I know, I know. To say "the future is here," it's all a little cliche now, but think about it. We are surrounded by AMAZING. Skype, iChat, video conferencing...texting, streaming video...all the things our phones can do...
(I just nounified amazing.)
Here's a confession: I didn't want an iPhone. I thought it was a little hyped up. I put on a good face when Brian got me one for Valentine's Day, but truly, in my head the dialogue went something like this: "How much did this thing cost? And my other phone was still working. He spoils me! I really don't need this...but oh well. I've got one now. Smile! and...sigh."
Now, I truly do appreciate the phone. It is amazing. The best thing about the iPhone? the apps. Oh, and the combination of the phone and the iPod. This allows me to listen to podcasts or music or audiobooks through headphones and my phone just comes through if someone calls me. Genius!
A lot of the apps available are just games. Some are very cool games, don't get me wrong. But some apps are absolutely useful.
Take some of the toddler apps that I've installed. There's one called Cute Math that allows Lucy to play at subtraction, addition, etc. She's a little early for that one, but not for the counting game on the same app. There are toddler flashcards, and a Sightwords application that speaks the word on the screen when the correct button is touched. None of these will step into my role as Lucy's main teacher, but they're fun supplements. And they're with me whenever I have my phone.
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Some of the other apps that I like are the Classics reading app, a Scriptures app, Lose it, Zeer Food Reviews, the Maps app, and of course the Safari Web Browser. With Classics, I've got more than a dozen books--good ones--at my fingertips which are automatically bookmarked. In my phone. Is it not amazing?
If someone had described this to me when I was a kid, it would've blown my mind. I would've automatically thought of Star Trek. (Because I'm cool like that.) The Scripture app lets me read and cross reference scriptures and a ton of supplemental texts whenever I want without flipping through all those books. Lose it lets me track calories to lose weight. Zeer pulls information from the website to let me search the Zeer database to see if anyone had any comments about a specific grocery item. The Maps app is my own GPS/Mapquest. And the ability to access the web when I want is unspeakably handy--mostly just for my email.
Some of these things are what they are. The Classics app may get more books and maybe a few more bells and whistles. Maybe it will get an option to have the text read aloud(!). Some of these other apps may change a lot. I think that many of them have potential to really change how we do things.
One thing I hadn't thought much until recently was the potential for review/information sharing websites and applications to improve commerce by empowering consumers. These days, it's rare that I don't check Amazon.com or epinions.com to see if anyone has something interesting to say about a product before I buy it. A lot of times, I'll just do a search for "item" and "review."
This has proven to be incredibly useful. I've researched end-user comments about everything from board games to eyeliner. Here's the caveat: it doesn't work if people like you and me don't take the time to build the resource.
Here are a few sites with consumer reviews that I make use of regularly to try to find out about products before I buy them. To me, contributing and using consumer reviews is something that makes the world a little better that is easy to do. If I buy something on a whim and end up throwing it away, it's not only a waste of money, but of resources, not only in the product but in energy for shipping. All of these sites give you free access to information from real people:
Amazon - reviews on tons of goods, movies, music, books
epinions.com - again, tons of goods, with an emphasis on reviews (obviously)
Zeer.com - food you buy at the grocery store--and did I mention that my brother is the founder?
Overstock.com - clothes, furniture, etc. -- all at a discount
Totalbeauty.com - beauty supplies
I haven't contributed reviews to all of them, but I am making a goal to do at least a few (more) reviews on each in the next month.
Whenever I think of reviewing products online, I think of a time about five years ago when I bought a lot of store brand beef stew at Target because it was on sale. I hated it. I ended up giving it all to the food bank. Good for the food bank, frustrating for me.
If only I'd had my iPhone with my Zeer food reviews app. If some good soul had taken the time to write that the beef stew was thick like a brick and smelled like dog food, well then, I would have saved a few dollars and the food bank wouldn't have received nasty stew.
