Page 18 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 2 #3

18 FOUR (FREE) SMARTPHONE APPLICATIONS

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A

GEEK TO GET THE MOST OUT

OF YOUR SMARTPHONE!”

Whether you use an iPhone, a Droid, or a Windows phone,
there’s no shortage of free—or nearly free—apps. The trick isn’t
downloading an app... it’s knowing which app to download.

The world is rapidly becoming filled with smartphones. And there is no sign this will ever change.
If anything, smartphone migration will continue unabated, driven predominantly by ever
more powerful technology. Along with tablets, smartphones will transform how we communi-
cate and compute. For many (if not most) of us, laptops and desktop computers will become a
thing of the past.

Additionally driving this transformation:
v Simple is always better. Smartphones aren’t just phones—they are media
devices, highly specialized computers of a sort, and a communications
device all in one.

v As we become an information-centric society driven by the need to com-
municate continuously in “real time,” smartphones and tablets offer instant
access to communication and information in a format that is simple,
reasonably inexpensive, and most of all, compact.
v “Conventional” software was often expensive. Apps, as they are called, are
either free or incredibly inexpensive. This paradigm is nothing short of a
revolution.

Most of us use our smartphones to call, text, listen to music, check email, or perhaps watch a
video. We access Facebook and LinkedIn. While some of us might create a document or two, use
the built-in camera, or experiment with video chat, for the most part, the potential of the smart-
phone remains just that—potential—and nothing more.
For most of my life I have been an early adopter of technology. Ironically, when it came to
the smartphone, I fell far behind. Fearing the loss of the last of my privacy, I hesitated to check

nyghtvision magazine volume 2, number 3, Fall 2012