This girl is getting sick of technology...
Showing newest 9 of 11 posts from February 2010. Show older posts
Showing newest 9 of 11 posts from February 2010. Show older posts
5. Your cell phone can set you on Fire Probably one of the last things you want your phone to do is spontaneously combust, especially if it’s in your pocket or, you know, against your head. For the most part we like to think there are hard working men and woman out there ensuring that the products we use from day to day just don’t do that. And while most things are pretty safe, very few things are 100% Back in 2004, a teen in California was walking with her phone in her back pocket when, as witnesses say, it made a woosh sound, bulged a little, then spewed forth fist-sized flames. The girl suffered 2nd degree burns. So how could such a nutty thing happen? An overheated battery. Kyocera issues a recall of 140,000 batteries and the Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued recalls as well for certain batteries that can short circuit, overheat and, yes, burst into flame. There have been other reported incident of phones bursting into flames while charging as well and though it’s rare, it actually can happen, though it seems to have been the result of poor quality batteries more than your phone angry at the poor grammar used in texting as you might think 6. Your phone can spy on you This one has been a favorite of conspiracy nuts for the last few years, the idea that the government can tap into your phone and use it to track your whereabouts, or ever turn on the microphone and listen in on your conversations, whether or not you’re using the phone at that moment. In fact, it’s true that the FBI has used this technique, calling “roving bug” to eavesdrop on criminals, like in New York when it was used as a surveillance tool in an organized crime investigation. Traditional wire tapping of land lines is a bit too old school and criminals are on to it, so the FBI had to adapt. Since many phones will never fully power down unless the battery is totally removed, a cell phone is a perfect wireless transmitter for law enforcement to tap into, and it still falls under the purview of existing wiretapping laws. In other cases, though judges are have batted the attempts down due to a lack of probably cause, law enforcement has attempted to get access to information about cell phone use – locations of cell towers that took calls from individuals, strength and angle of signal and timing of calls, which would allow them to approximate the location of an individual. You’ve seen it in television and movies before and, for all intents and purposes, it’s fairly accurate. With access to cell company records, you could be tracked in real time based on your cell phone usage, or even just having the phone on and in your possession. 7. Your cell phone can explode If you’re the kind of person who figures a cell phone fire is no big deal, you may be more inclined to be slightly nervous of cell phone explosions. After all, fire can be our friend and let us roast weenies and such. Explosions just suck, by and large. Back in 2007, word came out of Korea that a man who had his cell phone in his shirt pocket died when the phone blew up, sending shrapnel into his heart and lungs. Last year in China, a man died shortly after changing his phone battery when the same thing happened. It was the 9th recorded phone explosion in the country over a seven year period. In one incident, a man working in an iron mill died when it was determined that the heat of the mill caused the liquid in the battery to overheat and blow up. So it may be rare, but it can happen. Let that be a lesson to you, never expose your phone to molten metal. 8. Cell phones cause infertility Potentially the most horrible rumor of all, at least for some people, is the one that says cell phones lower your sperm count. And apparently it’s true. Research conducted at the Center for Reproductive Medicine at the Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio suggests that there’s a chance using a cell phone is bad news for your boys if you’re the hands free type who keeps the phone in your pocket. Long term exposure to all that electromagnetic radiation so close to the goods may lead to an increase in body temperature. And that can effect sperm count as well as mobility and shape. The jury’s not out, of course, and odds are you need to be doing a lot of talking with the phone in your pocket, but probably to be on the safe side you could keep the phone over a couple of inches or two. You never know.
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The internet is rife with rumors about the miracles of cellular technology, as well as the dangers. Depending on who you believe you may be carrying around a miracle tool or a death trap in your pants and Lord knows that’s a lot of stress for one person to deal with. Best to get to the bottom of things and separate truth from fiction.
1. Your cell phone can unlock your car
No one seems to know where this story came from, but it’s been circulated in a number of emails. The basic idea is that you’re out and about and in your frenzy to get things done, you lock your keys in the car. Crap. But, being clever and knowing you have a spare set complete with keyless entry at home, you call home and have someone press the button on your spare set to unlock your car over the phone. The signal goes through the phone, to your car and you’re driving again. Now that’s crafty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bjQMzI9m5w
So popular is this myth that the Mythbusters themselves had to test it. Guess what they discovered… you’re going to be pointing your phone at your car for a long, long time.
The problem is the phone uses an audio frequency while your keyless entry is on a much higher radio frequency. Which is to say you’re dealing with apples and oranges and once that keyless frequency hits your cell phone, it’s not going to get translated through to the other side at the same frequency. So no, you can’t unlock your car with your cell phone, unless you plan on using it to break a window.
2. Cell phones cause gas pump explosions
This winner has become so ingrained in our minds that gas stations actually have signs asking you to not use your phone while at the pumps for fear of a massive fireball of death and destruction, all because you needed to say goodnight to grandma. But when’s the last time you saw this happen on the news?
As it turns out, in the entire history of the entire world, there has never been an incident where someone blew themselves or any gas stations up with a cell phone. It’s a complete fabrication.
According to Snopes, the story just showed up one day in 1999. And every time it got mentioned, they said the explosion happened somewhere else. So basically it’s a friend of a friend story, only in this case the friend is an explosion, and no one’s ever seen it in person.
The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association and the American Petroleum Institute both agree that phones just don’t blow things up and they’ve never seen any evidence to suggest they do. Any news reports that have attributed fires to the use of phones were later proved false when someone, you know, actually looked for the real cause.
3. Cell phones cause deaths in hospitals
Similar to no phones at the gas pumps, most hospitals have signs in place telling you to turn off your phone. While some have phone use in designated areas which us regular folks assume must be lead shielded rooms or some such, other hospitals ban them altogether. The fear is that cell phone signals may interfere with the machines being used to keep people alive. There are even reports that the use of cell phones in hospitals has been a contributing factor in the death or serious injury to patients as a result of machines malfunctioning, delivering incorrect amounts of medication and so on.
However, the FDA has no information whatsoever on cell phones causing any deaths in hospitals the FDA has no information whatsoever on cell phones causing any deaths in hospitals, nor has any medical journal mentioned it. Reports that cell phone interference has caused incubators, heart monitors and IV pumps to go all wonky are the main cause behind the cell phone bans in hospitals, however the evidence for these is also sketchy. Just what is it that would cause the problem, anyway?
In 2007, the Mayo Clinic decided to do a study to see what the effect of cell phone interference was, so they used phones near 200 different pieces of hospital equipment. The end result was that the observed no clinically important interference at all.
So are you safe using a phone in a hospital? Probably, just keep in mind that if they have signs up and you refuse to put the phone away, they can and will have security take you out. In 1998, a man in Massachusetts was pepper sprayed for not hanging up. Probably best just to leave a message and call back later.
4. Cell phones cause cancer
This is the biggest one you’re going to find online with the most confusing answers. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of websites that will assure you that cell phone use leads to brain tumors.
Dr Vini Khurana, a reputable neurosurgeon who trained at the Mayo Clinic, even wrote a paper back in 2008 that said cell phone usage caused more cancer than smoking or asbestos. If you just said “holy crap” you’re well within you’re rights, as that’s a pretty damning statement. But there is a but.
According to the World Heath Organization, and more than 30 other scientific reviews, cell phones do not pose a cancer risk. And, apparently, Dr. Khurana’s work had not even been peer reviewed when it was released.
In a nutshell, cancer is caused by DNA mutations. Some kind of radiation or chemical has to break down chemical bonds in our cells that lead to mutation. But the radiation from a cell phone, the electromagnetic kind which is released by all kinds of electronics, is not strong enough to strip away electrons or break down chemical bonds, at least according to most scientists. So cell phones just physically can’t cause cancer. But why do people think they do?
Nearly every study on the link between cancer and cell phone use takes the time to point out that will no link is found, the risk of long term use requires further study. Meaning that we found nothing, but if we kept going for a few years, maybe we would. And leaving the door open like that has let people who are primed and ready to panic over their ear growing a second head walk right in.
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The going rate for a state-of-the-art chip factory is about $3 billion. The plants typically take years to build. And the microscopic size of chip circuitry requires engineering that practically defies the laws of physics. Over the decades, legions of companies have found themselves reeling, even wiped out financially, from trying to produce some of the most complex objects made by humans for the lowest possible price. Now, the chip wars are about to become even more bloody. In this next phase, the manufacturers will be fighting to supply the silicon for one of the fastest-growing segments of computing: smartphones, tiny laptops and tablet-style devices. The fight pits several big chip companies — each trying to put its own stamp on the same basic design for mobile chips — against Intel, the dominant maker of PC chips, which is using an entirely different design to enter a market segment in which it has a minuscule presence. Consumers are likely to benefit from the battle, which should increase competition and innovation, according to industry players. But it will be costly to the chip manufacturers involved. “I worry about that,” said Ian Drew, an executive vice president at ARM Holdings, which owns the rights to the core chip design used in most smartphones and licenses that technology to manufacturers. “But ultimately, these chip makers are all pushing each other, and if one falls over, there are still two or three left.” Intel, based in Santa Clara, Calif., has long been held up as the gold standard when it comes to ultra-efficient, advanced chip manufacturing plants. The company is the last mainstream chip maker to both design and build its own products, which go into the vast majority of the PCs and servers sold each year. Most other chips, for items as diverse as cars and printers, are built by a group of contract manufacturers, based primarily in Asia, to meet the specifications of other companies that design and market them. Traditionally, these companies, known as foundries, have trailed Intel in terms of manufacturing technology and have handled chips with simpler designs. But with mobile technology, an expensive race is on to build smaller chips that consume less power, run faster and cost less than products made at older factories. For example, GlobalFoundries plans to start making chips this year in Dresden, Germany, at what is arguably the most advanced chip factory ever built. The initial chips coming out of the plant will make their way into smartphones and tabletlike devices rather than mainstream computers. “The first one out there with these types of products is really the one that wins in the marketplace,” said Jim Ballingall, vice president for marketing at GlobalFoundries. “This is a game changer.” The company, a new player in the contract chip-making business, was formed last year when Advanced Micro Devices, Intel’s main rival in the PC chip market, spun off its manufacturing operations. GlobalFoundries, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., has been helped by close to $10 billion in current and promised investments from the government of Abu Dhabi. The vast resources at GlobalFoundries’ disposal have put pressure on companies likeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, United Microelectronics and Samsung Electronics, which also make smartphone chips. The message from GlobalFoundries is clear: as the newcomer in the market, it will spend what it takes to pull business away from these rivals. At the same time, Apple, Nvidia and Qualcomm are designing their own takes on ARM-based mobile chips that will be made by the contract foundries. Even without the direct investment of a factory, it can cost these companies about $1 billion to create a smartphone chip from scratch. Recently, these types of chips have made their way from smartphones like the iPhone to other types of devices because of their low power consumption and cost. For example, Apple’s coming iPad tablet computer will run on an ARM chip. So, too, will new tiny laptops from Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo. A couple of start-ups have even started to explore the idea of using ARM chips in computer servers. “Apple was the first company to make a really aspirational device that wasn’t based on Intel chips and Microsoft’s Windows,” said Fred Weber, a chip industry veteran. “The iPhone broke some psychological barriers people had about trying new products and helped drive this consumer electronics push.” Companies like Nvidia and Qualcomm want to get their chips into as many types of consumer electronics as possible, including entertainment systems in cars, and home phones with screens and Web access. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, last week, manufacturers displayed a wide range of slick devices based on ARM chips, including a host of tablets and laptops. In addition, HTC released its Desire smartphone, built on a Qualcomm ARM chip called Snapdragon, which impressed show-goers with its big touch-screen display. Meanwhile, Intel is about to enter the phone fray, both to expand its market and defend itself against the ARM chip makers. Its Atom line of chips, used in most netbooks and now coming to smartphones, can cost two to three times as much as the ARM chips, according to analysts. In addition, the Atom chips consume too much power for many smaller gadgets. Intel executives argue that consumers will demand more robust mobile computing experiences, requiring chips with more oomph and PC-friendly software, both traditional Intel strengths. “As these things look more like computers, they will value some of the capabilities we have and want increasing levels of performance,” said Robert B. Crooke, the Intel vice president in charge of the Atom chip. “We’re seeing that from our customers in a number of spaces, including digital TVs and hand-held devices.” Intel also has deep pockets. As of December, the company had more than $9 billion in cash and short-term investments. Mr. Crooke said that Intel’s manufacturing expertise would allow it to produce a new crop of chips every 18 months or so that would be cheaper and use less power. As rivals shift to more cutting-edge chip-making techniques, he said, they are likely to run into problems that Intel solved years ago. At the same time, competition from other chip makers will pressure them to lower their prices. “I don’t know whether it will make it harder for these guys to invest in the future, but you certainly would think so,” Mr. Crooke said.
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The huge amount of cash generated by the Mountain View company's search business has enabled it to hop from product to product, moving into mobile, software, social networking, broadband and other areas. But in the process, it's overlooking predictable consumer concerns, like privacy worries, the need for prompt customer service, or the importance of intuitive products, industry observers say. "Google is clearly looking like a company that is doing a lot of things, few of them well," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group. "They have this attitude that if you're getting it for free, you should be happy with what you get." Buzz, which was introduced this month, allows users to post updates, videos, photos and links within its popular e-mail service in a manner similar to Facebook. But privacy groups assailed the fact that users' "followers" were preselected based on those they frequently e-mail or chat with. Unless users took a step to block those people when first using Buzz, the followers could see other followers, as well as photos and information shared in additional Google products. Among other things, critics argued this default setup could inadvertently aid stalkers, jeopardize journalist sources, or reveal one's doctor or psychiatrist. The Buzz controversy closely follows the tightly orchestrated January launch of the Nexus One smart phone, the first handset sold directly online by Google. Early reviews of the device were predominantly positive, but media coverage was soon dominated by complaints about the lack of customer service, high early termination fees and network issues. Similarly, the rollout of Google Wave in September, which initially had people auctioning on eBay their invitations to the all-in-one communications service, hasn't made more than a ripple since. "Google has not done a great job of selling it to the public at large," said Greg Sterling, analyst with Sterling Market Intelligence. "It's kind of a cool product in search of a problem to solve." Google took quick steps to address the complaints with both Buzz and the Nexus One, and Wave is in a "preview phase" and will continue to be developed, Jill Hazelbaker, the company's director of corporate communications, said in an e-mail. "It's clear from the feedback that we got some things wrong - and we have listened and made changes," she said in regards to Buzz. But she stressed that the response to the product itself has been "largely favorable," with more than 9 million posts and comments made within the first two days. She also said the Nexus One "was and still is unapologetically great." To be sure, Google's mobile initiative, led by its Android operating system, has been a runaway success. Moreover, all of these recent product launches are peripheral to the company's highly lucrative core business of online search, which continues to grow at a healthy clip. Google has a long history of turning out many early version products in limited batches, improving them based on user feedback and providing full backing for those that prove popular. This approach has allowed it to have surprisingly few glaring product glitches over the years, said Clayton Moran, stock analyst with Benchmark Co. Moran said the growing scrutiny has less to do with the size of the mistakes than the swelling size of the company. Indeed, Google is now a huge global operation that has drawn the eyes of regulators, privacy advocates and media outlets around the world. But this may mean it can't afford to experiment on a public stage the way it once did. Whether or not the products are labeled beta, they're stamped Google and missteps take a toll on the company image, said Rob Frankel, branding consultant and author of "The Revenge of Brand X." "It's this whole sense of hubris. They get to a certain size and think, 'We don't have to care,' " he said. "They are just roaming around, not defining themselves, and allowing their actions to be interpreted by whomever." Observers say there are two things in particular that Google isn't paying adequate attention to in its rush to deliver the next new thing: privacy and complexity. Both blind spots are byproducts of the engineering-centric culture of Google, several analysts said. Their typical hires can puzzle out eye-crossing brain teasers the company famously issues in job interviews but can't always predict how real people will react to their services. Google "doesn't always recognize or anticipate some of the human problems, the people problems, the customer service, the concerns over privacy," Sterling said. "They tested Buzz internally and everyone liked it, so they just had no idea it would cause the fear it did." Buzz and Wave were both, in different ways, Google's answers to the skyrocketing popularity of social networking services Facebook and Twitter. Privacy concerns aside, the problem was that Google tried to compete by lumping in more capabilities, but in the process made the services overly complex, Enderle said. "The ideas in concept were good, but they needed to be turned over to someone who understood marketing," he said. Meanwhile, many Google products have raised red flags among privacy groups, because they often provide new ways for the company to collect information about users and customize advertising based on their behavior. Before Buzz, advocates had voiced concerns about Google's search engine, Gmail, pending Google Books settlement and move into mobile advertising. "The bottom line is, users should have meaningful control over their information," said Kimberly Nguyen, consumer privacy counsel with the Electronic Privacy Information Center.The recent privacy backlash over Google Buzz, the company's new social-networking service, is the latest in a series of launch fumbles that some argue reveal troubling blind spots within the Internet giant.Anticipating Wave
Missteps can take toll
Marketing problems
Privacy groups' fears
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Barring any last-minute change of mind, Mozilla will permanently drop support for Mac OS X 10.4 from future editions of Firefox. Mozilla stopped supporting Mac OS X 10.4, aka Tiger, in September 2009, but left a large amount of Tiger bits in the development code. Now, said Josh Aas, a platform engineer for Mozilla who works on Mac OS X integration, it's time to either restore support for the five-year-old operating system or remove the code from the development tree. "We would like to take advantage of more modern technologies on Mac OS X and 10.4 support has been a hindrance," said Aas in a message yesterday on the mozilla.dev.planning forum. "Where we can work around supporting 10.4, doing so consumes valuable time and effort. Neither Chrome nor Safari has to deal with this." According to Mozilla's metrics, 24% of those running the Mac version of Firefox 3.5 rely on Tiger, while 12% of those running the just-released Firefox 3.6 do. Half of all users run Firefox 3.5 on Mac OS X 10.5, aka Leopard, while 59% run Firefox 3.6 on OS X 10.6, or Snow Leopard. Aas noted that Tiger users can continue to run Firefox 3.6, which supports the older operating system, until that version is retired from support. Currently, that end-of-support would come sometime in 2011, as Mozilla doesn't expect todeliver a major update to its open-source browser until late this year at the earliest. Mozilla's policy is to support an edition for approximately six months after a new version ships. "We are often one of the last vendors to continue supporting older Mac OS X releases," said Aas. There was only one dissenting voice on the forum, but he took Mozilla to task for ditching him. "As it stands now, it [is] impractical for me [to] update either machine due to lack of funds," Phillip Jones said in a message today, referring to a pair of PowerPC-based Macs running Tiger. "Most just take what they are given and stew in the background. Silly me I don't. So in the end my opinion doesn't count for anything." Mozilla started to discuss dumping Tiger from its list of supported Mac operating systems in April 2009, just weeks after pondering whether todrop support for older versions of Windows. For its part, Apple has already retired Tiger from security update support. The last time it patched vulnerabilities in Mac OS X 10.4 was September 2009. Firefox 3.6, which runs in Tiger, can be downloaded from Mozilla's site. According to Mozilla, nearly 39 million copies of the new edition have been downloaded since its Jan. 21 launch. As of Jan. 25, about 6 million Mac users were running Firefox 3.5 or Firefox 3.6.
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A new study from subscriber management company Allot Communications today says that worldwide mobile broadband consumption increased approximately 72% in just the second half of 2009. Though the Federal Communications Commission is worried that there won't be enough bandwidth in the United States to support the growth in mobile broadband use, the Americas are actually being outpaced by both the Asia Pacific region (APAC) and the Europe/Middle East/Africa region (EMEA) in terms of growth rate. APAC experienced an 86% growth in mobile broadband consumption, and EMEA experienced 70% growth, while use in the Americas grew by 59%. Allot's study says that streaming video is "the single most influential factor driving the need for increased mobile network capacity," and that consumption of streaming video grew by 99% in the second half of '09. YouTube alone accounted for 10% of the world's mobile bandwidth consumption in the third and fourth quarters of last year. "Mobile broadband networks are still facing the same challenges as fixed networks -- growing bandwidth demands, congestion, as well as finding ways to enhance the user experience and to lessen the negative impact of a few [P2P users] on the network," a statement from the company said today.
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Windows 7 is a pretty cool operating system - I think it's the best version of Windows that Microsoft has released. But some notebook PC owners would beg to differ. Last week, reports arose that Microsoft was looking into a message some Windows 7 users were seeing. A warning box appears saying: Consider replacing your battery. There is a problem with your battery, so your computer might shut down suddenly. However, user in Windows forums have been complaining about this alert since last year, when the betas and release candidate of Windows 7 were circulating. Ina Fried of News.com, among others, reported that Microsoft believed initially it was a firmware of the notebooks, and not its operating system: Microsoft says it is looking into a problem that is causing some Windows 7 users to get a warning that there is a problem with their battery when, in fact, there is not. "We are investigating this issue in conjunction with our hardware partners, which appears to be related to system firmware," a Microsoft representative said in a statement on Tuesday. Now, Microsoft has some bad news for those seeing the message: Your batteries are, indeed, dying. Steve Sinofsky, president of Microsoft's Windows division and the man who oversaw Win7's development, writes in the Engineering Windows 7 blog that it's not a bug, it's a feature: Several press articles this past week have drawn attention to blog and forum postings by users claiming Windows 7 is warning them to "consider replacing your battery" in systems which appeared to be operating satisfactorily before upgrading to Windows 7. These articles described posts in the support forums indicating that Windows 7 is not just warning users of failing batteries - as we designed Windows 7 to do this - but also implying Windows 7 is falsely reporting this situation or even worse, causing these batteries to fail. To the very best of the collective ecosystem knowledge, Windows 7 is correctly warning batteries that are in fact failing and Windows 7 is neither incorrectly reporting on battery status nor in any way whatsoever causing batteries to reach this state. In every case we have been able to identify the battery being reported on was in fact in need of recommended replacement. Using all the tools at our disposal including contacting customers reporting this issue on forums, customer service communications, partnerships with our PC makers, and of course the telemetry in Windows 7, we have been monitoring reports and discussions regarding this new feature, trying to separate reports of the designed behavior from those that might indicate an issue with Windows 7. In the latter cases we are trying to understand the scope of applicability and obtain hardware on which to reproduce a faulty behavior. To date all such steps indicate that we do have customers seeing reports of battery health issues and in all cases we have investigated Windows 7 has simply accurately detected a failing battery. . . . Sinofsky offers some details on just what Microsoft looked at in its study, and some of its findings. Among one of the most interesting: We have seen no reproducible reports of this notification on new hardware or newly purchased PCs. While we've seen the reports of new PCs receiving this notification, in all cases we have established that the battery was in a degraded state. In other words, some of the reports involved batteries on brand new PCs, but the batteries were indeed in bad shape — which doesn't speak well to quality control, if true. The post is full of technical detail on how Windows 7 judges the quality of a battery, and what triggers the alert. If you're a notebook owner, it's worth reading. As you'd expect, the answer isn't sitting well with those who are getting the error and believe their notebook batteries are just fine — see the comments under the Microsoft blog entry. They point out that the same problem doesn't happen with Vista or other, older versions of Windows. Of course, if Windows 7 is indeed "smarter" about battery quality, it may be reporting information not taken into account by previous Windows versions. And Sinofsky says there's no similar warning in previous versions of Windows. It looks like this is a case of shooting the messenger, but Microsoft should continue to study it. Of course, as Windows 7 notebooks age, there will be more and more of these notifications popping up. It's information that's good to have, even if it doesn't make you very happy to see it.
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IF Caroline Cua’s iPhone looked anything like her closet, where she keeps her dozens of pairs of shoes, she would have screen after screen of applications.
ut instead her iPhone is nearly empty. Since she bought it nearly a year ago, Ms. Cua, 27, who works for a transportation service in San Francisco, has downloaded precisely five programs. And though she uses four of those apps “religiously,” she says, the ones she favors — Pandora, the Internet radio service, and Shazam, the music identifier — are your basic black pumps.
And that’s just fine with her, until she finds herself among friends whose iPhones are studded with icons. When a fellow iPhone owner asked recently to see her apps, she grew self-conscious. “I said to him, ‘O.K., now I’m officially feeling like a loser,’ ” she recalled.
Ms. Cua is not an exception. She is the rule. The average iPhone or iPod Touch owner uses 5 to 10 apps regularly, according to Flurry, a research firm that studies mobile trends. This despite the surfeit of available apps: some 140,000 and counting.
Last week’s announcement of the Apple iPad, a tablet device that runs iPhone applications and will not be available until March, has already spurred the development of more, including a version of a drawing app called Brushes; Nova, a shooter game; and Apple’s own app called iBooks, which will connect to its new online e-bookstore.
But that doesn’t mean that people will change their habits. Actually, it may just make them feel a tad more overwhelmed. The next generation of gadget users might prove different, but for now it is clear that people prefer fewer choices, and that they gravitate consistently toward the same small number of things that they like. Owners of iPhones are no different from cable TV subscribers with hundreds of channels to choose from who end up watching the same half-dozen.
So, for every zealous owner whose iPhone is loaded with little-known programs that predict asteroid fly-bys, there are many more Caroline Cuas, who seldom venture outside the predictable. Most say they’re too busy, too lazy or just plain flummoxed by the choices.
“I think I’m supposed to want more of them than I have,” said Julie Graham, a psychotherapist in San Francisco who echoed Ms. Cua’s vague anxiety. “There’s this sense that I’m missing out on something I didn’t know I needed.”
Ms. Graham, 50, said friends were shocked when she confessed to having failed to download Urbanspoon, a compendium of restaurant reviews. She now has it — and seldom uses it. “I don’t have time,” she said.
Since apps were introduced in 2008, rivals like Palm, Microsoft, Google and Research in Motion have all rushed out their own catalogs of mobile applications.
A survey of iPhones, iPod Touch and Android users conducted in July 2009 by AdMob, an advertising network that helps people promote their applications on smartphones, found that people discover apps most often by browsing app stores. And even though the iTunes store is bloated with offerings, people tend to gravitate to the most popular.
“For all the tens of thousands of apps out there, the odds of being exposed to more than a thousand are very small,” said Stewart Putney, the founder and chief executive of Moblyng, a company in Redwood City, Calif., that develops applications for mobile devices.
“The top apps featured at the store do change out,” Mr. Putney said. “But most users will never see more than 1 percent of the total apps available.”
A study last year by Pinch Media found that most people stop using their applications pretty quickly, particularly if those apps are free. And three out of every four applications people download are free, even though analysts say that Apple and its developers receive $1 billion a year in revenue from selling applications (Apple itself won’t say).
Jon Lebkowsky, 60, who runs a technology company in Austin, Tex., has a few dozen apps on his phone but uses only a handful, he said. He discovered a few when he saw friends using them. Others he found by searching the app store. “I’m a Buddhist, so I searched for ‘Buddhism’ and ‘Buddha’ to see what I could find,” he said. “I found a cool meditation app and a set of the Buddha’s writings.”
Some apps become the electronic equivalent of comfort food. Ms. Cua said her social inclinations were well served by a game called Words With Friends, a popular Scrabble derivative that she plays with others. Dana Delany, the actress, has the same game, which Ms. Delany said is played among word-oriented people on the set of “Desperate Housewives.”
“Your personal interests certainly drive what you’re interested in,” said Peter Farago, vice president for marketing at Flurry. “But people can’t always find the things they’re interested in.”
At the app-happy end of the spectrum is Phil Minasian, 18, a freshman at Purdue in West Lafayette, Ind. Mr. Minasian said his iPhone is loaded with games, including racing games, Texas hold ‘em, and numerous word puzzles. He said that while the majority of his games are free, he still pays about $15 a month for those that aren’t.
Mr. Minasian said he believed that people who don’t download apps in abundance are missing out. “If people put the time in, they can definitely find apps they’ll like, and that help with everyday life,” he said. With the help of — you guessed it — an app for finding apps, he found the Weather Channel app, which he prefers to the weather program that came with his iPhone.
Simon Sinek, 36, a leadership and management consultant in New York, has 130 apps, having collected them with a tried-and-true strategy.
Every night, Mr. Sinek said, he goes to the iTunes store to look at the most popular apps. “If one looks appealing, I see if there is a free version to try first,” he said. He also looks at the number of stars next to the app. If more than 5,000 people have downloaded an app, and 60 percent have given it the maximum of five stars, Mr. Sinek downloads it. “I might even pay for it, even if it’s over 99 cents,” he said.
Sometimes he goes completely rogue, entering random words in the search box, just to see what pops up. Typing “brain” yielded one of his favorite apps, a simple, elegant and free program called 3D Brain. John Connolly, a media producer who created 3D Brain for the Dolan DNA Learning Center of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., said he was delighted to hear that Mr. Sinek downloaded the app, which is used mostly by science educators and students.
“I think most people are inherently interested in how their brain works, in what makes them tick,” he said. And, of course, there’s an app for that.
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