Appland: How smartphones are transforming our lives
Is there nothing a smartphone can't help you do better?
by Richard Fisher
Friday 7.43 am
My wife is standing at the door to the bathroom, watching me time my
toothbrush routine using an application downloaded to my iPhone.
Thirty seconds on upper-right molars: done. "What are you doing?" she
asks. "Nothing," I mumble through a mouthful of toothpaste. She
doesn't speak, but her eyes say "I think I love you a little less." If
only she understood
Ever since I bought an Apple iPhone, I have been hooked on apps
(see "What's app, Doc?"). Apple's App Store is a virtual shopping
mall with all the shopaholic joy of a real mall but none of the
annoying teenagers. It is packed to the virtual rafters with thousands
of downloadable software tools. Admittedly, the store makes a bad
first impression on many people, with novelty apps such as lightsabres
dominating the top 25 chart. But dig a little deeper and you will find
life-enhancing riches.
I confess that I now turn to the App Store in almost every situation.
In unfamiliar places, I use apps to find the nearest gas station,
cinema or even public toilet. I track the length and time of my
commute. All my gym workouts are logged. Finding a nice place to eat
while on the move is a cinch. Even this article is brought to you
thanks to a voice recorder app (iDictaphone) that I used for recording
interviews, and one that helped me "mind map" my thoughts when
planning it out. Sometimes I daydream about becoming the most
virtually enhanced human in the world.
Thankfully, I am not the only one in this appy daze. I discovered that
loads of people, including my colleagues, turn to their phones for
help with all sorts of things (see Case study 1 Search for
happiness, Case study 2 Get fit and Case study 3 Find love).
Up until a year ago, apps barely registered. Now these clever bits of
software, when combined with the sensors and networking capabilities
of today's smartphones, are sparking nothing short of a
techno-cultural revolution. On the iPhone alone, Apple claims over 1.5
billion apps have been downloaded in just a year. The rest of the
industry, including Nokia and Google, is now piling in with their own
new or relaunched app stores (see Appsolutely everything).
Apps are more than just clever toys. While gaming still accounts for
the lion's share of app activity, it is beyond doubt that apps, and
the new wave of phones in which they reside, are already influencing
the way their users communicate with each other, navigate their
environment and do business. Arguably, these tailored bits of software
- connected to the internet, location-aware and sensor-supported as
they are - may supersede the web. Some say the devices on which they
reside are becoming a vital part of our selves, turning us into de
facto cyborgs. Could these humble bits of code really have the
potential to completely transform the way we interact with the world?
Saturday 11.10 pm
Out with friends and last orders have been called in the pub. The
alpha male of our group pulls out a stack of taxi numbers scrawled on
old business cards. None of the firms is close enough. "Richard has a
new iPhone - let's try that," my wife suggests. I pull up an app
called AroundMe, which tells me where the nearest cab company is.
Thirty seconds later and the taxi is on its way. My friends look on in
envy and admiration. Alpha male looks despondent. "I am part man, part
computer," I tell myself
Some might ask what all the fuss is about. After all, downloadable
applications appeared on some cellphones such as the Palm Treo almost
a decade ago, so what's different now? The short answer is that the
old apps were not particularly good. They were either difficult to
download or time-consuming to master, so few people used them, says
Gerard Goggin at the University of New South Wales in Sydney,
Australia, who has studied the sociological impact of the iPhone
(Continuum, vol 23, p 231).
Even people who think that Apple is all about glossy hype cannot deny
that the iPhone changed things for everybody. Variously described as
the Jesus phone, a concierge, a Swiss army knife or, somewhat
disturbingly, a fingertip secretary, the iPhone is currently at the
centre of the new app world. But forget the touch screen and sleek
design, the truly revolutionary thing that Apple CEO Steve Jobs
managed to do with the iPhone was to persuade cellphone network
operators to loosen their grip on what phones could do. One of the
consequences of this coup was the birth of the App Store, which Apple
alone controlled and had designed to be as easy to browse as the
iTunes store.
What's more, Apple made it easy for anybody with some programming
know-how to create an app: for $99 you can download the software
development kit and gain intimate access to the phone's functions.
Lured by the promise of riches, developers ranging from large software
houses to bedroom enthusiasts have created a massive market of apps,
virtually overnight (see Appsolutely everything).
Monday 7.25 pm
I have begun to track my cycle commute using an app called Trails,
which records my path, altitude and speed as I travel. My aim is to
find the fastest and shortest route to work. Today I achieved a new
work-to-home record. "My god, what happened?" asked my wife as I
shuffled through the front door this evening. "You look terrible." I
give her a self-satisfied grin. It was me versus the clock, and I won
In the past year, many other companies have launched or rebranded
their app stores for other handsets, including Nokia's Ovi store and
Google's Android marketplace. None has the sheer volume of the
iPhone's store yet, but few technology analysts think Apple will
remain the dominant purveyor of apps for long: Android offers
significantly more freedom for developers than Apple, so could lure
many of them away from the iPhone; Palm has been in the apps game for
years; Research in Motion has the business market cornered with its
Blackberries; Nokia has legions of loyal European customers; and
Microsoft is, well, Microsoft.
Even if these are not as successful as Apple's store, hundreds if not
thousands of apps look likely to be available on most handsets. The
explosion in investment coupled with the armies of developers means
that there is already an app for almost any occasion. "The phone can
take on many, many guises," says Goggin. "It can be a spirit level, a
bowling ball, a budget balancer or a breathalyser." The device in
your pocket is not a phone any more. It is anything you want it to be.
Saturday 4.30 pm
In a coffee shop casually flicking through the App Store. My finger
hovers over an icon on the screen. Should I download MyVibe, a
vibrator sex toy that was among the first X-rated apps Apple
permitted? It feels so wrong, and yet...
The ability to use apps in almost any context raises the possibility
that these devices could lead to profound changes in the way we
navigate the world, communicate and absorb information. The app
phenomenon is only a year old, but researchers are watching the surge
closely. Many social scientists who study the influence of technology
argue that app-enabled mobile devices are set to become a huge
influence on our daily behaviours.
Sherry Turkle at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who studies
people's relationship with technology, says the power of the latest
cellphones lies in the fact that they are "always on, always on you".
With this capability, she says, the devices effectively become an
appendage to our body and mind that plays a role in everything from
our social interactions to emotions.
David Chalmers, a philosopher at the Australian National
University in Canberra, agrees. He thinks cellphones are allowing
cognition to creep beyond our skulls in entirely new ways.
"Increasingly sophisticated information processing is being offloaded
to them," he says, so that smartphones are becoming a repository for
our memory, desires and beliefs. And we can retrieve this information
at will wherever we are. By aiding efficiency, navigation and local
knowledge, apps achieve things that our biological brain alone could
not.
Sunday 2.30 pm
I'm visiting my parents. In the post-lunch lull I reach for my phone
and am dismayed to find it isn't in my pocket. I feel like I've lost a
limb. Fortunately my laptop is to hand. My mother peers over my
shoulder. "It's a program called MobileMe," I explain. "I can use it
to track my iPhone's location on a map if it's lost or stolen. No
matter where it ends up in the world, I can see it."
"That's incredible!" she exclaims. "Anywhere in the world? So where is
it now?"
"It's in my house," I reply relieved. You are off the hook this time,
mother, I think, but I'm watching you
The extra-appendage idea is backed up by a recent survey of the way
people are using apps. Earlier this year, a Chicago-based technology
and design consultancy called Gravity Tank quizzed more than 1000
app users and conducted detailed interviews with a selection of them.
Over one-third of respondents said that they couldn't live without
their app-loaded smartphones. "Apps are finding a meaningful place in
people's daily diets," says Gravity Tank's Michael Winnick. "If you
can access information and computing power anywhere and any time,
it'll impact on every part of human behaviour."
These people rely on apps to complete expense reports, monitor their
pets remotely or manage their exercise regimes (see Appsolutely
everything). Their smartphones have become a constantly evolving tool
with the potential to instantly improve any moment, says Winnick. Some
even reported that they perceived apps as an "extension of their
brains".
In 10 to 15 years, app-enabled phones will be the number one channel
through which we receive information, according to B. J. Fogg of
Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who studies the
"persuasive" power of technologies. "We're building our lives around
apps," he says. The devices know where we are and perhaps even what we
are doing because of the phone's various sensors. Therefore, Fogg
argues, they can provide highly personalised information that trumps
the internet, TV, radio or traditional media.
You can already see hints of this from the Gravity Tank survey: app
users spend about 25 per cent less time reading newspapers, watching
TV or using a computer since they started using apps.
Dean Eckles, also at Stanford, believes that app-enabled phones could
become the sole "lens" through which we view the world. Our phones
could soon influence our choices in day-to-day life without us even
realising it, he says. He bases his argument on studies showing that
we are more likely to trust familiar technology that is physically
near us. We develop a "quasi-social" relationship with it, he says.
An experiment by Youngme Moon, now at Harvard Business School,
illustrates the point. It showed that people were more likely to
provide personal information to a computer they had been sitting at
for a while than another elsewhere in the room, even though they knew
both were programmed in exactly the same way (Journal of Consumer
Research, vol 26, p 323).
The cellphone is about as trusted and familiar to us as a gadget can
be. No other technology is as close, so much of the time. It would be
all too easy to put too much trust in apps, Eckles warns.
Friday 7.10 pm
Wandering through the streets of central London. Earlier, I checked an
app called Yelp for restaurant tips. My wife and I have been walking
towards the recommended venue for half an hour. I insist on ignoring
all other establishments along the way. We lose mobile signal and
become lost in the backstreets of Soho, just as it starts to rain. The
look she gave me in the bathroom last friday morning returns
Plenty of apps, such as Yelp or AroundMe, help people discover what's
in their vicinity, often filtered according to popularity or the
reviews of other users. However, the quality and reliability of this
ranking varies widely, says Eckles. One neighbourhood's
recommendations are not always as robust as the next. The problem is
that we could forget to think too deeply about this because we trust
our phones implicitly. So it could become the case that if an app
doesn't tell you there is a restaurant around the corner, then as far
as you are concerned, it is not there. The only path we would choose
would be among the options shown to us, says Eckles. Thanks to our
smartphones, many of our decisions "are going to happen automatically
and mindlessly, outside of our awareness".
There is a more serious side to this than merely choosing our
eateries. Take the iPhone: Apple decides what will and will not run on
it, and vetoes anything it believes is offensive, unsuitable or
competitive with its other services. It remains to be seen whether
other smartphone manufacturers will follow suit.
What is clear is that apps are set to become an ever greater part of
our lives. As the technology of handsets improves, the next wave of
apps will join up the real and virtual worlds even more. Many will be
based on "augmented reality", which involves overlaying computer
graphics on a view of the real world captured through the phone's
camera. In the Android marketplace, apps such as Wikitude and Layar
already use the handset's video camera, directional sensors, location
information and internet connection to allow users to look "through"
their phones to see a virtually augmented building or landscape. Once
developers tap into the full capabilities of the latest version of the
iPhone, a flood of similar apps is likely to emerge in Apple's App
Store, says Blair McIntyre of Georgia Institute of Technology in
Atlanta, an authority on augmented reality.
That's just the first step, though. Imagine what will be possible when
somebody finally manages to commercialise an augmented-reality display
built into a pair of high-tech glasses, says Eckles. Though these
kinds of displays have been in the works for a while, it is apps that
could give the prototypes a final push to the market. Such a display
could be connected to "always on" apps, constantly feeding information
that overlays our vision, from location specific tourist information
to the nutritional content of our groceries. And when this happens,
says Eckles, our smartphones will truly have become the sole lens
through which we view the world.
Friday 11.45 pm
Lower incisors: sparkling. The toothbrush timer finishes. "You are
awesome!" it announces. I smile, but a splinter of suspicion slides
into my mind that I may be placing too much store on what my iPhone
apps tell me. Maybe my wife is right that I should give it a rest for
a while. While pondering the thought, I open up the App Store and
check for shaving apps
What's app, doc?
App, short for "application", is just another word for a computer
program, but the term has come to be associated with programs that can
be downloaded to smartphones to augment their abilities in new and
imaginative ways.
Case study 1 Search for happiness
Just walking out of the shop with my iPhone sent my happiness quotient
through the roof - a tiny part of me wanted to cry. After all the
waiting, it was like being given magic powers.
Suddenly I could identify any song playing on the radio with an app
called Shazam. With Google on tap, I was the fount of all knowledge. I
could go to the beach yet not miss emails offering me wildly lucrative
work (still waiting on those). My children could borrow it to
embarrass my mother-in-law with Atomic Fart. I can even pop bubble
wrap with an eponymous app. So why would I need an app that promised
to make me happier, called Live Happy?
I tried it anyway. It asked me to type in some life goals and when I
planned to achieve them. I complied. I wrote my brother's name in as
someone whom I should call more often. I even put a favourite picture
in the "savouring album". I couldn't quite bring myself to keep a
Gratitude Journal (especially when I thought about the thing I was
most grateful for - it just seemed wrong to write "my iPhone" in that
space).
My gratitude towards my iPhone is at its highest when I am lost. As a
navigationally challenged individual, just having the combination of
Google maps and GPS in my hand makes a smartphone worthwhile. I stride
confidently forward, and all I need to do is glance at the screen a
minute later to know that I need to turn around and go back the other
way. Bliss.
Or it was. Now there's a new iPhone, and it has a compass built in. I
need a compass. Why haven't I got a compass? In a cruel twist, Apple's
relentless pursuit of even more happiness has made me unhappy with my
iPhone. Curse its glossy black casing. I've updated my life goals to
include upgrading my iPhone.
Michael Brooks
Case study 2 Get fit
I awake to the gentle tinkling of harps. My iPhone says it's time for
my morning run. What to wear? I touch the temperature icon and
discover it's already 20 DegC in London. So shorts and a vest it is.
It's 6.30 am and a work day so I tell the Nike+ app I'm off for a
5-kilometre run, tuck it away in my armband and head off to the
rockin' strains of The Clash.
The hills in my neighbourhood are murder, but I power on and
eventually finish my run and hug my phone - not out of love, but to
let an app called Heart Monitor measure my pulse. Happily, it's
nowhere near the maximum for my age. I'm getting fitter and faster.
Nike+ also tells me that my last kilometre was a personal best and,
better still, I burned 345 calories on the run. That's enough for an
almond croissant or a very large glass of wine, according to
iDrinkulator.
Vivienne Greig
Case study 3 Find love
"I need you to find true love. By next Tuesday," my editor tells me.
Great, I've been meaning to do that this year.
First things first: find a dating app. I plump for DNA Dating, a free
and very popular dating tool. Ten pages of questions later, and one
suitably captivating photo uploaded, and I'm informed that I have 2707
potential matches.
By morning, things look promising. Numerous messages flooded in
overnight. Everything from an "assurance of a harmonious relationship"
to a "you is fine", even a rather generous "willing to relocate" (from
Cairo).
I also spot a muscular Adonis with pecs of steel, an old friend of
mine from university, and a cheeky chappy with similar interests to
me. The latter isn't my normal type but with four days left to find
true love, a girl can't afford to be picky. After three days of
emailing we arrange to go for a drink. A quick shake of Urban Spoon -
an app which randomly selects a restaurant depending on your location,
price or choice of cuisine picks Le Pain Quotidien in central London.
On the morning of our date, I stumble across Perfect Date - an app
which assures me it will, as its name suggests, help me craft the
perfect date. It is essentially a checklist: "Have you showered?"
Check. "Are you dressed to emphasise your best assets but don't look
provocative?" I'd like to think so - check. "Do you have your
toothbrush?" A little presumptuous for a midday coffee but if it says
so. Check. Toiletries in hand, I head off.
As you might expect, the date is a little awkward but nevertheless
quite pleasant. "This is just an extension of online dating. But it's
much quicker to set up dates because everyone has their phone on them
all the time," my potential beau tells me. "I haven't found 'the one'
yet, though," he adds, considerately. We chat for a while and, having
confessed that I am researching a story, he helpfully recommends Magic
Tap, an app that fakes an incoming call to get me out of any future
sticky situations. Shortly after, my phone rings. Uncanny.
To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with
the subject unsubscribe.
To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please
visit the list home page at
http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
