips on an interactive map. You can track your path and pin photos, videos, audio or text entries to the map as you go. Everything gets visualized accurately on gorgeous maps.
Evernote
Evernote is one of the popular cross-platform notetaking services, allowing users to take and upload notes, pictures, audio and video snippets and organize them into cloud notebooks that can be synced across different devices. Loaded with a powerful organization, formatting and sharing options, Evernote is still king even with competitors such as OneNote and Google Keep. The free version lets users upload 60MB of content monthly, with paid accounts allowing more options.
Google Drive
Google’s cloud storage service, Google Drive, serves as a great productivity aid due to its tight integration with the Google ecosystem. Users can easily upload and download any file, plus the file sharing and collaboration features let you easily work on shared projects effectively. Easy configuration of sharing settings, folder structure, quick
access to recent files and details, and built-in viewing of documents, PDFs, photos, and videos make for a versatile cloud storage tool whatever mobile OS you use. Drive starts you with 15 GB of free Google online storage, so you can keep photos, stories, designs, drawings, recordings, videos – anything.
Haptik
It is your Personal Assistant that has a platoon of real individuals to solve your problems and allows you to focus on things that matter to you most. Whether it’s finding the best mobile plan, file a complaint or service request, web Check-in, make a restaurant reservation, check PNR or Train Status, finding Flight Schedules & Prices, or finding Car or Bike Price, Haptik is your go-to guy. Just type it, and consider the job done.
Tripit
Tripit extracts travel information from your confirmation emails for flights, hotels, rental cars, events bookings and converts it into a single itinerary. What you need to do is forward your emails to the app and it will take care of the rest.
Splittr
It provides a simple platform to share costs between friends. Just enter expenses as you travel along, including who paid what and the app will do the rest. A nice touch for longer, multi-destination trips is that all currencies are supported and you can mix currencies without having to do the conversion yourself.
This nifty app lets you preserve almost any web page or content in an organized way and makes for a favorable viewing experience. Previously known as Read It Later, Pocket App is used for managing a reading list of articles and web content from the Internet. It gets integrated with your web browser so you can save content or a web page by simply tapping the icon near the top of the screen. It is a great offline reading tool that allows you to select and save articles, pictures, and videos for later viewing.