The iPhone and its many contemporaries (Android and Windows based smart phones) are changing how many of us do business today. Internet connectivity is being built into almost all newly released devices and as a result we are fast moving away from a 9:00am to 5:00pm work day in favor of an always on, work from anywhere and any time kind of working life.

It’s not all doom and gloom in the work stakes however, such devices are helping us to become more productive too. Personally, I have several email accounts, facebook, twitter, skype and netbanking apps installed on my iPhone. Outside of more work specific applications (I’m a designer), I very rarely need to be on a computer to do anything these days.

apmasphere’s own iPhone app ‘Field Agent for Routine Inspections’ has seen over 2000 property managers download and begin using their phones to perform a task that traditionally required three or four tools to complete and much more time.

Those using Field Agent have seen productivity increase, costs associated with generating inspection reports go down, and satisfaction levels in their landlords increase as a result. It’s a no-brainer for those that continue to use and take advantage of technology in their day-to-day.

One of these apps, is an answer to a personal bugbear of mine.

Why aren’t floorplans on every rental listing I see? The standard response is a combination of time and expense and rightly so, but let me introduce you too: MagicPlan, released in April by Canadian developer Sensopia.

So, how can you as a Property Manager take advantage of your iPhone to increase your productivity and more importantly ‘client-perceived’ levels of service? It’s simple. There are a plethora of apps out there that can help you do anything, it is just a matter of finding them!

	MagicPlan by Sensopia
	Creates floorplans from pictures of the rooms
	iPhone 4 and fourth-generation iPod touch
	Basic version free / premium USD $4.99

This app, like Field Agent, is a revolution. What used to require multiple tools (and people) to produce the final product, now only requires one, your iPhone!

The Premise

Take a photo of each corner (and door) in a room to generate a floorplan that is an almost ‘accurate’ representation of a property.

The How

1. Setting up a property

The app takes advantage of your location and automatically fills in most of the address details and includes a google map. You can take a photo of the front of the property for ‘at-a-glace’ viewing when it comes to working with the plan later on.

2. Generating the floorplan

I found the app takes a little getting used to at first, but after a few rooms I easily get the hang of lining up the ‘cross-hairs’ with corners and doors.

It’s as simple as standing in the centre of the room and taking a photo of each corn er from the one spot. Then it is onto the next room until the house is captured.

The app allows you to denote what type of room it is for easy reference. Time wise, I did a few spaces in our office in about 30 minutes. (Note that, I was getting used to the app in this time, the last room took me about one minute, which is on-par with their claim.)

3. Fine tuning the floorplan

px;">Once you have completed the plan, you are able to go into each room and fine tune everything, or re-take the shots if necessary.

MagicPlan was pretty close when it came to determining dimensions from the photos (using the built in gyroscope in the iPhone 4) so there was very little fiddling in completing the plan itself.

4. Joining the Rooms

If you shoot each room in succession the app will attempt to join them together as best it can, but results here (I found) can vary. Fortunately you can reposition and rotate any room to fit adjoining rooms.

MagicPlan is smart enough to recognise ‘through-ways’ when joining rooms together, so don’t worry if there is a wall where one shouldn’t be, the app will take care of it and remove walls when necessary. You can undo these action as well.

5. Using the floorplan

Whilst the app itself is free, the .PDF or .JPG generated plans (which you can email to yourself) come with watermarks.

An In App Purchase of around $6.00 (per plan from what I can tell) will export a floorplan ready for you to use on your website and listings, which is huge saving over an architect generated plan!

 

6. Support

MagicPlan’s website and the app itself have a great range of tips and tutorials to help you get started.

The Result

Whilst taking a bit of getting used to, MagicPlan is definitely a good tool to add to your arsenal of iPhone apps.

I recommend that you try it out at home for a few days until you get the hang of it. Time-wise, you will improve through actually using the app.

For me the benefit is being able to say to a landlord that you can generate a floorplan for the property rather cheaply and quickly, improving the quality of a listing and subsequently the quality of tenants that apply for the property, as a floorplan is sometimes a more accurate representation of the size of the property over photographs.

So in ending, I suggest you check out the video MagicPlan has put together for their app (below) download it and try it out.

Feedback

We would love to hear from you if you are or are already using MagicPlan. Let us know in the comments below.

What’s Next

We are keeping our eye out for more cool apps to use, and will review them as we find them.

Are there any out there that you are already using and would like us to let the Property Management world know about them? Let us know in the comments as well.