Today’s business executive can be forgiven for asking the question: How did we ever get by without smart phones and their apps? But with about a million apps now on the market, which offer the most promise for the busy executive? That depends largely on an executive’s functional responsibilities. Here, we first tackle five apps likely useful for Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and others with finance-related responsibilities:
Bloomberg: To be sure, you can obtain business and 
finance news from many credible sources and most of these news outlets have compelling apps. But the New York City-based financial media conglomerate Bloomberg is now both a broadcasting and print media giant, broadcasting Bloomberg Television and publishing its own finance-oriented news syndicate (Bloomberg News) and three finance-oriented magazines (including, since 2010, the hugely influential BusinessWeek magazine). The Bloomberg app offers easy and timely access to real time business, finance and market news (free).
The Book of Jargon: As a CFO or finance executive, 
your world is filled with acronyms, lingo, and finance buzz terms, and chances are you know most of them. But chances also are you are likely to periodically encounter something new or unknown, especially since these terms tend to deviate from continent to continent. Enter Latham & Watkins’ eight glossary apps defining hundreds of finance-related terms and phrases across eight finance-related categories (European Capital and Finance, Global M&A, Global Restructuring, Hedge Funds, Master Limited Partnerships, Project Finance, and U.S. Corporate and Bank Finance). It is essentially a mobile dictionary for the finance professional (free).
HP12C Financial Calculator: The HP12C is both Hewlett 
Packard’s longest and best-selling product, dating back to 1981, and for good reason. It is one of only four calculators permitted in Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) exams, and it offers broad yet easy calculating capabilities for financial planning and charting. Some critics contend that its technology has become a bit dated, but it remains HP’s longest-selling product for a reason: It gets the job done ($14.99).
CFO Magazine: In our new media age, it seems nearly 
every industry has its own dedicated media. And so does just about every executive function. For CFOs, a go-to source is CFO Magazine, a CFO-dedicated publication that has been published since 2000 and covers the ever-growing responsibilities of CFOs and related news, profiles and commentary. The CFO Magazine app offers all this and more, including information and access to CFO-oriented webcasts and conferences (free).
Dropbox: The rise of cellular technologies offers all the
benefits of being able to complete most finance-related calculations and planning on the go and away from the traditional office desktop. One challenge: The typical finance executive still relies on various share drives for most financial and other data. Dropbox, founded in 2007, offers access to these files through its mobile app, which are then also accessible from desktops. As far as share folder finance technologies go, the Dropbox app utilizes cutting edge cloud technologies and is broadly considered to be industry-leading (free).
