The 7 best iOS productivity apps for designers

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Everyone can benefit from productivity apps, and the iPhone and iPad are great devices for getting things done, whether that’s managing your tasks and projects or actually doing work. The fact they are portable means that you can have all the information you need to plan and deliver work with you at all times. In the words of David Allen – whose book Getting Things Done has been a big influence of how many of us manage work and life – they provide a single “trusted system” that you can dump ideas, thoughts, and tasks into, to organise and manage later.

They’re like an outboard brain, storing stuff to stop it buzzing around your subconscious. In this section, we look at apps which help you get stuff done, included task managers, planners and spreadsheets.

On-the-go-management: 30/30

A free task manager like no other, 30/30 works by getting you to set times for a list of tasks. Start the timer, and when the time is done it moves on to the next task. It’s simple, great-looking, and can be very effective.

Simple to-do lists: Clear

A genuinely beautiful, simple and elegant task manager, Clear gained a huge amount of attention for its innovative gesture-based interface, but it’s also a highly-effective way of keeping a list of things to do. Anip at £1.99/$2.99.

Reminders: Due

Simple lists don’t work for everyone and if you’re the kind of person who needs to be reminded to do something, Due is a great app to carry around. It focuses on reminders and does it better than Apple’s default app. Priced £2.99/$4.99.

Rich to-do lists: OmniFocus

The big daddy of GTD-style task management, OmniFocus isn’t cheap (£13.99 / $19.99), but it’s the most powerful way of managing a lot of projects that can be split into sub-tasks. There’s nothing it can’t do, and it looks great, as well. Small businesses should consider this.

Project management: OmniPlan

Project management is a good fit for iPad, and OmniPlan – the little brother of the standard app for the Mac – doesn’t disappoint. Project management power doesn't come cheap, though, and this iPad weighs in at £34.99/$49.99. Cripes!

Making and giving presentations: Keynote

Presenting is a skill that requires the right tools to get the job done, and there’s no finer presentation package for the iPad than Keynote. You get fantastic presentational control, including design guides, a host of slide transitions and themes, and the ability to embed rich media with ease. And all of this for the bargain price of £6.99/$9.99.

Spreadsheets and data capture: Numbers

Numbers is an incredibly powerful spreadsheet tool for the iPad that occasionally confuses those used to Excel. But it’s brilliant, and won't break the bank at £6.99/$9.99. If you like this kind of thing. We've heard some people do. They're weird.

Now check out the best iPad apps for designers! And don't forget to check out this hands-on review of the iPhone 5 over at TechRadar.