Letters To The Editor Mobile Apps

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Letters to the Editor: Mobile Apps

Hi FTB,

I love the blog, and have greatly benefited from all the tips (thanks for the fantastic google flights tip!) 🙂
I was wondering if you could tell me about some phone apps you find useful or interesting? From an IT security perspective of course!

Regards,

Abdulla Ackabar

Hi Abdulla,

Thanks for the support, really appreciate it. Currently I’m sitting here learning very quickly why failover clustering over VPN and different subnets is a bad idea…but more on that later!

Good question! I’ll try to keep it as brief as possible – while going a bit in depth. For reference, i’m using a Galaxy S7 (thanks Trandy) and it’s a fucking awesome phone.

Document Scanner – Office Lens

If you haven’t tried this app out, trust me, it’s fucking awesome. It turns your camera into a document scanner. It doesn’t matter what angle you take the picture, it will straighten it out like you have scanned it. Made by MSFT.
I have used it to send official documents to Czech/London embassy, and they accepted them, even though they need legit scans. Really recommend.

Cloud Storage – Google Drive

Previously I used Dropbox with the 15gb they give you with a Samsung. Dropbox is fine, but I found it to be super expensive (paid options are 30gb, or 1TB as the next hop – I don’t need that much!)
Google drive gives a nice price ~$2.99 a month for 100gb storage. I make sure I backup all my photos here in full quality, as the free version compresses them. (Although I have heard the compression method is very good)

Web Browser – Samsung Internet

“WHATTT?? WHY NOT CHROME?? HGSHKJNHDSG”

That’s right, I use Samsungs stock browser. I personally find it fast, slick, and lightweight. Chrome became a super hungry best for me, and my battery life has increased dramatically. Plus you can install an ad-blocker, use fingerprint for passwords stored in Knox. Give it a try if you can!

Weather – Yahoo!

I! know! I’ll! get! laughed! at! for! this! one!
It has the most no-nonsense interface for me. No clicks or swipes required. Awful for NZ but good for London.

Keyboard – Swiftkey

I like to have all my numbers and punctuation on one screen. Can’t be bothered doing a pointless click on the ‘123’ button.

Other fun apps:

  • Skymap – Map the night sky
  • File Manager
  • Duolingo
  • Colornote

Hope that satisfies your APPetite!

Cheers,

FTB

Posted on May 31, 2017September 13, 2017

Updated:

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