Communication Apps: In Europe, there are so many people from different countries with their own service providers and none of them work well together. We've become accustomed to using more creative ways to communicate - and they all work pretty well...
WhatsApp - FREE - Facebook bought Whatsapp for $2B and most people didn’t even know what it was. This is the must have app for texting with international friends. It connects to the other person using their phone numbers. Instead of texting in your standard messages app, just click on the whatsapp app and text. You can send photos, short videos and even voice messages. Everyone that I know outside of the US uses this app.
Viber - FREE - Same as WhatsApp but for calls. The voice info is passed via your data so it doesn’t affect your minutes or count as international calling. Again, it identifies you by your phone number after set up, you’ll have a Viber profile and you can make calls to other Viber profiles. As long as both of you are on WiFi the connection is pretty good. But if you’re trying to make calls, say, while driving - the connection can be spotty. It has a messaging feature like WhatsApp so depending on what FB does with WhatsApp, I might just start to use this one app instead.
Skype - FREE - Skype has been around for a while, mostly known for video calls. It works great if you have good internet service. We try to stay in touch with our friends and family weekly or so with Skype calls. There is an app but I find that Skype is better for use while on your laptop. I use this mostly to stay in touch with my VA’s and outsourced workers.
Photography Apps: While on this trip we want to capture as much as we can with photographs. We both want to take a photography class and upgrade our cameras etc. Until then, we are using our iPhones for photo and video. The standard pictures can be a bit flat at times so I am using these apps with our photos.
PicLab HD - $1.99 - This is the app that lets you layer words and fancy fonts on top of the pictures. Almost like Album Art. I think it looks cool and can help me as I attempt to say something cool on top of the pics. AND they just enhanced the app so that the fonts can have drop shadows, giving them more depth.
ProCamera - $4.99 - This app has the most filters, adjusters and is really easy to use. The best app for photo enhancing that I have.
Tadaa SLR - $1.99 - I think that pictures with strong depth of field look good. But the iPhone doesn’t have aperture settings so all pics are flat i.e. everything is in focus. After taking a picture, Tadaa SLR lets you select parts of the picture manually and then adjust the focus. So you can make the background blurry while the central subject stays in focus or vice versa.
iMovie - $3.99- I shoot quite a bit of video because I think videos are fun to way to capture moments and transfer experiences to others. I am not great at it yet, but iMovie hides this fact very well. This app made by Apple is unbelievably easy and intuitive to use. You can add multiple clips, fade in and out of transitions, add text and titles, and add music over it as well. Making short films can be intimidating if you’ve never done it. This app makes it so easy that you can at least put something together and not be paralysed by all the options that other apps could give you.
Traveling abroad can be scary because we are so used to our routines and doing things the way we always have. I actually thing getting out of this comfort zone is a good thing, but as fast as technology is innovating, at least you can stay in touch with your family and friends and capture the moments well.
These are just the apps that I use. I would love to get more tips from you if you have some suggestions.
Cheers,
Chris
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