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Essential Smartphone Apps You Could Be Ignoring

Sometimes, it's hard to remember a world before smartphones. Whatever did we do when we didn't have GPS in our pocket or could check our email on the run? (Answer: we missed out on answering several important, time-sensitive messages and also got lost a whole lot.) In addition to maps and email, when it comes to leading a busy, on-the-go life, certain apps are downright essential. Here are our picks for apps that make our lives more convenient, safer and loads more fun.
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Sometimes, it's hard to remember a world before smartphones. Whatever did we do when we didn't have GPS in our pocket or could check our email on the run? (Answer: we missed out on answering several important, time-sensitive messages and also got lost a whole lot.) In addition to maps and email, when it comes to leading a busy, on-the-go life, certain apps are downright essential. Here are our picks for apps that make our lives more convenient, safer and loads more fun.

Find My Car!

Remember that episode of Seinfeld where Elaine's goldfish met its sad and untimely demise because the gang couldn't remember where they parked their car? That would never have happened if this app existed in the early nineties. Find My Car! Has been ranked by the Wall Street Journal as one of the Top 10 Apps That Will Change Your Life...and it's no wonder why. If you've ever wandered a supermarket parking lot in a frustrated daze with absolutely zero recollection of where you parked, you shouldn't go another day without this app. All you need to do is set your car location on GPS and Find My Car! will do the rest.

eBay

We all know and love the website, but have you considered the app? For those among us who have really wanted to win an auction and lost out at the last possible second, the eBay app is a total secret weapon. You can browse, bid and sell while on the go. Plus, with push-up notification, you never worry about being near a computer the minute before an item of your desire expires in case of last-minute competitor bids. That Darryl Strawberry bobblehead you've been coveting? It's all yours, friend.

Shazam

(Oh man, this song! I haven't heard his song in like...fifteen years! Remember how this song used to play on that station all the time, and we would blare it from the car stereo in the summertime and we sang along on our way to Chuck's house party and it was so awesome? Um...why can't I remember the name of this song? Do you remember who it's by? Me neither. It's on the tip of my tongue, though! I know this song! I used to love this song!)

It's terrible to hear a song on the radio, in a movie or in the supermarket check-out line and not have any way of figuring out what it is or who it's by. Enter: Shazam! The app "listens" to 30 seconds of the song in question and matches it up note-for-note with the songs in its extensive database to give you the name and artist. Voila! Problem solved. Shazam is magic.

EverNote

Organize your world. (Hey, some of us need all the help we can get!) Think of your EverNote app as a file folder, where you can stash everything you need, or everything interesting that you stumble across, all in one place. EverNote allows you to gather files, images, websites and just about anything else you need and access them across devices and computers that you use. So simple and brilliant, we kind of wish that we had thought of it...

CamCard

Is your wallet and random office desk drawer overflowing with the business cards of contacts, colleagues, friends and family? Simplify your clutter by snapping photos of each and every business card that you're hanging onto with CamCard, and then tossing them in the recycling bin. Contacts? Saved. Clutter? Vanished. CamCard is $10 for Android, $7 for iPhone, but streamlining your life is sort of priceless, isn't it?

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