Yesterday my niece came into town, which is always a great time. She is three and never runs out of energy. After dinner I was watching some cartoons with her and I pulled out my phone because I had a message. Well, as soon as she saw my phone she said APPLE!! Referring to the apple on the back of my phone. She proceeded to tell me that you chew apples because if you didn’t chew, you would choke. After her insightful PSA she asked to see my phone. She immediately knew how to unlock it and just started touching the screen. I showed her an easy game she could play that would keep her occupied while continued to watch cartoons. I was surprised that she could actually figure out and stay focused enough to continue playing the game and then searching through my phone and actually not messing anything up or getting extremely confused. I asked my sister if my niece had played on an iPhone before and she said no, but the daycare that she attends in South Carolina uses touch screen computers to teach the children. My sister said that everything that they try to teach the children is turned into some sort of app on these touch screen computers and that kids find it to be fun and they actually retain some of the information. I think that’s great! I remember when I was a child everything was touch oriented but we didn’t have the same technology as we do now. These schools and daycares are able to accomplish a whole lot more with this new technology and make it more enjoyable for the kids and beneficial. I’m in full support of this technology being used to TEACH children.

Apps Taking Over Our Culture

It doesn't matter if you like it or not apps have become and are continuing to become one of the most important aspects of our every day lives. This is perhaps even more true of apps than it is for the Internet. If you ask someone who is writing about smart phones they would likely try to tell you that if it were not for smart phones than apps wouldn't exist at all. This may be partially true but I think it has gotten to the point now that it is the other way around. Yes I will give you that the use of apps and their popularity initially came from smart phones. However it has gotten to the point where apps are being used all over the place. Apps have even gone as far to spread all the way to televisions. Yes you can now buy a TV that has apps that people can use. So I would have to argue that it has gotten to the point that phones are now evolving to be better so they are better able to keep up and support all the new applications that are coming out.
Apps have begun to control everything. They are completely changing our culture. TVs need to be able to use apps phones must advance so they can accomadate all the things apps can do and you cant turn on the television or go to a internet homepage without reading something about apps. Why is it that apps are becoming so important to us as a culture though. I believe that it has to do with the fact that we want everything as fast as possible as easily as possible. If you want to find something out such as sport scores using an internet browser you have to go through many different pages but apps have made it to where all you have to do is suscribe once to the scores you want and they get delivered to your phone and when you want to see them all it takes it the pressing of one button. So apps are here and they are very important they have gotten into the heart of our culture and are likely here to stay so I suggest getting a phone that has them and learning to embrace them.

week 4 article of the week

This weeks article of the week is actually a video about apps bein able to make you fit
http://www.fastcompany.com/1692250/can-apps-make-a-difference-to-your-life

Apps can help you learn Spanish!

http://ezinearticles.com/?Learning-Spanish-Is-Fun-With-iPhone-Apps&id=5147093

Youtube!

http://www.ehow.com/how_2031116_upload-video-youtube.html

The link for this article are steps on how to upload youtube to your phone. I thought this would be appropriate since our class discussion was on youtube. Since youtube has started its grown into something much larger. Not only do people watch youtube videos on your computers but now you can even watch them on your phone. Again it just shows how big applications are getting for your phone and how people love watching youtube.

I think youtube is a good source for entertainment but its also good for advertising. more and more companies are posting ads and commercials on youtube because its faster to upload, easier and cheaper to do so then having their ads on TV. Today you can pretty much find anything on youtube. It just makes me wonder how much bigger youtube will get.

Emily Johnson

Spontaneity...there's an app for that!

When all of us choose to be in this group we had ideas of how awesome we felt apps were and we wanted to let the world know about it. However after a couple of weeks of digging into them we seem to have realised that apps seem to be slowing us down in some aspects of life and just aren't worth the hassle. This is not what we really wanted to be talking about when we started this though we wanted to show them in a positive light for all the world to know about their awesomeness. We have gotten away from that in many posts so I am going to get back to it and this week I will be writing about a personal experience I had with an app this past week and yes it was a good experience!
Now I don't know about the rest of the world but a good 4 of my meals a week come from well not my kitchen. Yes I am talking about going out to eat. I must admit it is one of my favorite things to do. It is not cheap and many times the food is not good but there is just something about going out with a group of friends and having a meal that you didn't have to work to prepare. However, when you eat out as much as I tend to you end up going to the same four or five restaurants every single time. So what do you do when you want to go out to eat but you want to try something new. You could drive around wasting gas looking for something that pops out but this runs the risk of you ending up in a shady part of town and you have no real way to know what to expect when it comes to price range on the food. The solution I found came in an app called Urban Spoon.
Urban Spoon is an app where you put in what kind of food you want to eat and what you expect to pay for the food and bam the place you will be eating for the night has been picked and you are on your way. I tested this app twice this week and I must say I was very pleased with the results. First off the app was extremely easy to use which is always a good thing. Also the places that were picked by the app fit really well with the price and food type I said I wanted. So instead of going to those same four or five places you can try a new place every night you go out which lets face it isn't realistic without such technology. I know I said last week that apps were cheapening knowledge but it would be unrealistic for someone to have this much knowledge about the places to eat in a city this big plus Urban Spoon can really do some good when it comes to steering people away from chains and towards the little guys which may not have gotten the business without the app being used. So I highly suggest you check it out!

article of the week (week 3)

http://www.nyveldt.com/blog/post/5-iPhone-apps-that-have-changed-the-way-I-work.aspx

I am getting a negative vibe about apps from looking over the blog so this week is going to focus on some positive stuff from me starting with this article about work changing apps!

What's your heart rate?

I just happened to stumble across an app that will be coming out soon for the iPhone. Basically, this new app will keep track of your heart rate and then allow you to disclose this information over the social network of your choice. All I have to say is WHY?!

I think this is one of the most ridiculous apps anyone could think of. Yes, I understand those who need to track their heart rate because of health and heart issues but why is there this need to broadcast this information over Facebook? They claim that the reason why you would want to post your heart rate on Facebook or something is so that your friends can send you a disgusting or terrifying picture to get your heart rate higher. If I did happen to have heart problems and my heart rate was continuously up, I would not want someone sending me a picture to get me all worked up after I just got my heart rate down. Plus, I don’t think many people are really going to care what your current heart rate is…. maybe your grandma or something.

I feel like we’re becoming this society who needs to tell everyone about everything that is happening in our lives. I can’t stand getting on facebook and reading all these status updates about where someone is or what they are currently doing, I truly don’t care. I also can’t comprehend how people find the time to constantly be on the computer or on their phone. I work two jobs and go to school full time and can barely find the opportunity to even process what I’m doing.

Sorry if I sounded ridiculous but this app just got my mind racing. Anyway, hopefully as they continue to work on this app they will add some better features that make more sense. That’s just my opinion.

A Good Body is a Healthy Body

In the environment we live in today, awareness of personal health has skyrocketed. As the entire world knows, the United States has a serious obesity problem. This problem has open the gate ways for reality shows such as 'The Biggest Loser' and 'Celebrity Fit Club' in which people lose weight and are supposed to keep it off. These shows though only help a handful of people whom are with trainers 24/7 of the day for month spans. This "reality" isn't the same reality for the millions of other Americans and people around the world. The common person doesn't have the time to go to a gym every single day or have a trainer watch exactly how much calories you eat in a single day. This is where Smartphones come into play. No, I'm not saying your smartphone will make you lose 100lbs like on the T.V. shows, but they are helping consumers manage their health through thousands of applications. An article I stumbled upon the other day explains these health applications for smartphones in greater detail.

Click the following link to access the article on health applications: http://smart-products.tmcnet.com/topics/smart-products/articles/70447-smart-health-smartphones-thousands-apps-growing.htm

I did a personal study this week and wanted to see what all this new hype about health apps were about. The study I did was to download a few healthcare and fitness apps and use them for a week to see if they were worth it. I downloaded a few popular healthcare and fitness apps called 'Daily Burn' and also 'Calorie Counter and Diet Tracker'. Just to start off, these two bad boys were totally free, so far so good. Let's just say that that the 'Calorie Counter and Diet Tracker' was very useful I found out. Not only is it very easy to use, but I found myself using it day in and day out. I was somewhat surprised to see how successful this app was in helping me take care of my personal health. I started to watch what I took in and I will keep this application on my phone forever now, it's a definite for anyone looking for such apps. As for the 'Daily Burn' application, I had a few mixed reviews. It was very buggy and would crash, but still helpful in what I did burn. It was very similar to the other application, but nothing worthy of remembering or posting about it.

Overall, I was very skeptical of healthcare and fitness apps actually working. I came to the conclusion that maybe these healthcare and fitness apps are on to something. As it was stated in the article above, healthcare and fitness apps are becoming the most downloaded apps on smartphones and for good measure. You will probably find bogus healthcare and fitness apps like I did, but there are some really good apps that do help you obtain a healthier body. It's not a personal trainer to bark at you to exercise everyday, but healthcare and fitness apps are helping those who aren't "special" enough to get on reality T.V. shows obtain a healthier body they've dreamed about.

Cheapening Knowledge

Yes there are many things that come from apps that are very good when it comes to communication but there are also down falls. Everyone thinks that it is so great to be able to access anything that you want at any time you want. I for one thing it can be great but at the same time I fell that it is doing things to people that are not so great. If you can go to your cell phone that is always on you can find out any information you need in a matter of seconds why would you need to memorize things. Apps make it easier to quickly access information just as having the internet on your cell phone did before. However the furthering of apps makes it easier to access that knowledge quickly which is giving people less incentive to think and more incentive to pay 30 dollars a month to have access to any information they need. Essentially the furthering of apps on phones is cheapening knowledge.
You may think that having access to apps actually expands your knowledge because if you dont know something you can look it up and yo believe that doing this you will learn more stuff and remember it thus making you smarter. However for me it is quite the opposite. I did a test this week to see if I gained knowledge from the use of having information at the ready any time I wanted or lost knowledge and just relied on the technology to be there for me over and over any time I needed it. The way I did this is I received a new client today which I have to drive to pick up every day. Before I would look up the directions on the internet and memorize them allowing me to quickly learn how to get to places I have been before over and over. This time however I used the mapquest app on my phone and I found myself relying on this app every day instead of using my brain to memorize the route to the house. This may not seem like a big deal but if you find yourself without your phone or service for some reason you will be much less capable of performing what used to be a simple task. My mother will use her gps feature every time she gets in her car if she is leaving our home town even if she is going somewhere she has been 20 times before.
Yes I feel like apps can be helpful in a lot of things but if we are not careful then the wide spread use of apps will cheapen knowledge and we will find ourselves lost as if we are going somewhere without our map quest app.

article of the week (week 2)

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/cody/2010/10/13/app-investing-buy-google-and-apple-short-the-cable-companies/ just a little info on apps and business pretty interesting stuff

New Apps for Your Smartphone, October Edition

New Apps for Your Smartphone, October Edition

My Thoughts

Apps are basically the reason why people purchase Smartphones. Why else would someone actually want to purchase a larger phone? These larger phones better have some extra capabilities, and they do. I have come to realize that everyone who owns a Smartphone uses it for the wide variety of apps out there. We have become so obsessed with all the different things we can do with these phones and we like to show off and act like our phone is better, even though that individual can immediately download it onto their phone.

I noticed the other day while I was at work that we are relating our conversations to apps and the ability to point to what we want and have instant access. The reason why I noticed this is because I said something to my coworker about his tattoo looking like it had moved further up his arm. He immediately took his finger and pretended to drag this tattoo around his body and said that it was a new app. We had a good laugh but it just made me think that having a touch screen and the ability to gain instant access with the flick of our finger has changed the world. I can’t even fathom what new and exciting things are going to happen with this new technology in our lifetime.

Apps Can Help You Kick Smoking Habits

Being as this is the first post for the blog, I felt it that it would be interesting to start off with a somewhat comical topic. Have you ever got addicted to cigarrettes and everything you tried to make your self quit just didn't work? Well, you may have just been looking in the wrong place. Not everyone can kick bad habits to the curb with patches or pieces of gum that taste gross!! If you're one of those people, than apps has a solution for you! There are now 11 applications that can help you kick this habit you've all been wanting to do for so long.

To view this article of the 11 applications click the link here: http://www.switched.com/2010/08/23/11-iphone-smoking-apps-for-kicking-the-habit/

The beauty if apps in the world today, is that the sky is the limit. Yes, it seems a bit cliché but I feel that line sums up apps. From games to help amuse our boring lives and kill time or to social networking apps to help us Tweet and Facebook our fingers off until they produce sores. Yes, this is what the world is coming to whether we like it or not. As I bid you farewell for this blog session I'll leave you with this question to ponder upon, "Have consumers only seen the tip of the iceberg of what apps are capable of doing, or is there going to be a plateau in the field of apps?

What Are Apps??

Since I am going to be blogging about "Apps" or applications over the course of however long I decide to keep my blog in commission I feel my first post should clarify what exactly Apps are. Not only what they are but what different mediums you can use to access apps and just some of the many things that can be done with these amazing things. Let us first take a look at the basics.
Apps also known as applications are things that can be accessed from your smart phone, e reader, computer, and even certain televisions these days. They are a relatively new when it comes to the technology scene and they have rapidly gained popularity recently due to the expanded use of smart phones. It doesn't really make sense to have apps on your computer because it is so easy to access everything you need through your Internet browser. This however changes when you are using a cell phone that is much slower and smaller. The size of cell phones really made apps extremely valuable. They make it possible to access the information or tool you want to use by pressing only one button instead of having to go through the multiple steps of the Internet. The simplicity of them really entices people to pick using them over standard methods of getting around technological devices.
You may be thinking all of this sounds great but you still aren't completely sold on the idea. Why do you need apps in your life when you can do most of the things without them. First of all many apps are free of charge and greatly reduce the stress on you. there are apps for everything from finding a place to eat to changing your voice to sound like a rappers. Do you need to get somewhere but not know how. You can either pay to use the navigation system on your phone or why not just pull up your map quest app. The ease at which you can do so many different things really is amazing so it's no surprise that they have become so popular.
Perhaps the most amazing thing in my opinion about apps is the possibilities they make for remediation. What is remediation you ask?? Well remediation is the process of taking one medium and making it available on another medium. I know this sounds a little confusing but lets take the New York Times. This for those of you who do not know is a newspaper. If you have an Ipad with apps you can get the New York Times app and instead of carrying around the actual paper you can have your paper but in the form of your Ipad screen. Pretty cool right. To top it all off this isn't the only example of that say you want to update your facebook status but don't want to leave your couch. They now have televisions with a facebook app so you can get on facebook right from your couch through your tv.
This is all the time I have for this week and I hope you all now know a little bit more about apps. I look forward to writing this blog and hopefully you look forward to reading about what I have to say about apps over the next lets say 10 weeks or so.

article of the week (first week)

Just found this article dealing with apps thought it was something worth checking out!

http://broncobytes.boisestate.edu/2010/03/16/training-and-communications-implementing-google-apps-at-boise-state-university/

Take your Smartphones ahead of time with latest Applications

Author: Cecily

Keeping a Smartphone itself takes one ahead of others in time and technology and in addition, adding a number of applications to one’s Smart Phone can make one’s life a lot more interesting and convenient. One can in fact buy the latest Smart Phone applications and in turn the functions of one’s Smart Phone will become limitless and unbelievable. One will in fact get so much dependent upon these applications that one would come to think, that how he or she was able to do without all these facilities earlier.

Today, one of the latest and best Smartphones applications is Shazam. With the help of this application, one can listen to music and at the same time get the details of the music as well. It provides not only the facility to analyze the content minutely, know the name and details of the track, but also it helps in buying the music from a store. Another promising application is the Box Net. This is a nifty application and with the help of this, one can have a free access to a file of up to 16 GB. Hence, one will not have to download the file in order to access it and also the memory of the phone can be kept free and be utilized for other purposes. Another interesting and latest Smart Phone application added to the kitty is Check Pleases application. This application provides a solution to the user when he or she goes out to an eating-joint with friends. It eradicates the problem of calculating the bill and even the per-head charges incurred. In fact, it also helps one to calculate the tip to be paid.

There is another very interesting application for use in the Smart Phone, called the Clap and Seek application. This application is developed for those users who regularly keep losing their PDA Phones and then keep searching for their phones in their own house. This application provides the unique option to track one’s Smart Phone whenever the phone is lost, by just making a clap. In response, the phone will beep and inform its exact location to the user.

Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_1746675_45.html