October 2016

6 iMessage apps you’ll love

Posted on October 28, 2016June 25, 2025 by ARRC Technology

With the iOS 10 update, iPhone users everywhere have experienced a handful of exciting changes – like with iMessage. The new iMessage app allows you to expand on simple back-and-forth texting. You can “gently” send a text to someone, or fill up a thread with balloons or shooting stars. You can send a message with disappearing ink, or search for gifs within your thread. The updates are fun and engaging.

But those aren’t the only new additions to iMessage. You can also download apps for message integrations. With these apps, you can send money, play games, create to-do lists with friends, or slap on a sticker or two.

Here are a few iMessage apps you shouldn’t iMessage without.

JibJab

Sometimes you need more than words, more than a sticker, and more than a simple picture. And this is where JibJab comes into play. This iMessage app lets you snap a selfie and then stick that selfie into a fun animation. Send a birthday greeting, say what’s up to someone, or just be a goofball.

Grammar Snobs

This app is a sticker pack – which means you can take one of the stickers and place it anywhere within an iMessage. Just drag and drop the sticker where you want it to go. However, this sticker pack isn’t for anyone. It’s for a special type of person… the grammar snob – hence, the name of the app. This is for all those people out there who can’t stand it when someone uses the wrong there, your, or to.

Giphy

You can search for gifs inside your iMessage app without downloading an app. However, your selection is limited. To expand your options, you can download Giphy’s iMessage app. Giphy’s app taps into their nearly endless supply of gifs on Giphy.com. It’ll basically make it impossible not to respond to every text message within a gif.

Poll

Group text messages are obnoxious. And coming to a decision on where to go or what to eat makes group text messages even more obnoxious. Poll wants to simplify this. With this iMessage app, you can create a poll, send it to your friends, and quickly come to a decision on the more important things in life, like what’s for dinner.

Words With Friends

iMessage now gives you the opportunity to play games with other people inside a thread. Some games are better than others, but you definitely can’t pass up the classics – like Words With Friends. Start a game and make your move all without ever leaving your iMessage. Carry on with your day, and come back to your game when you receive a text notifying you that your friend has made their move.

Retro Emoji

This app is yet another sticker pack, but it’s pretty great. It’s overflowing with emoji in their purest form. Feeling a little angry, confused, or awkward? These stickers have you covered.

Pixel: A new, new phone

Posted on October 19, 2016June 25, 2025 by ARRC Technology

There’s this vast selection of smartphones out there. It’s so incredibly vast that it can be somewhat overwhelming to purchase a new smartphone. I mean, how do you narrow down all those choices? It takes like a whole two and a half fingers to count all the available smartphones out there… so how can you possibly decide?

iPhone or Galaxy? Galaxy or iPhone? Maybe a Nexu… There’s just Too. Many. Choices.

And just when we thought the choice of which phone to buy couldn’t get any more impossible to make, Google decides to just throw another phone in the mix. Thanks, Google. How. Sweet. Of. You.

But, really, all sarcasm aside… thank you, Google. The Pixel is truly a work of technological art.

Google’s whole thing? You’re going to get a new phone. But not just any new phone. A new, new phone. Like no version number new. According to CNET, this new, new phone was built by HTC but designed, engineered, and branded by Google. It’s marketed by Google, sold by Google, and then supported by Google employees – which means you get 24/7 technical support by phone or chat.

The Pixel has everything you need out of a phone – including a headphone jack (which Google thought you’d appreciate). But that’s not all they’ve included. The Pixel comes fully integrated with Google Assistant. Long press the home button or say, “Okay, Google,” and an AI-infused Google bot will take over. Ask questions and get answers in a chat-like setting and conversation-like flow.

[su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/6pxIcH_0MH0″ width=”800″]

This phone might feel and look an awful lot like an iPhone, but it has more than a few features to differentiate itself from the ever-so-popular Apple brand. It’s offered exclusively through Verizon and comes in three colors – Quite Black, Very Silver, and Really Blue.

The Pixel even offers the highest rated smartphone camera ever. Literally. It received a DxOMark Mobile score of 89, which trumps every smartphone camera that came before it.

“The Pixel’s strong scores under a wide range of conditions make it an excellent choice for almost any kind of photography. As with any small-sensor device, results are excellent in conditions with good and uniform lighting. But in addition, images captured indoors and in low light are very good and provide a level of detail unexpected from a smartphone camera.”

A fingerprint sensor rests on the back of the phone, which provides you with quick and easy access to your notifications – without sacrificing security and privacy to do so. In just 15 minutes, the Pixel can charge for up to 7 hours of battery life and will last up to two hours longer than any iPhone or Nexus ever could.

With unlimited storage for photos and videos, you won’t have to worry about anymore “storage is full” notifications. And with Google Duo built into the phone, you have the ability to video chat with fellow Googlers seamlessly. Like FaceTime. But for Google.

Long press some of the apps, and you’ll receive the option to quick-select different activities. For example, long press the camera, and you can choose to take a selfie or a video. Long press Google Drive, and you can select to scan, upload, or search for a photo.

The Pixel boasts a 5” display with options for 32GB or 128GB of storage, and the Pixel XL boasts a 5.5” display with similar storage options. The Pixel starts at $649, while Pixel XL starts at $769. The phone isn’t exactly cheap, but rest assured, the phone is well worth every penny.

ClassDojo, the app every classroom needs

Posted on October 17, 2016June 25, 2025 by ARRC Technology

If we’re completely honest with ourselves, staying on top of our children’s school life isn’t always the easiest thing to do. In most families, both parents usually work full-time. And that’s only if both parents are even around to begin with. You might be a single working parent with multiple children to provide for.

Whatever the case might be, the point is that there’s always a lot going on, and even if you desperately want to be involved with your child’s school life, that might not always be possible. Between work, bills, grocery shopping, doctor’s appointments, late night dinners, and the little sleep you can manage to cram in, things are always one after the other, after the other. There just isn’t enough time in the day, and the average parent can barely remember to check their children’s backpack for week-old flyers or past-due picture day announcements.

But thanks to modern technology, the way we live our lives is changing. It’s getting easier to manage everyday tasks, and we can accomplish significantly more in less time than we’re accustomed to.

Take ClassDojo for example. This smartphone application is finally giving parents everywhere the opportunity to stay involved with their children’s education in a simplistic, user-friendly, and easy-to-manage way. Here’s how this is happening.

ClassDojo connects teachers with parents.

ClassDojo allows teachers to communicate with parents through the app’s interface. No more awkward at-work chats with the teacher over the phone, and forget about leaving work early to attend an even more awkward parent-teacher conference. If a teacher has updates for you or would like to discuss your child’s progress with you, they can send you private messages through ClassDojo. It’s as simple as that.

The teacher can even send you photos or videos of your child learning throughout the day. This way you can see what they’re working on and learn a little bit more about what their day is like. But that’s not all ClassDojo is good for. Teachers can share announcements, flyers, and class photos with all parents simultaneously. This means… you’ll always know about a school event well before the day of the event.

ClassDojo connects children with parents.

Children get excited when they work on projects. But sometimes they struggle to explain the project to you after the day is over, or they don’t receive the opportunity to bring their project home with them to show you. With ClassDojo, this is no longer an issue.

Not only can the teacher share photos with you, but your child can add photos of their projects to their digital portfolio. You can see everything your child has worked on for the year on your connected devices, and you don’t have to worry about losing or damaging your child’s hard work.

ClassDojo connects teachers with students.

This app isn’t just for parents to keep up with their children. It’s also for teachers to keep up with their students. Teachers can award students participation points and even monitor attendance and classroom behavior. Each student can become actively involved with this process and see where they need to improve, when their behavior isn’t the best, and if they need to participate more.

It’s a no-brainer. 3 reasons you should blog.

Posted on October 6, 2016June 25, 2025 by ARRC Technology

For every how-to question out there, you’ll find a few pages of search results on Google. I mean, for crying out loud, you can even Google, “How to drink water,” and you’ll have your hands full with content for at least a few hours.

It’s just how things are, though. Anyone can blog, and the people who are blogging will soon outnumber the people who aren’t blogging. And all you non-bloggers out there will eventually be snuffed out by all us “certified content creators.”

But, alas, at the end of the day… whether you consider yourself an avid blogger or not… routine blog postings are incredibly beneficial for your website and for your company as a whole. Which is why there are so many random blogs written over and over again by so many random companies.

But… why exactly is blogging good for business? Well, it’s simple really.

It helps you gain credibility.

When you write about things you know and things you work with every day, it can help your business improve its reputation. People will start to view your company as a credible source for information and as the “go-to” for your area of expertise. When people feel this way about your business, the more likely it is that they will use your products or services over the competition’s.

It helps you be more useful.

On occasion, the content you push out can be legitimately useful for your target market. People will not only appreciate this material, but they might actually need it, too. And if this is the case, you can use your blogs as a means to connect with more consumers. Share it on social media, email it to your prospects, or use it as reference material when current customers are struggling with things. Blogs can easily transform into an interesting and engaging way to increase your value proposition.

It helps you gather traction.

When it comes to your website, blogging is crucial. It’s one of the most well-known ways to increase traffic to a website. Using Long Tail Keywords, specifically, can improve the odds of someone accidentally landing on your site. For example, say you own a sporting goods store. If someone Googles something like, “best shoes for hiking,” and you’ve already written a blog on hiking gear, this person could potentially end up on your site… and then, inside your store.

But even if that person doesn’t end up inside your brick-and-mortar, they’ve still clicked on your blog. And at the end of the day, any little click helps. The more they click, the more you’ll rise in the search rankings and the easier it will be for people to find your business.

Month: October 2016