5 Apps To Make Your Life Easier

Smart phones have saved our lives these past few years, making our lives easier, transforming the way we communicate and basically becoming a permanent fixture for almost all of us. Since then, apps have evolved and evolved and we now have so many that we use to make things easier for us. Recently I've downloaded a few that have helped me get things in order or save money or anything else so here are my top five apps to make your life easier. 

UBER 

I was first introduced to Uber earlier this year and I can’t even describe how excited I was over it. Uber has totally transformed the way we taxi. Say goodbye to booking in advance, hugely overpriced fares and waiting for hours for your taxi home after a night out, this app has totally saved the day, particularly in cities. In case you don’t know, Uber is the app that lets you order cabs immediately, straight from your phone. Simply open the app, type in where you want to go and the app will tell you how much your cab is going to be and how far away it is, giving you the number plate and driver you should be expecting. 

The first time I ordered an Uber I just couldn’t get over how easy it was, especially the paying part as it takes the money straight from your bank or PayPal, meaning the awkward withdrawing of money is totally gone too. Furthermore, Uber is a company that is concerned with customer and driver safety and as it is GPS based and operates by allowing drivers to build their reputations from our anonymous ratings, it means you know exactly who is picking you up. I definitely think that Uber is a step forward for getting around, especially for people like me who don’t like to make a lot of phone calls (something about telephone calls just makes me so anxious!) so this is definitely one of the best app discoveries for me of 2016.

Also, my first ride with Uber was totally free with a discount code which is so cool. You can also get a free £15 ride in your first Uber with the code “saltandchic15” - just enter it on the payment section! You can also get free rides by referring friends - get your unique code on the app!

ISCANNER

This may be a totally boring “adult” app but hey, I love it so I’m including it anyway! I’m so bad when it comes to technology like scanners and even when I had a printer with one I could never work out how to use it properly. As someone who works from home a lot, I need to scan quite a few documents etc. and since I discovered this app it made my life so much easier. Simply take a photo of the document you want to scan and that is it. The app crops it, adds it onto your camera roll and as you can upload to Dropbox or email, you can get it straight to your PC without having to spend a fortune on a printer/scanner. It’s so great.

JUST EAT

Another I’m sure you’ve probably heard of, Just Eat makes ordering take out food a breeze. I’ve been using this app for months and now I don’t order take out any other way. In case you've been living under a rock, this app allows you to type in your postcode, click which type of food you want and all of the local takeaways come up in a list, complete with the menu and the delivery charges. It makes take aways so simple because I know that before this, I would always scramble around in my drawers trying to find the menu for that takeaway shop I wanted and I’d always fail to find it, leaving me disappointed and without the pizza I was craving (does the disappointment of that ever get easier?). Well those days have been banished and I now have so many menus it takes me ages to decide on my meal. Well, I spend ages reading the menus and then order the exact thing I always get. 

Plus, this means you can pay by card when you get food delivered which is always handy!

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP EXPRESS

This one has got to be one of my favourite photo editing apps. For one, it’s really easy to use with a simple slider bar along the bottom for filters and corrections etc. but for two, it doesn’t kill the quality of the photos like many of the other photo editing apps do. It manages to lighten them without making them grainy for example, or sharpen them without making them look outright weird. It is a free app that does have some extra purchases inside the app (such as noise reduction and the like) but the free version is absolutely perfect if you simply want to lighten up your photos or add a quick filter. I do love VSCO cam like most other avid Instagrammers but I can’t help but feel it totally destroys the quality of the photos, whereas Photoshop Express keeps them looking profesh. 

GUIDEPAL

GuidePal is a recent discovery for me but this is an app that I could spend hours going through. Basically, GuidePal is a travel guide in your pocket, allowing you to select a city and see lists of places to eat, things to do, maps with pins and much more. You can even create your own guide about your local area or favourite city, adding places to go shopping, activities and anything else. I’m going to Berlin next month so I’ve been looking through the Berlin section for things to while I’m there as well as funky restaurants to eat at. It just makes any city break so much easier, particularly considering I’m a big fan of planning travel so that you spend your time away wisely. Also, I’ve been looking for inspo for next year’s trips - Copenhagen is already on my list!

What are your must have apps? Remember to get a free £15 cab ride with Uber using the code saltandchic15 :)

Amy x

*Post in collaboration with Uber. All words and views remain my own.