Top 5 Brainstorming Apps

by Startacus Admin

If you had said "Brainstorming and Apps" a few years ago - people might have looked at you a little silly. Surely the old white board and marker pen would suffice? But now with Apps all the rage and with you trying to find a solution to a problem or simply have an idea that you’ve been thinking about doing something about, it’s likely that you’ll be doing a little brainstorming - but potentially with your mobile phone in hand. 

So with this mind, we selected a few of our favourites - our Top 5 Brainstorming Apps...

ibrainstormapp

The clue’s in the name here! This iOS app allows you to document your brainstorming sessions through both the use of sticky notes as well as freehand drawings. This app is particularly good when used on an iPad as the iPad canvas acts like a drawing board. Most useful however is how easy it is to share your brainstorming session with others and effectively collaborate on your idea. It’s actually possible to connect up to 4 iPhones with your iPad and thereby get lots more people thrashing out that idea with you!

MindNode

If you’d like to visualize your idea in more of a diagrammatic fashion, then this Mac and iOS app should appeal. It allows you to ‘mind map’ by putting down all your thoughts, ideas or tasks and then drawing lines between them to create logical steps or connections. Adding images and files from your desktop into your mind map is also possible. MindNode is free in the Mac App store, the iOS version costs $9.99 and there is also a Pro version available for $19.99.

iThoughts

Famed as being one of the first mindmapping apps on the iPhone, the numerous updates each with increased functionality have meant that this is also one of the best mindmapping apps around. All your thoughts, ideas and concepts can be organized, managed and captured visually. Got an iPad? The iThoughtsHD version is what you’ll be after. It’s great.

Mindmeister

Mindmeister is another app which lets you put down your ideas and thoughts in a visual mind map format. Once your mind map is created, this app allows you to share it and collaborate with others - in real time. One really great feature though is the fact that all versions of your mind map are stored so if any collaborative revisions aren’t to your pleasing, you can simply go back to your original version. This app offers Personal, Pro and Business versions depending on your own requirements - with all allowing a free 30 day trial.

Simplemind

Simplemind is another app which is an easy to use tool for collecting your thoughts, structuring your plans and for mapping your ideas. It has been claimed by some to be quite basic in nature compared with some of the others on our list here, however we reckon that’s what makes it so good. Sometimes simple and intuitive functionality is all that you need. Another advantage ? It’s available for both iOS and Android.

 

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Published on: 4th March 2013