How did businesses ever get by without smartphones and tablets to take their operations with them anywhere? These days, mobile devices offer so many business solutions that it’s absolutely mind-boggling to consider functioning professionally without them anymore. The only real problem is that there are so many useful apps out there. How do you know which ones are right for the particular needs of your business? If you’re looking to narrow down the options, here are just a few universally useful and truly comprehensive apps for the small business owner that needs portable solutions for the iPad.

1. Dropbox. Okay, so you’ve probably heard of this great free app before, but that doesn’t make it any less great, especially for the avid business person seeking an easy way to transport files. So forget about lugging around a briefcase full of hard copies or a hefty laptop bag. Your lightweight and compact iPad can now be your receptacle for any files (docs, pics, and videos) that you need to bring to the office or a business meeting. Just upload from your computer and access via iPad application.
2. Keynote. When you manage a small business, meetings and presentations with clients, partners, and employees are often part of the package. Luckily, Keynote has got you covered (for $9.99). You can create slide shows at your leisure and then present them to a small group on your iPad, say at a business lunch, or to a larger group, like a board room or conference setting, using additional hardware (a dock connector or VGA adapter) to project images onto a monitor.
3. Skype. Has there ever been a better free app for business than this amazing communication tool? Whether you’re running off WiFi or you’ve got a 3G version of the iPad, this freebie actually lets you call, text, and even video conference with clients and employees from anywhere. You may find yourself leaving your iPhone at home when you travel once you download this app to your iPad.
4. Hootsuite. Any business that has yet to implement a marketing strategy via social media is woefully behind the times. And since most companies support a variety of accounts on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and LinkedIn, this free app is a must. You can use it to schedule and send updates to your various accounts as well as monitor different features (click stats, keywords, and more).
5. Pages. Whether your goal is to reach a broader consumer base through online fliers, apprise current customers of new products or specials, create reports for partners and clients, attract recent business MBA graduates to your team through targeted ads with the top online MBA programs of 2012, or even write new content for your website, this handy app can help you to quickly and easily design a slew of docs with advanced layout tools that are nonetheless user-friendly. With great user reviews and a cost of only $9.99, this app is a best buy for any business that could use simple yet ample document creation services at the drop of a hat.

Editor’s Note

Thanks to Evan Fischer for this quest post. He is a freelance writer and part-time student at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California.

There’s no denying that the state of the economy has made life even harder for the majority of teachers. While many schools have been facing budgetary concerns for years, the recession and cuts in state and federal funding have led to a lot of layoffs, meaning larger class sizes and fewer resources for the teaching staff that remains. This, of course, means that most teachers are either making do with less, or they’re using their personal resources to enhance the lessons they teach, whether that entails footing the bill for art supplies and books or spending a lot of unpaid time seeking creative solutions. So if you’re one of many teachers at your wits end when it comes to improving the lessons you offer while making your life easier, here are just a few clever apps for your iPad that could help you in the classroom setting.

1. TeacherTool One. This free app is like a godsend for overworked teachers. It lets you easily input and track grades and attendance by date, as well as file personal notes about particular students so that you can set reminders for yourself for upcoming lessons (i.e. “Joey needs to practice his multiplication tables” or “Susan needs help with sentence structure and spelling”). It’s a great way to instantly track students and each time you sync with your home or work computer it makes a backup copy.
2. GradePad. The nice thing about this app to help you make the grades is that it offers you a lot of handy options. While it will cost you $2.99 to download, there are some useful features, such as the ability to create groups (so you can make grades for joint projects), instantly track performance with rubrics that offer criteria and scaling options, and make assessments over time. And with an included web account it’s easy to upload class lists and other important information.
3. Dropbox. As freebies go, this one is a keeper. And considering how basic it is, you may wonder how you ever got by without it. It’s basically like a virtual backpack or briefcase. You simply drop in your files (docs, pics, even videos) from any device and you can view them on any other device. So you can take assignments from home to work (and back again) without having to keep track of physical copies, and if you find something that you want to share with your class (like snapshots from your weekend visit to the natural history museum) you can easily deposit them into Dropbox at home and then display them on your iPad in class.
4. Keynote. If your course is lecture-heavy, this app can provide you with a lot of time-saving tools that will help to spice up your speeches. At $9.99 it’s not the cheapest tool in iVerse, but once you get started you’ll use it all the time. You can utilize the templates provided to quickly insert text or graphics and you can even use it to create slide shows or animations to punch up your presentation.
5. Evernote. When you learn what this app can do, you may be surprised to see that it’s free. The functionality is pretty amazing; you can actually capture information anywhere to access and search later. On a basic level you can use the app to take snapshots for later reference or leave yourself voice memos, so if you see ads for home tuition services that would benefit your students, for example, you can just snap a pic of the info on the go. But you can also capture screen shots of web pages and then search the text later for further information. And you can download the app on several devices and use the sync function to access shared data from any of them.

Editor’s Note

Thanks to Evan Fischer for this quest post. He is a freelance writer and part-time student at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California.

Well, folks, Apple has updated all of their iPad productivity apps Keynote, Numbers, and Pages. The update includes a number of bug fixes and improvements, but as well as adds a number of new features too. Here’s a in-depth look:

Keynote

• Export presentations to Microsoft PowerPoint (.PPT) format.
• Copy presentations between Keynote and your MobileMe iDisk or a WebDAV service.
• Support for audio in builds when importing Keynote ’09 presentations.
• Ability to group and ungroup objects.
• Add animated builds to grouped objects.
• Lens Flare, Spin and Wipe build animations.
• Revolving Door, Swoosh and Wipe slide transition animations.

Numbers

• Export spreadsheets to Microsoft Excel (.XLS) format.
• Copy spreadsheets between Numbers and your MobileMe iDisk or a WebDAV service.
• Ability to group and ungroup objects.
• Open CSV files from Mail and other apps.

Pages

• Copy documents between Pages and your MobileMe iDisk or a WebDAV service.
• Option to display the word count for your document.
• Support for opening .txt files from Mail.
• Ability to group and ungroup objects.
• Import and export existing footnotes, endnotes, sections and tables of contents.
• Import and export Pages ’09 tables with image background fills in cells.

Each app is costs $9.99 and is iPad-only.

PocketFullOfApps will be posting a roundup of of Apple’s WWDC 2010 Keynote tomorrow at 8 AM EST. This post will be updated with the link as well. But here’s a very, very quick recap: Apple announced the iPhone 4 and talked about iPhone OS 4.0 (iOS4). Much, much more detail will be in the roundup tomorrow.

Well, the WWDC 2010 keynote is just hours away and Apple is expected to announce the next generation iPhone and possibly release it. Anyway, here’s PocketFullOfApps’ predictions of what will happen at the WWDC 2010 keynote:

• Next generation iPhone

Now, this is a given that Apple will announce the next generation iPhone at the WWDC 2010 keynote, but what about the tech specs, release date, name, and other such things? Well, I think Apple will call the next generation iPhone the “iPhone 4G” or the “iPhone HD”, but we will have to wait and see. As for the tech specs, the next generation iPhone will sport the Apple A4 System on a Chip (SoC) and have 512 MB of RAM. The next generation iPhone will also sport a higher resolution screen than the iPhone 3GS. The resolution will probably be 960 X 640, which if that is true, that means the new iPhone will have 4X the number of pixels than the iPhone 3GS. The new iPhone may also have a upgraded back camera, which will probably be an 5MP (mega pixel) auto focus camera. On top of all that, the new iPhone will have a front facing camera most likely for video calling. The next generation iPhone will probably only be announced at the WWDC 2010 keynote and will be released later this month most likely. The iPhone 4G/HD will come in solid two colors: black or white. It’s also possible that the new iPhone will be able to have 64GB of flash memory, but that seems like a stretch.

• Next generation iPod Touch

It’s a high possibility that Apple will announce the next generation iPod Touch at the WWDC keynote, but most likely won’t be released. The new iPod Touch will have a back facing camera, which will probably be a 2MP no auto focus camera. The new iPod Touch will sport the Apple A4 System on a Chip (SoC) and have 512 MB of RAM. As for a high resolution screen, it’s a possibly, but I say Apple won’t put a high resolution screen in the new iPod Touch. The flash memory storage will stay the same as the 3rd generation iPod Touch. If it’s not announced or released at the WWDC 2010 keynote, it will probably be announced and released in September.

• Cloud based iTunes

There’s not a high chance that a cloud based iTunes service would be announced at the WWDC 2010, but it’s still possible. Not to long ago, Apple bought LaLa (lala.com), which supports the rumor of a cloud based iTunes. So, obviously, a cloud based iTunes will be coming sometime soon (hopefully).

• New Apple TV

Second to last: a new Apple TV. It’s been a while since Apple has refreshed the Apple TV, so this is yet another possibility. The new Apple TV will probably cost $99 and have flash memory. On top of that, it will all be cloud based storage. That’s why the new Apple TV will have flash memory, because there’s no need for a hard drive. The new Apple TV will just be announced at the WWDC 2010 keynote and will be released later this year.

• Safari 5.0

Safari 5.0 very well could be announced and released at Apple’s WWDC 2010 keynote. It’s been just little over a year since Apple announced Safari 4.0 and just a day shy of Safari 4.0 being release. So, this supports the rumor of Safari 5.0 being announced at the WWDC 2010 keynote. Also, just yesterday, Macgeneration posted some info of what the Safari 5.0 will include.

And that concludes PocketFullOfApps’ predictions of what will happen at the WWDC 2010 keynote. PocketFullOfApps will also be live blogging the WWDC 2010 key note which you can see here. After the keynote is over, PocketFullOfApps will have a roundup available.