Appy Christmas – Help get your business through festive season with these 6 Fun Xmas Apps
Guest writer Anthony Main of app development company The Distance picks his favourite fun apps for getting through the festive period…
With Christmas fast approaching, the high streets are flooding with people, the Christmas markets are springing up in town and city centres across the country and the parties are in full swing.
However, Christmas can also be incredibly stressful; there’s Christmas dinner to cook, gifts to buy, work to complete before the New Year, and there is a substantial amount of preparation that needs to be undertaken before the calendar makes its way to the 25th of December. But the festive season need not be a time of panic and pressure.
Here are some great apps that will help you manage the less than exciting parts of the Yuletide season, and add an agreeable boost of festive cheer to the most wonderful time of the year.
1. ElfYourself
A Christmas classic, ElfYourself, from US office supplies shop Office Depot, allows you to take pictures of yourself and your colleagues in order to portray them as a troupe of dancing elves! All you need to do is use Facebook or your device’s camera to acquire the picture, and then the app will do the rest.
The results can be used as the company Christmas e-card, or if that’s not appropriate then at least you can have fun internally! If you’ve ever wanted to see your Finance Director rocking around the Christmas tree while dressed as one of Santa’s helpers, this app is the one for you.
It’s featured on both the App Store and the Play Store, so everyone can get involved.
iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/elfyourself-by-office-depot/id582486077?mt=8
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.com.officemax.magicmirror.ElfYourSelf&hl=en_GB
2. Picniic
Maintaining a careful work-life balance is important during the Christmas period, as both work and life are likely to be exceptionally busy. A great way of keeping up to date with work tasks is using Google Calendar or something similar.
For arranging family matters, Picniic is a fantastic app; it offers a shared calendar, to-do lists, and a family locator, so you can keep up-to-date with your family’s plans as efficiently as you do with your work schedule.
Hopefully this will help you maintain a balance, reduce the stress of trying to coordinate two calendars, and ensure you don’t book an important business meeting for the same afternoon you promised to watch your children in the school nativity play.
iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/family-organizer-by-picniic/id1039586709?mt=8
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.picniic.picniicapp&hl=en_GB
3. Christmas RADIO
Love them or hate them, you can’t deny that Christmas songs are a signature ingredient of the festive season. With the Christmas RADIO app you will never be without them, as it offers over 100 radio stations playing all the hits from Fairytale of New York to Mistletoe and Wine. You can get your staff in the festive mood and be the office DJ without putting any work in to creating a playlist!
Perhaps the greatest gift of all is that the app is completely free, though there is a subscription option if you want to avoid any adverts. You can find the links to both the Android and iOS versions of the app below.
iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/christmas-radio/id296382774?mt=8
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blumedialab.christmasradio&hl=en_GB
4. Parcel – Delivery Tracking
For iPhone users, this is a must-have app if you want to keep track of the plethora of parcels that you are getting delivered, especially if you are getting some parcels delivered to the office while others, perhaps staff gifts, are being sent to your house.
Shopping around the vast array of online retailers is a great way of saving money and taking advantage of the shop-specific deals on offer, but tracking parcels from all the different stores can be a nightmare. Parcel helps to make this a much simpler task by keeping all of your parcel delivery information in one place. The app supports tracking for FedEx, UPS, Hermes, DPD and many more.
iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/parcel-delivery-tracking/id375589283?mt=8
5. Deliveries Package Tracker
Fear not, Android users, the Play Store also features a package tracking app that is very similar to Parcel. The Deliveries Package Tracker offers tracking capabilities for eBay, Amazon, UPS, FedEx, along with over 40 more providers, meaning you’ll have to try very hard to find a courier that is unsupported. It’s a great way of keeping all of your delivery notifications in one place.
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.orrs.deliveries&hl=en_GB
6. Sleeps to Christmas 2
December is a strange month for business. The festive season is in full swing, and your to-do list is longer than your arm, but you still have to head into work each day and crack on with your tasks and get as much done before the New Year as you can.
No-one can blame you for being excited for the Christmas break, which is where the Sleeps to Christmas app comes in. A simple yet fun application, Sleeps to Christmas shows you in granular detail how long you have to wait for Christmas morning – a great way of keeping that light at the end of the tunnel in sight and giving you that nudge to keep yourself focused.
iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/sleeps-to-christmas-2-christmas/id472053503?mt=8
Getting ready for the day doesn’t need to be a time consuming task! By having these apps safely downloaded onto your device, you can ensure a smooth run up to Christmas day. You can take some time to browse through your calendar while you are commuting, or check on the status of your parcels when you are on your lunch break. Once you have a library of apps ready to use at the press of an icon, organisation becomes a seamless process rather than a chore.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anthony Main is Managing Director of The Distance, an app development company working with companies such as NHS, Bentley Motors, Virgin Trains, PGA Golf, Slimming World and Astra Zeneca. For more information see here: https://thedistance.co.uk
