Mark Perkins (@ThumbWizards), from West Bloomfield, MI, is founder of app development company Thumb Wizards, and is a self-admitted Apple addict. Check out his 21 app reviews and his list on the best analytics apps.
1. Tell us about yourself – where you live, your job, things you like to do.
My name is Mark Perkins and my hometown is West Bloomfield, Michigan. I’m self-employed, and owner of the mobile development company Thumb Wizards. Very much feeling like a digital nomad these days — I spend a lot of time working in coffee shops around town. There isn’t anything I find I cannot do with a MacBook Pro, iPad and iPhone at my side. Although work consumes a great portion of my time, I make it a priority to indulge within the high-touch side of life, using my free hours to travel, catch up with friends and go hiking during the peaceful late night hours.
2. Which iOS device or devices do you own?
I have the iPhone 4 and an iPad 2. I waited in line for 12 hours to pick up an iPhone 4 on launch day, and then five hours waiting for the iPad 2. I have an insatiable addiction, and I’ve become an early adopter of both product lines. I find Apple products superior in every way to their competition, because Apple eliminates customer frustrations by governing the apps and experience a user has with their products and interfaces. This is the way it should be, and I choose these devices so that I can participate and show this simplicity to the rest of the world.
3. Is there a particular category of apps that interests you the most?
I am always interested in entertainment, games, and photography categories that bring out the creative side in all of us. Plus a slew of productive business-related apps that are priceless.
4. What are your top apps and why?
There should be two categories of top apps. iOS system built-in and apps downloaded within the App Store. For the apps built-in I would choose Mail, SMS Messages, and Contacts. These Apple apps are sometimes forgotten as an important part of the foundation of what makes both devices magical. I work with 20 email accounts that I need access to on the go, and being able to communicate with all of them with speed and efficiency makes it easy to allow the iPhone and iPad to reign supreme as the devices of choice. The other apps I use the most would be MyPad+, iTunes Connect Mobile, Twitterrific, DataVault, Quicklytics, iBooks & MobileMe iDisk. These apps are my source of information, and window into the vast social mediums. They allow me to securely store and manage an annoying amount of credentials, check website traffic and keep all my devices in sync, giving myself the freedom to work from anywhere with anyone and not be limited by unorganized data across multiple devices.
5. What apps are popular among your colleagues and friends?
Words with Friends, Sudoku Puzzle Packs, PhotoForge2, Geocaching, Star Walk, and GarageBand.
6. Give an example of a time an app was truly useful to you.
Any app has the potential to become useful at any given moment. It is hard to decide which apps to keep, and which ones to stash within your iTunes library for a rainy day. When you least expect it, you can make any app you acquire become a ray of shining light. I have saved time in my life by using apps to avoid hour-long traffic jams or even help a friend find their way when lost (Maps), become that needed instrument for a jam session with friends (GarageBand), capture an interesting image with only seconds to do so (Camera), amused a crying baby with an Air Harp, or to find out the name of a song on the radio (Shazam). Even having access to all my important documents at the tap of a button is… how do you put it… supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (MobileMe iDisk).
7. What other Appolicious member do you admire the most and why?
I admire the entire Appolicious community that enjoys participating with the site by getting to know other users and their apps. There is much to learn about which apps work best for you. I find Appolicious a great place to share and find lists of solutions that work well for the type of activities in which you are involved. These lists can help you decide which apps fit well within the digital real estate of your device and provide you with more relevant information at your finger tips.
8. Do you have URLs you’d like to share?
Feel free to check out these sites of mine. There are new apps on the way, so make sure to follow the company!
Thumb Wizards – http://www.thumbwizards.com
Sudoku Puzzle Packs – http://www.sudokupuzzlepacks.com
Appolicious – http://www.appolicious.com/users/thumbwizards
Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/thumbwizards or @thumbwizards
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/thumbwizards
YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/thumbwizards
Add me to your Game Center! – My Nickname is “Thumb Wizards” – (without the quotes)
9. Anything else you’d like to share with the Appolicious audience?
As an app developer, I can’t stress how important it is to review and/or rate the apps you download for your mobile device. If you like something, make sure to say so. If you don’t like it, let us know as well. The feedback is invaluable to the future updates of any app.
I would also like to invite the new and current Appolicious users who are reading this article, to take a moment to create at least one list of apps and let others know why these apps work well for you. The App Store of the future may include the ability to purchase bundled apps that will seamlessly work together to provide you that enhanced quality of organization or task-management.
Check out ThumbWizard’s app library here.
