As a follow-up to last week's smart-phone story, we decided to look at advisers' favorite mobile applications.
From the two dozen or so responses I've received thus far, the most passionate smart-phone users own iPhones, and each seems to have gone gaga over a different set of applications.
The single most popular application among these advisers is Evernote, which runs on the BlackBerry, iPhone and Windows Mobile platforms, as well as the Palm Pre. The value in Evernote (from Evernote Corp., at evernote.com) is its ability to organize disparate bits of data and other material in a way that is easily accessible, usable and helpful.
Whether you use a smart phone, computer or web browser, Evernote allows you to type text notes, bookmark and clip material from web pages, take screenshots, photos, etc., and save them to your Evernote account.
Evernote then takes what you capture — whether handwriting or the text in photos or other images — processes it, indexes it and makes all of it searchable.
Take this off-the-wall example: Say you scribble a brilliant investment idea on a sticky note while your phone is charging or in your briefcase. You retrieve your phone and take a photo of the scribbled note, then upload it to Evernote with the click of an icon. A few days later, when you remember having an idea but can't recall what it was or where you jotted it down, you search for it on Evernote and find the idea there converted to text.
The application allows you to share all your notes with other applications or people. Evernote offers a free version, which gives you 40 megabytes of storage, as well as a premium version for $5 a month or $45 per year, which gives you 500 megs of storage as well as unlimited file type support and SSL encryption.
Bob Rall, founder of Rall Capital Management Inc., said one of the many ways he uses Evernote is to help him with his “Investing for the Long Run” radio show.
“I'm always on the lookout for things to talk about on the show, and whether it's a newspaper article or whatever, I can select the text and right-click on it, and you've got an Evernote icon there that I click, and it automatically uploads it. I have a folder called Radio Show Notes, and boom, it's there,” said Mr. Rall, whose firm manages $20 million in assets.
Another favorite iPhone application among advisers is Jott (jott .com) from Nuance Communications Inc., which also makes Dragon Naturally Speaking.
Ted Rich, co-president at Vinoy Capital LLC, said Jott is his favorite application because it helps him catch and record ideas on the go.
In a nutshell, Jott is an online voice-to-text conversion program. Like Evernote, it can be used on your computer or from mobile phones, but Jott's buzz comes from its ability to let you reply to e-mails with your voice, eliminating the need to text on your iPhone.
The Jott Assistant is available starting at $3.95 per month, which gets you unlimited voice-to-text conversions and the ability to record for up to 15 seconds at a time. Versions are available for the iPhone and Microsoft Outlook.
Jott Assistant Pro, which costs $12.95 a month, doubles the recording time to 30 seconds and provides support for selected Black-Berry models (Series 8800, 8300 Curve and 8100 Pearl), in addition to iPhone support.
When asked about their favorite apps, only a few advisers mentioned core advisory-focused applications reconfigured for mobile.
Cindi Hill, a certified financial planner and founder of Hill Financial Advisors, is a fan of the iPhone application that Redtail Technology Inc. created for the 20,000 users of its customer relationship management software. In addition to the iPhone, the application is available on the BlackBerry and Windows Mobile platforms.
Another popular vendor to advisers, CRM Software Inc., re-cently rolled out a mobile application for its Junxure product.
Last week, the results of a survey of more than 500 financial advisers lent credence to the notion that mobile applications are becoming increasingly important.
The survey, conducted by kasina LLC, an asset management consulting firm, and Horsesmouth LLC, an advisory consulting firm, found that 57% of advisers are going online with their smart phones to access content or information regularly. In addition, 23% of those who currently do not go online regularly said they plan to start doing so in the next 12 months.
Advisers keep telling me how the applications available on the most powerful smart phones are changing their habits and allowing them to keep up with things while on the go, which in the end saves them time in the office.
Jim Elder, president of Elderado Financial Inc., said that it was a client who showed him an iPhone and got him hooked.
“I went out and bought one, and it has never left my side since. I figure it saves me two to four hours each week, as it is a great way to catch up on news, Facebook, LinkedIn and monitor financial stories,” he said, referring to two popular social-networking websites.
Check out the online version of this story for links to these applications, plus others for which we did not have room, as well as links to applications we've covered recently in other stories.
E-mail Davis D. Janowski at [email protected].
