App-itis: how many apps is your iPhone running?
As Apple prepares for its billionth App store download, Alex Kidman ponders if he's guilty of downloading too many apps.
I was actually going to write some stuff about Skype for iPhone this week, but, well, I got sidetracked. Sure, Skype's interesting stuff if only because it fiddles with the apparently delicate relationship between Apple and phone providers, although limiting it to WiFi is an interesting step. I'm still to hasten to my local Maccas to work out if Skyping while slurping is a feasible. Or for that matter an attractive proposition. There's already enough finger grease on my screen as it is.
Like I said, I was going to write about Skype, but first I had to find it. My iPhone (and, for that matter, my iPod Touch) is, to put it mildly, a little crowded.
As I write this, 96 different program icons are mine for the grabbing (not including the four base buttons) and more distinctly the finding. Every once in a while I get all efficient (or, arguably, bored on the train) and sit and sort my apps into pages of productivity, information, games and so on, but as soon as I grab a new App, it tends to deteriorate gracefully, and that can leave me a little non-plussed as to where a given App is.
Finger swiping and quick reading does find things reasonably swiftly -- and certainly faster than on competing smartphones -- but compared to my Mac, where I tend to fire up spotlight, hit the first letter of the Application I want and get going, it's still a mite more challenging.
Those 96 apps are, if I check my iTunes history, about a third of what I've downloaded. My Touch has some stuff that I have deleted from the iPhone, and likewise some apps which are iPhone-only aren't on the touch. Still, that's 300 downloaded applications for one individual in a little bit less than a year. Yikes.
Most of them have been free Apps -- AppSniper is both a blessing and a curse in this regard -- and many have been glanced at, ignored for a while and sometimes deleted when I get all efficient. With 96 surviving, that's obviously not happening all that often.
There are applications that are firmly embedded on the iPhone. The aforementioned Skype, along with a range of Pinball games (I'm an addict, and happy with it), TwitterFon, OzWeather, Darkroom, LogMeIn Ignition, Dr Awesome, Fieldrunners and Traffic AU aren't going anywhere.
The latter is an interesting case in an App taking me by surprise. I downloaded it to write it up for PC Authority, expecting to not be that interested in it in the long run, as I already own a TMC-enabled GPS. But I'm using TrafficAU more than the GPS itself. Why? It's a simple way to check my common routes against SUNA's current warnings. I already know where I'm going (so the GPS part of the GPS isn't needed) and it's a second's work to sort out if the road's going to be blocked along the way.
Apple's solidly aware of creeping App-itis, as it's currently running a countdown clock to its billionth App download. As I write this, there's about 10 million App downloads to go.
If I were a more cynical man, I'd point out that the counter is flipping past a little too regularly, but still, it's an interesting achievement in itself in less than a year. There's also a competition (which may well be over by the time you read this) that's surprisingly open to Australian residents.. as well as most of the planet.
While my own App downloading habits might be a touch excessive, and I'm in the draw as a matter of having downloaded an App yesterday (you can also enter by giving Apple a lot of personal data instead of any purchase, if that's to your taste), up against the rest of the planet, I don't rate my chances all that highly. If you see me running down the street whooping with elation, you'll know I was wrong.
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