iPad Applications for the Modern Project Manager

We can’t always get a sure handle on everything we need to manage projects, but the modern project manager is an organised being that is willing to take advantage of any tool or offering that can help simplify their lives or, failing that, the choices that can make those lives easier.

Increasingly, project managers are turning to the iPad as a possible tool that can make our project managerial lives even simpler. Most of us looking to do so would likely need some sort of directory to sort through specifics, including Cost, Categories, Relevancy to your role, even the methodology best equipped for each application. With PM software increasingly aware and adaptive providers jumping at the iPad market as a new avenue for their problem-solving tool, the competition is fierce and hard to distinguish. The iPad invariably makes this so, because it presents opportunities to us even the best laptops can fall short on:

• Their portability is similar, perhaps even better, due to the inherent space reduction of the tool
• The compactness and advancement puts our project software more literally at our finger tips
• iPad-specific applications mean a whole market of help is available to this growing contingent of niche users

For iPad using project managers, tools like Toodledo could be beneficial to deliver top-notch quality. Click the image to read Andrea Contreras’ analysis of 25 great iPad apps for PMs.

Ergo, with such a need separating those necessary softwares of wheat from the chaff, we were glad to hear from writer Andrea Contreras of Project Management Training, a website dedicated to providing students with the information and tools needed in order to purse their project management training program. After checking out websites like Arras People, How to Manage a Camel and the popular PPM Community blogs directory- a sensible series of moves , Contreras alerted us to an article she’d written that tried to narrow the focus on tools project managers might want to consider in managing their projects through iPad. We now in turn alert you, our loyal readers, to the wealth of iPad software possibilities that can potentially help in project delivery.

What is so commendable about the article is that it does go out of its way to lay out the prices (albeit in US $) of each relevant app you might want for project-related iPad, but with a solid rundown of just what you’re getting for your – in this case – buck. There are some good free applications, and worth note is that Andrea has mostly encountered apps at prices totalling less than $10.

So how does that translate for the UK project manager?

Here’s where I got inspired to help out fellow British project personnel. Although most products for sale in the iTunes store translate comfortably between US and UK prices, Apple tends to round so that the last cent always ends in “9″, and usually in a manner that falls quite near a round number, but shy enough that you never feel the true finality of rounding to the nearest dollar. And you’d better believe I got sucked in by this clever bombardment of advertising from an early age watching the local commercials whilst Mom tended to business waiting for Oprah to come back on…

“Hey, it’s not $100; it’s $99.99! I’m not spending hundreds for this officially-licensed O.J. Trial commemorative coin! And I’m saving, too – it’s like they knew I’d need that cent some day.”

Save for the free apps below, I checked out if (based on current exchange rates) you got it cheaper here than in the US. Check below for the relevant UK price for Andrea’s recommended iPad apps. A (+) indicates that the UK project manager gets a beneficial exchange difference, whilst an (=) sign (i.e. “free”) indicates no change, and a (-) sign indicates a harmful exchange difference to the UK customer. UK customers should like what they see:

(*-all exchange rate comparisons derived from the x-rates.com calculator 12th July 2011)

1. Project Planner HD: £3.49 +
2. TrackerBot: FREE =
3. e-Task Project for iPad: FREE =
4. Projector: £5.99 +
5. Bento: £2.99 +
6. SG Project 2: £5.99 +, Pro version: £23.99 +
7. Project Manager: FREE =
8. Time Scale – Project Management: £1.19 +
9. Things for iPad: £11.99 +
10. WebEx for iPad: FREE =
11. OmniFocus: £23.99 +
12. Task Cards: £1.79 +
13. Toodledo: £1.79 + (see note below)
14. My Timetable: UK version is known as the preceding, not My Schedule: £0.59 +
15. CalenGoo: £3.99 +
16. SaiSuke: £5.99 +
17. Organizer: £4.99 +
18. Dropbox: FREE =
19. Expense Tablet for iPad: £0.59 +
20. Keynote: £5.99 +
21. Omni Invoice: £2.99 + (EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s listed on ITunes as an iPhone app, but is apparently interchangeable with iPad and iPhone)
22. Evernote: FREE =
23. Numbers: £5.99 +
24. DocScanner: £2.99 + (EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s listed on ITunes as an iPhone app, but is apparently interchangeable with iPad and iPhone. See Note 2 below)
25. Pages: £5.99 +

(NOTE 1: On US iTunes, the price just reached $2.99, i.e., its cheaper for GB iTunes users at £1.79)
(NOTE 2: On US iTunes, the price just reached $4.99, i.e., its cheaper for GB iTunes users at £2.99)

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