This might sound strange, but I really enjoy the fact that our smartphones and tablets are “just rectangular bricks with touchscreens,” because they’re also gateways to a ridiculous amount of fun and usefulness. Back when our phones actually had interesting designs, with flipping and twisting parts, they were basically just really pixelated windows at a lot of text messages and emails, maybe a rough calculator application, too.
Thinking back to those days, it’s kind of crazy how far we’ve come in such a short period of time. But it’s certainly awesome that we’ve reached this point. I love the fact that our phones and tablets are these devices that can do so much, help us out in a variety of ways, and also give us a bit of an escape with all sorts of games when we need one.
Our phones (and tablets) are like Swiss Army knives in their capacity for functionality.
There’s also that possibility that you’re like me in that you have a lot of the same apps on your phone at any given moment. Or at least you’ve had a lot of the same apps on your phone, but you eventually had to start whittling down the options to save on space. Sometimes I feel like I need to buy phones with a limited amount of built-in storage just for the hope that I’ll avoid downloading a ton of similar apps all the time.
For me, it’s writing apps. I have a lot of them on my phone. Calculator apps, too. There was a point in time about a year ago that I wanted to find the “perfect” calculator app, and I couldn’t tell you what that means, even today. That meant I bought several options, tried the free apps, but eventually found one, Calcbot, that I’m more than happy with. But that’s the one I started off with anyway.
I think the standard for multiple versions of any one type of app has to be weather apps, right? They offer the same basic functionality, but then they’ve got to do at least a few things differently to try and earn your repeated taps on that app icon, or even your initial purchase. The fact that Dark Sky finally launched for Android got me thinking about all of this, and the basic premise for usefulness and what we’re all looking for in specific things.
Our phones and tablets are certainly helpful, and making them easily portable and accessible makes that even better. While I tend to have a lot of the same type of apps on my phone, I usually only use one, repeatedly, and eventually I’ll get around to deleting the others. Still, the most useful app on my phone, the one that I use the most often, is a note-taking app called Simplenote. I’ve loved Simplenote for a long time, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
What’s the most useful app on your phone and tablet, and why? Let me know!