Last week Fortune released their “Fortune 500” list, organizing and releasing their list of the top 500 companies in the United States, in order by revenue. Apple has been experiencing strong quarterly growth over the years, and as a result, jumped up 18 spots on the list since last year to occupy #17 in the new list.

The company emerged from the tragic passing of co-founder Steve Jobs saddened but in no perceptible way weakened. Under CEO Tim Cook, the company continued pumping out new products — like a significantly upgraded version of the iPad tablet. Apple nearly doubled its earnings per share in 2011, compared to 2010.

That helped nudge management to announce plans for the firm’s first dividend since 1995, returning some of the $97.6 billion in cash it had accumulated. Apple fans and analysts alike also continue to await a long-rumored television set from the gadget maker.

Apple has continued to increase its revenue and its profits continuously over the last year of 2012 in order to become the most profitable company in the United States, with $25.9 billion in profit. Apple surpassed Exxon Mobil and Chevron, holding the #2 and #3 spots.

Apple will likely climb higher, reaching new heights in stock prices, breaking the $600 barrier with the arrival of new CEO Tim Cook. Apple is referred to as one of the greatest business comebacks in history, rebounding after being 3 weeks away from bankruptcy. With two successful quarters in 2012, Apple is setting itself up for another successful, possibly moving up further on the Fortune 500 in the coming months.

{via MacRumors, Image: Credit}

SilverWiz Money for iPad Review: A beautiful financial tracker designed for iOS, with apps available for both the iPhone and the iPad, and coming soon to the Mac as well.

There are plenty of financial tracking apps out there, but SilverWiz Money for iPad {$4.99} stands out in its clean design and use of the touch interface. There are four types of accounts supported: checking, savings, cash, and credit card. It’s easy to begin setting up accounts with the wizard-like dialog boxes to enter the initial data.

Once you have the account(s) set up, entering transactions is easy. Income and expense entries are very similar. You select the account, add a description by either typing it in or selecting it from a list, enter the payee and amount, choose a category, set the date, and if you choose you can attach an image too.

The list of transactions is clear and easy to read. However, it could use a running balance column rather than just having the ending balance displayed. The budget section is easy to set up and provides good flexibility in tracking the important things. It even has an option to transfer unused money at the end of the period if you so choose.

The scheduled transactions area has a calendar display that indicates days you have money coming in or going out. You can schedule recurring income and expenses and it will remind you when they due. You can even do some forecasting to see how accounts will play out in the future.

The reporting area has a good selection of standard reports to choose from. After tweaking the settings of the baseline report, you can save your customizations for reuse. Bar charts, pie charts, and graphs are all available to help you get a better understanding of your financial standing.

And while the settings menu rarely merits a mention in a review, for SilverWiz it’s one of the unique features of the app. Settings is where you will find the option to sync everything. This allows the data entered in the iPad app to appear in the iPhone version. It also has the added benefit of backing up that data in the cloud. (When the Mac app is released, it will sync with that too.)

If you already have your financial data in a different package, SilverWiz can import that information if it’s in the standard QXF or QIF format. And you can import data from your financial institution in the same manner.

Features that could be added to make this a dominant product include links to online banks for automatic updating, the addition of investment accounts, and a more drilling down capabilities in the reports. And of course, the addition of the Mac version will make these apps even more appealing.

SilverWiz is a newly introduced app (well, apps, as there’s one for the iPhone and one for the iPad) that shows a lot of strengths and even more potential. If you’re needs are simple, there’s enough here already to make this worth a good look. And it’s certainly one to watch as it has the foundation for being a strong entry into a weak spot in the Mac software catalog.

What we like:

• Clean, Mac-like interface
• Good use of the touch interface
• Syncing between devices

What to know:

• Running balance on transactions needed
• Some reports could use a bit more granularity
• The Mac version is not yet released

Gallery

The first things that you notice with Expenditure is it’s clean design and intuitive UI. Everything is kept simple which makes it easy to navigate and to access the available options.

The simplicity though also means that you are going to find lots of bells and whistles such as automatic syncing with your bank accounts, multiple reports or the ability to export you data. However, without that being said if this is your first trip into the realms of budgeting simplicity is key to keep it going.

Adding new transactions is easy and you’ll have your new entry entered within a few seconds. Transaction can be made to repeat on a variety of settings although it doesn’t appear that you can set them to repeat of a given date.

You can also add notes and photo’s to each transaction, although if your on an iPod Touch with no camera you can only pick a picture from you saved photo’s. There is a short tutorial that shows you through adding new transactions, however it is that easy it’s unlikely that you would need it.

The app comes with a range of categories too but this can also be added to make them more relevant to your spending patterns although it does not appear that you can edit the pre-existing ones.

Expenditure for iPhone is pretty impressive in it’s beta release and it remains to be seen what, if any, new features are added between now and it’s release date. Expenditure is definitely one to keep your eye on if you want to start being smart with your money.

Expenditure for iPhone (Beta Screenshots)

It seems that not a day goes by without somebody telling me that I should be budgeting my finances to make my money go further and to make sure that I know where all my money is going. Well I took that advice many years ago and have used a variety of methods.

From spreadsheets and shareware software to paid of apps and web based options I’ve tried them all, well now Paper Finance is bringing a new alternative option to the table that they claim is both fully featured and easy to use.
If this is the first time you’ve started to manage your finances then the brief tour when you launch the app helps you get started. But in all honesty just as the app suggests everything is kept nice a simple.

If you just want to track a single account then everything is ready to go out of the box so to speak although if required you can add multiple accounts to keep track of.

Of course the simplicity of the application means that you aren’t going to be able import all of your transactions so you’ll have to add them all manually as they occur. This is done via the home screen and you can simple use the new expense or new income button as required. Whichever you chose you can simply add the amount, category, account and date as well as adding optional fields for name and notes.

It’s also possible to add additional categories and accounts direct from the new expense/income page keeping the overall simplicity of the app intact.

Your new additions will automatically be reflected in your balances on the home page so it’s easy to keep track of things. Paper Finance also features recurring transactions. To make a recurring transaction you can tap on the date’s detail disclosure button from the new transaction screen. This takes you to the date details screen where you can set a few recurring options.

Being able to add transactions is one thing but being able to report on them is more important if you are going to keep your finances in order. A swipe to the left will take you to the reports page where you can choose from a range of pre-built reports.

The reports are pretty basic but cover all the main requirements, you can report your expenses or income, or report by category or date. Not only that but you can then view them as a chart which you can export to a PDF file or export the data to CSV.

Both of the exports utilize the email functionality of the iPhone/iPod Touch and just like the reports themselves they are generated quickly even when there is a large amount of data involved.

There are a range of settings so that you can personalize Paper Finance to your own requirements including the ability to add a passcode to the application so that you can keep your data private.

In this day and age where there are applications available where you can automatically import all of your transaction from your online bank accounts Paper Finance feels a little retro.

However, if you want a simple budget app that is a replacement for pen and paper or even a spreadsheet then Paper Finance completes that requirement very nicely.

The Good

• Basic finance management made easy
• Simple controls a navigation
• Export to PDF and CSV

The Not So Good

• No way to import your transactions
• Limited reports

Price: $2.99 (iTunes Store)
Released: Apr 22, 2010
Reviewed Version: 1.0
Size: 1.3 MB
Language: English
Seller: idealSky Software, LLC
© 2010 idealSky Software, LLC
Rated 4+
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iPhone OS 3.1 or later.

Who hasn’t lent someone something? Who hasn’t borrowed something from someone? I think that covers everyone doesn’t it? Well if it does, and if you do either a lot, then Mooch!, not to be confused with Mooch, could be just the app for you as it allows you to simply keep track of what you’ve borrowed and what you’ve lent and to whom. Helping you keep track of everything and making sure that you don’t become know as a mooch!

Getting started is as easy as clicking on either the ‘I Borrowed’ or ‘I Lent’ button. From there your options are the same. If it’s cash then you can simply enter in the amount add the contact from your iPhone/iPod touch Contacts to whom you lent to or borrowed from and click save. With the lending and borrowing of money Mooch! will also give you an overall balance meaning that if you lend someone $20 and then borrow $25 it will give you a balance showing that you owe them $5.

Mooch! iPhone

If it’s an actual item that’s being traded you can even add a photo of the said item and categorize it into one of six groups. The groups do cover most items that you’d want to trade but it would be nice to have the ability to set your own categories too. Notes can be added to any item too.

All your traded items get listed on the home page by contact so you can easily see at a glance who owes you what and what you owe other people. It’s also easy to edit and ultimately delete any item once it’s be returned to you or you return what ever item it is you’ve borrowed, so keeping your items up to date and is easy.

Once an item has been returned you can mark it as returned and if you haven’t received back something that you sent out some time ago then you can use the inbuilt reminder option that will send the person an email with a friendly reminder.

If you do a lot of borrowing/lending that you could do a lot worse than purchasing this simple yet effective application especially as it’s on sale for just 99c at the moment.

Price: $.99

The Good

• Easy to add new items
• Keeps track of balance by contact
• Add picture of items

The Not So Good

• Unable to edit categories

Reviewed By: Craig Willis

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