Before I retired from teaching, I used a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) to keep track of my calendar, addresses, and class lists. In fact, I was the proud owner of the first PDA ever, the Apple Newton. I used the Newton for several years, and when Apple let the technology flounder, I moved on to a Palm type device. I have to admit that sometimes using a PDA was more trouble than it was worth, and when I retired I found myself using it less and less. Finally, after some neglect on my part, my PDAs battery completely died and I put it to rest.
I really didn’t miss using a PDA, that is until the iPhone was introduced in 2008. The promise of having all the mini-applications, or apps, available all the time, in a device that would fit in my purse or jacket pocket, was very intriguing. I definitely had iPhone envy, and now that I have an iPhone, I can only say that it is everything I thought it would be, and more.
Just after I submitted last weeks column, I came across a phrase that is an excellent description of an app — a one trick pony. While most computer programs are fairly versatile, the small programs known as apps have one specific job, and the best of them do that job very well.
Pre-installed on the iPhone are the basic apps that you would expect, such as an address book, calendar, notepad, clock, weather app, compass, mapping, email, and web browser.
Contacts, the address book, lets me keep my contact list in groups, so if I need the phone number of a doctor, I can go to my Doctor group for his/her number. Both the Weather app and Clock app allow you to set up a number of locations. My Clock app is set to Eastern Standard Time and Arizona time (our son is living in Arizona), but if we were to be traveling I can easily add time zones from anywhere around the world.
Third-party free and paid Apps are available for the iPhone from the App Store through iTunes, a program that runs on both Mac and PC computers. Before Apple agrees to make an app available in its app store, it has to be vetted for quality. There have been complaints that Apple censors some material, but with hundreds of thousands of apps to choose from, it is very easy to find an app to fit your needs. Most free apps feature ads, (with an upgrade version that has no ads but is not free) which is a good way to try an app out before buying it. The range of prices for most paid apps are from $.99 to $4.99.
Two apps that I purchased, and use constantly, are Grocery Gadget for my shopping lists and TapExpenses to tally my daily expenditures. Grocery Gadget, comes with a pre-installed database of hundreds of items, and allows me to keep separate lists for different types of stores. For example, I have a list for local grocery shopping and more specific lists for both Walmart and Costco. I also wanted an app to keep track of how much money I spend, but I wasn’t looking for a full-fledged budgeting application; TapExpenses meets my need perfectly. Every time I spend money I can keep track of how much I spend, when, what it was for, where, and how (cash or credit). I can even call up a report anytime and immediately see what I spent by dates, categories, and stores.
Rounding out my list of useful apps I use regularly are apps for my ToDo List, serving sizer, cooking substitutions app, an app actually turns my iPhone into a small carpenter’s level (really, it works!), mapping (Google Maps on the iPhone are excellent), exercise monitoring, , and locating just about anything.
Next week I’ll complete my musings about “smartphones” and the iPhone with a bit more on using the iPhone to navigate the world around you. I have only discussed the iPhone because that is the only smartphone I have own. There are other smartphones available and although Apples has the most apps available, Google and others have thousands of useful apps for Android phones.
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