Appy Together?

LUCY BURDETTE: I was looking at my iPhone the other day and started thinking about the apps on the homepage. Of course, there are some that I downloaded when I saw them and have never used. And then there are those that I use all the time, like mobile apps of twitter and Facebook and mail. But I thought wouldn't it be fun to see if we could use our apps as a kind of Rorschach test for our current interests. Two things you can tell for sure about me from this page, I'm obsessed with the weather. And I am obsessed with food in Paris.
And here's one more page. This one shows you how much I have gotten into iPhonography. And more stuff that has to do with traveling—I’m always looking for the perfect travel organization app. (by the way, have you found one?) And of course apps to do with writing. How about you guys? What’s on your screen?

HALLIE EPHRON: What you can tell absolutely and definitively from my apps is that I rarely use my phone. I message and facetime with my kids. Use Google Maps. And I've got all the airlines and Amtrak apps loaded. Yelp in case I need a restaurant. I've got Dragon Dictate because of the blog Lucy posted awhile back saying that it helped her write fast. I used it twice.

What I need right now is an app that will take a selfie of my cell phone screen... and you know what, there isn't one.
RHYS BOWEN: Apart from the obvious ones like Facebook, Twitter, Kindle and the various airlines I use I seem to have an eclectic mix. At the top of my list is Evernote, which is brilliant for all kinds of note-taking, snagging pages from websites etc. I also have a Zen garden with chimes or birds, an aquarium (different aquariums on my iPhone and iPad--the one on the phone lets me feed my fish, which I like!)

I have Scrabble and a addictive game called Wordpops, I have Dragon that I rarely use, Password vault that I've never used, but Apps for tennis tournaments and ESPN--revealing I'm a sports-loving workaholic who calms down by feeding fish and visiting a Zen garden.

LUCY: Rhys, what’s truly frightening about your photo are the 829 messages—yikes!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Ha. I am so happy it's not just me. Lucy, when you suggested this topic, I thought: great! Then I thought--but HOW am I gonna get a photo of the front of my PHONE? Because I need the phone to take a photo of the phone, so it'd be impossible to...worry worry worrry.
And then I burst out laughing. Get Jonathan's phone. Take a photo with that one. HA.

Although I do think you can take a screen shot, I just don't know how.)

Anyway, I am app-light. I have Scrabble, and flashlight, and Uber, and Audible, and Evernote, and podcast, and Soundhound, and Songify. (Do you know Songify? It makes anything into a song. VERY cool. I have used it a million times, but all on the first day I got it. ) I have Epicurious, and Open Table.  I think this shows I am a very practical person who is sometimes interested in recipes , but would rather have a  black car take me to a restaurant while I read or listen to music or look for stuff in the dark..

LUCY BURDETTE: I take a screenshot with my assistive touch button, which I discovered accidentally when I dropped the darn phone and my home button QUIT WORKING. Ack! Here's what came up on Google:

Here is how to turn the Assistive Touch feature on, allowing you to use an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch that has a nonworking Home button:

    Open “Settings” and go to “General”, then tap on “Accessibility”
    Under “Physical & Motor” tap on “Assistive Touch” and then flip the switch to ON

My home button miraculously resuscitated itself, but I still have this other button. Just In Case.

Now I have to go try Hank’s Songify…

HANK: Ah...bwa ha ha. I don't even understand that. I kind of don't even want to. I am getting Jonathan's phone.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: Lucy, you just made my eyes glaze over... And I don't even have an iPhone. But now I wonder if I can take a screen shot on my Galaxy? Hmmm. Apps? Oh, geez. I don't just have apps, I have folders of apps. Rick really likes apps so keeps finding them for me. How many do I actually use? Google. (Does that count as a app?) Facebook. Kindle. Weather, astronomy, photo gallery, Evernote. I have Zite and Flipboard but don't use them much.

And I have the coolest bird watching app called iBird Pro, but it takes up a lot of storage space. Oh, and I love my music player, which is called Rocket Player. The only games that tempt me are Bejeweled and Words with Friends.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Okay, I am about to out myself as the Luddite of the group. I don't have a smart phone. We have five people on a family plan, and until very recently, my service only offered an upgrade if EVERYONE got an upgrade - and frankly, I didn't want to pay the $$$ that would entail. Ross and Youngest got Kindle Fire HD 7s for Christmas (there was a great sale on earlier generation HDs in October, when the latest ones came out) and I'm pretty sure hers is already loaded with God-knows what. I helped Ross load apps onto his, which mostly consist of ESPN, CBS SPORTs, apps major league baseball, NFL football and college basketball. Oh, and weather. Yes, we have reached the "weather years."

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Lucy, I can't even make sense of that! I have an iPhone with FreshDirect, our grocery service, so I can add items to my "cart" from the phone when I have a sudden epiphany (Glass cleaner! We NEED glass cleaner!).

Also have grub hub for ordering delivery (yes, sushi will magically arrive if you press enough buttons and YOU DON'T HAVE TO SPEAK TO A HUMAN BEING!). Then all the social networking apps, Pandora Radio (although everyone tells me Pandora is "so over" and it's all about Spotify now....), Netflix, and mahjong. Kiddo loves to download games to my phone, so I have ones like "Clumsy Ninja" and "Cake Maker." I could probably live without everything except Google Maps — what a timesaver. Seriously. How did we get around before?

Jungle Red Apps

ROBERTA: Even if you don't own an iphone or other smartphone, you've certainly heard of "apps" or software applications for these phones. If you're like me, you've abandoned some of the apps you bought or downloaded already. I chose one called "stress relief" that features various seashells with accompanying soothing noises. I used that once.

I noticed a new one called bedbugs and things--how to recognize the bugs and their bites. I'm passing on that. But I did read about one in my American Psychological Association magazine called "The Grouchies" that helps kids deal with bad moods. Seems like adults could use one of those too!

But now I'm thinking we should be clever and talented enough to come up a few apps that would really take off. What about a biofeedback app in which the phone would measure heart rate and blood pressure and then help you bring it down on the spot? How about you Jungle Reds--any great ideas? (For Jan, maybe an app that screeches if you reach for the email before you've done your words?)

JAN: My husband makes fun of me for all the apps on my phone. But I use a lot of them. MY REVIEW of the best apps: the guitar tuner app;, the MLB (baseball) app.; the Dictionary app (it even pronounces the word for you) the language translation app, and my favorite, the Pandora radio app, which lets you devise your own station with only the music you like.

I've downloaded stupid ones too, that I haven't quite figured out how to delete. And one I haven't tried yet. You are supposed to be able to point it at the song on the radio and it will identify it.

HANK: Yeah, that's Shazam. Cool.

JAN: In that vein, we could devise an app that lets you point at row of mysteries on the shelf and tell you if you would like it given your mystery reading history. Or an app that would fake an emergency phone call whenever you were sitting through a long speech. And maybe an app that automatically deletes apps that turned out to be foolish and that you now never open on your phone.

HANK: Oh, I want an Iphone! I have a phone that only makes and receives calls, can you believe it? (Pandora is on my computer, though, and I love it.) I LOVE the astronomy app, where you can hold it up to the night sky, and via gps identify constellations. Amazing.

How 'bout a tstl app? Where you can enter something or character does, and it will tell you if it's too stupid?

And oh, a naming app! For sure! Where you could enter a characters , say: "hip smart army nurse, about 35, blonde, born in New Jersey to a Jewish mom and an Irish dad." And it would shoot back a perfect name for her: Sarah Mulligan. Ah, actually, how do you design apps? That one might actually work.

HALLIE: I'm so jealous of all your smartphones. I just upgraded from a cell phone that couldn't even text.

Great ideas, Hank. Though I want a wwcd app - you enter something a character does, and it tells you what the character does next. Oh, please please please, can I have that one?

How about a language translation app - you say something into the phone and it says it back in English so you can verify it understood and then says it in the language you pick. Does this already exist?

Or for paranoid tourists, an app that figures out where you are from GPS data and matches it with a database of crime statistics, warning you when you've wandered into a high crime area -- code yellow, orange, red.

But I'll know smartphones have really arrive when I can say to one, "Beam me up, Scottie!"

RHYS: My phone only calls and texts, but I do have an iPod touch which is pretty much like the iPhone without the phone part. But I really only use it for music. My only apps so far--Scrabble and a tennis game. Hallie, you wouldn't want the wwcd app as it would always choose the predicatable action and thus make a boring story. I wouldn't mind a wwjad app--as in 'what would Jane Austen do?" But I'd really like an app that made the phone look like a mirror only I look twenty years younger. And one that translates what my husband says from manspeak into womanspeak so we can actually communicate properly.

ROBERTA: I'm going right now to download the astronomy app, and figure out Pandora. Rhys, the problem with your mirror app is that all the other mirrors in the world would show us just as we are!

How about you, Jungle Red Readers? Any great ideas for a new app? Or old favorites?