6 Business Apps For Mac and iOS You Should Know About in 2021

Executing on Plans / May 5, 2021 / Kristie

Wondering what business apps you should be downloading on your Mac, iPhone and/or iPad this year? If you want to improve productivity and get an edge in your business with some of the best business apps for Apple devices, you’ve come to the right place.

We interviewed John Voorhees, Managing Editor of MacStories and Co-Host of the AppStories podcast, to get his thoughts on the top business apps for Apple fans to check out this year.

Image shows an iPhone and a MacBook screens on the right side, with title "6 business apps for Mac and iOS you should know about in 2021".

Here’s John’s top list of business apps for Mac and iOS to download right now:

#1 Genius Scan

Do you often have receipts, business cards, or documents such as multi-page contracts that you need to scan and save? Then Genius Scan is going to be your new best friend!

Genius Scan app on iPhone showing scanning documents in three steps, from taking the photo, scanning, to renaming

Genius Scan makes it quick and easy to capture images of multiple page documents with your iPhone or iPad camera and then easily save them on your phone. What makes Genius Scan so…well, genius, is its use of machine learning for edge detection and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) so it not only scans the documents clearly, it even suggests what to name them. 

“Genius Scan takes the friction out of the whole process to submit reimbursement requests.”
– John Voorhees, MacStories and AppStores podcast

After testing out Genius Scan on a variety of documents from printed web pages to books, shiny product documentation and even low-resolution receipts, John found it to be fast and simple. 

Businesses are always on the move, and being able to quickly scan and collect documents on the field is particularly important nowadays. Genius Scan combines a high-quality scanner and a wide range of export options to many apps and cloud services. This makes it convenient to send any document back to the company by integrating Genius Scan into the existing business flow. So whether you’re an attorney that needs to scan legal contracts or a real estate agent needing to save signed contracts for the closing of a home, this is an app you’ll want to try out to help you save time and headaches. 

“A day doesn’t pass that we hear how Genius Scan helps businesses digitize documents conveniently. It’s highly motivating for us, and we keep improving Genius Scan with this kind of users in mind.”
– Bruno Virlet, co-founder of The Grizzly Labs

For a more in-depth look at this app, check out John’s review of Genius Scan 6.0: A Sophisticated iPhone and iPad Scanning App for All Kinds of Users.

#2 Craft

Whether you’re working on projects that have multiple notes that you need to connect together, or you’re collaborating on notes for a project as a team, Craft is a note-taking app for Mac and iOS that you’ll want to check out. The beauty of Craft is that it allows you to link notes together so you can create a web of information between different reference materials. You can very easily drag things around to re-order them as you’re creating outlines or bulleted lists. 

“When you’re project planning and have different notes that address different aspects of the project, Craft makes it easy to link them all together and collaborate on them.”
– John Voorhees, MacStories and AppStores podcast

Craft image of the Mac app with a document titled Craft Update - The Wait is Over

Craft also allows you to nest notes within notes which helps to organize them when you’re working on multiple projects. For teams collaborating on notes, you can control access to the shared spaces in Craft to make sure people only have access to the notes they need. If you’re in a role that requires a lot of writing such as Public Relations or Copywriting, Craft is an especially helpful Apple business app that makes it easy to document and organize ideas and then add structure to them. 

“The fundamental goal of Craft is to help you think, write & communicate better.”
The Craft team

To learn more about Craft, check out Craft Review: A Powerful, Native Notes and Collaboration App on MacStories and download it on the App Store. Have a team member that doesn’t use an Apple device? No worries, Craft recently released their Web Editor Beta. You can join the waiting list here.

#3 CleanShot X

From designers or developers showing off your work to a client, to writers reviewing apps, or even teachers creating training materials, recording moving screenshots from your Mac can be an important element of telling a story. CleanShot X is a screenshot app for your Mac that allows you to scroll while taking screenshots. 

If you’re a designer and you want to show off your design of a website, you can use CleanShot X to record your screen as you navigate through the website to show off all your work to a client or as you’re collaborating with a developer. Or let’s say you’re a teacher or trainer and you want to create a tutorial video – you can use CleanShot X to record your screen as you’re going through a workflow on your Mac and overlap your webcam footage to record your face in the corner of the screen at the same time. 

“It’s great for designers and developers working together and has extra features to make things look more polished for when you’re showing off your work to a client.”
– John Voorhees, MacStories and AppStores podcast

To learn more about CleanShot X, check out the CleanShot X for Mac website.

#4 Hey

Does your team often have one point person you’re communicating with over email, but need to collaborate and discuss what’s mentioned in the email? Or how about needing to coordinate and hand-off which team member needs to respond to the email? If this sounds like your team, Hey, made by Basecamp, may be an app you want to take a look at to cut down on the volume or cc’ing emails and jumping between emails and Slack when collaborating. 

Hey’s approach to email is different from other email tools as it allows you to collaborate on emails, share threads, add notes, and coordinate who from your team needs to respond. 

For cases where your team is working on projects that involve multiple people, but there’s only one point person you have contact with over email, Hey is a great option for facilitating that collaboration. Often what happens is teams use email to communicate with the client, then Slack to collaborate on the details. But the problem is then you have to sometimes cc emails for context and bounce back and forth between email and Slack, whereas with Hey you’re able to share and collaborate in one place. This saves time, gives everyone context, and keeps information and decisions organized. 

“All of our Macstories.net email runs through Hey. We can create collections of emails that act as a parking space for threads on topics that we need to collaborate on.”
– John Voorhees, MacStories and AppStores podcast

Edited: Note that as of April 26th, Frederico of MacStories posted on Twitter that they decided to move away from Hey for now because of Basecamp’s policies. 

#5 Grammarly

From writing long social media posts and emails, to blog posts or contracts, it’s difficult to catch your own grammar mistakes – especially when you’re been staring at a piece of content for a while as you try to perfect it. It’s great to have someone edit your work, but sometimes time is of the essence and there isn’t anyone available on your team to proofread your work before it goes out. Not to mention the interruptions if you had to get someone to review every long email you write before hitting send. If you want to avoid spelling and grammar mistakes, Grammarly is here to the rescue! 

Screenshot of Grammarly app with a document being edited

“We usually proofread each other’s work, but there’s not always someone around so Grammarly is a nice back stop for work. It has a Safari extension so I can check spelling and grammar when filling out a web form. Grammarly also works with WordPress so before publishing a blog, I can check it there instead of having to check in the app itself.”
– John Voorhees, MacStories and AppStores podcast

To download Grammarly for Mac, check out Grammarly’s website. 

#6 GitHub

For the more tech savvy Apple users that need to collaborate on content and track changes, GitHub is an option that John recommends and uses within his team. Primarily used by developers to coordinate building software (we use this internally to coordinate building Daylite for Mac and iOS), GitHub helps teams hand off work and review it by downloading it locally to their Mac. Screenshot of GitHub app

“GitHub acts as a storage place for everything we write. Once we push something to GitHub, anyone on the team can pull it back down locally on their Mac and make edits and track changes to the writing.”
– John Voorhees, MacStories and AppStores podcast

If you’re a marketer working on client work or in a team working together on text for a presentation or webinar and you’re tech savvy, GitHub could be a good option for you. 

To learn more about GitHub, check out the GitHub website.

Explore and play around

There are many amazing Mac and iOS apps out there to help you cut down on time and work more efficiently. We hope you’ve enjoyed this list of top 6 Mac and iOS apps for business recommended by John Voorhees. For more info about cool Apple apps, be sure to follow MacStories.net and tune into the AppStories podcast, a weekly exploration of apps. And if you’re needing a Mac and iOS CRM to keep track of communication with clients, track deals, and collaborate on projects, be sure to check out Daylite.

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