Kitchen & Bath Design News is the industry's leading business, design and product resource for the kitchen and bath trade.
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18 | Kitchen & Bath Design News | September 2015 What's App O nce a high-tech novelty, apps have become a way of life for many design professionals who go nowhere without their smart phone or tablet. Whether track- ing fnancial expenditures, making project notes on site, organizing info or staying in touch with clients, apps can lighten the work load and streamline and simplify everything from drawing and designing to ordering, pricing, tracking shipments and more. Business apps can help with everything from tracking the competition's social media posts to stor- ing and securing confdential information, while the newest manufacturer apps help designers and their clients with a variety of functions, including comparing and visualizing diferent color combinations, custom designing products, fnding up-to-date product and design information and more. This month, KBDN looks at several apps of interest to kitchen and bath dealers and designers. BLANCO SILGRANIT® II Mobile Color App WHAT IT IS: The BLANCO mobile color app provides users with the ability to coordi- nate BLANCO's SILGRANIT II Sinks with various countertop colors and stone options in real time using a mobile device. WHAT IT DOES: The BLANCO mobile color app provides designers with the ability to compare and visualize diferent color choices and stone options for a kitchen design easily and in real time using a phone or mobile device. Designers can simply click and choose their preferred sink option and move on to choose diferent countertop styles and colors to see which combinations work best. Favorite combinations can be added to a list and/ or emailed to others. The app also provides designers and consumers with galleries for inspiration and ideas. WHO IT'S FOR: Designers looking for a tool to help design and visualize the perfect kitchen. WHY KITCHEN AND BATH DESIGNERS NEED IT: The app provides designers with the ability to actually visualize what a kitchen will look like before the design is complete. The mobile color app is an easy-to-use and convenient tool for any kitchen designer. AVAILABLE SINCE: 2011 WHO MAKES IT: Blanco America, Inc. PLATFORM: Supported by iOS available for iPad, iPhone and Android WHERE TO FIND IT: iTunes Store and Google Play FOR MORE INFO: Visit the BLANCO America Web site at blancoamerica.com The Vault WHAT IT IS: The Vault is an app that helps users manage the confdential part of their digital life. It securely keeps every bit of confdential info right at the user's fngertips – including passwords, credit card num - bers, photos, ofce documents, spreadsheets full of customer info, confdential quotes or keynote presentations, PDFs and more. It is very simple to use, which is the best guarantee that people will actually use it. WHAT IT DOES: The Vault provides straight- forward, easy-to-use, secure storage for all confdential business and personal data – and securely keeps it in sync across all of one's devices. Users can enter some data on-site on an iPhone, and access it on their Mac or iPad at home in the evening. In addition to keeping data safe, The Vault also allows users to securely share selected bits of data simply via email or even a text message. For example, if a user wanted to share a customer's credentials with a colleague, share a Web site's username and password with a partner or send a PDF copy of their passport to an administrative assistant, they only have to shoot them an email or text right from the app, and the information can be securely transferred. WHO IT'S FOR: Anyone who needs to store confdential business and/or personal data. WHY KITCHEN AND BATH DESIGNERS NEED IT: Because securing data is important and should be as easy as possible. Weak passwords and leaked confdential info are dangerous, and are bad for business. AVAILABLE SINCE: Five years on the App Store, half a million downloads, over 100,000 active (daily) users. WHO MAKES IT: BestApps PLATFORM: iOS and Mac OS X WHERE TO FIND IT: On the iOS App Store and on the Mac App Store. FOR MORE INFO: Visit TheVault-app.com or email support@TheVault-app.com Perch WHAT IT IS: Perch is a free app that gives small busi- nesses a bird's eye view of the social activity for their own businesses and all of their competitors. WHAT IT DOES: Perch brings together social posts, images, reviews and promotions from Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Google+, Instagram and Foursquare and shows them in a live feed for their own business as well as competitors. Perch also shows the social activity for 14 days for each of the watched businesses. Perch identifes popular posts, alerts users of new reviews via notifcations, compiles a weekly email digest that synthesizes the most important activity and sends performance stats for the business via email on a weekly basis. WHO IT'S FOR: Perch is designed for own- ers and managers of small businesses. Perch is best suited for businesses with a storefront, includ- ing businesses in the dining, health & beauty, entertainment, auto service, retail and local services industries. However, Perch is a time saver for any business as long as the business and the competition are active on social media and/or receive reviews on popular review sites. WHY KITCHEN AND BATH DESIGNERS NEED IT: Kitchen and bath designers and dealers can use Perch to get alerted of any new reviews for their own business on Yelp and Google. This helps the business to respond and/or react in a timely fashion. Perch is also a time saver when watching the competition. Tracking the social activity for all competitors can provide important insights into any news and trends in the business. Perch also makes it easy to understand which kind of social posts lead to the highest engagement rates. AVAILABLE SINCE: October 2012 WHO MAKES IT: Closely, Inc., www.closely.com PLATFORM: Perch is available for iOS and Android. WHERE TO FIND IT: Perch is available in the App Store and Google Play. You can also go to perchapp.com and follow the links. FOR MORE INFO: perchapp.com