Monday, October 12, 2015

Rudai twenty two : Mobile Things

Apps and Stuff

I have not given much thought about apps for my windows phone as it was a budget buy for my personal needs. On reading the post I had a good look at what kind of apps were out there for windows phone users. I was always told that there were only a tiny number of apps being made for these devices and that the quality was inferior to android or Apple. I can't testify to the quality of the opposition but the quantity and quality here seems great. 

The ones that stood out to me and were free that I would be tempted to download for my phone if it had a bit more power were:

  • Code writer which supports 20 file types
  • Winzip
  • Lastpass a password management tool
  • Evernote touch
  • Camscanner whoch allows document scanner and sharing 
  • Collaborate
All these got good reviews and reasonably high download rates. I think I'll wait till my next phone till I download these as they tend to be for windows 8 and above and my little old windows 7 and even older PC wouldn't be compatible.

The Bizarro 23 things like Rudai 23 but different..


I took option three as I don't have an iphone or tablet and couldn't borrow one for the others tasks though they did look interesting. 

The 23 mobile things course looks very similar to rudai23 in that it covers much the same ground. I would say though this one is the superior course it does seem a good deal more detailed and how-to. The post I chose to investigate was thing four Maps and checking in.


They recommend the user to explore google maps as we did too. I said before in a post that I don't trust google maps that much as they can be up to a kilometre out. I use HERE maps which are a windows phone app they are quite good but it no longer works on my phone since the last upgrade. 

The post mentions "checking in" functions on Facebook and other software. I have a problem with this in that I dislike being tracked by multinational companies. I feel by giving this is giving them access to downtime when I should be offline enjoying the company of friends not giving even more information to the likes of Google or Microsoft. Strangely this isn't mentioned in the post or comments. 



The post mentions some apps and uses for these GPS tools such as geocaching and wayfinding. Third level institutions and maybe large secondary schools could use geocaching in their library induction as a fun way of getting the students used to making their way round the library. The post also mentions Wayfinding while I can see this being useful for finding WiFi spots I can't see it being used to find books or items in the library. The stock is labelled 000- 999 it's a easy system as it is. I would fear for the student who could navigate it. It also smacks of technology for technology sake. 

Readar is an app developed by Librarything which tells the user of library's and bookshops round them in an area. This does seem a great way of reaching a interested audience. Foursquare also gets a namecheck. This is a search engine app that allows users to search for businesses in city's around the world recommended by the locals. I searched for coffee shops in Dublin and got a good number of names. I did observe however that they predominately based on the south side of the city.  This is probably because clientele in this part of the city is wealthier and will have a greater chance of owning an up-to-date smart device and use apps such as this more. What does this mean for businesses and institutions outside these areas? Is it worth their while investing a presence for the apps if they're not going to picked up? 


23 Mobile things also seem to have a very good pintrest page. I looked at there pins for thing 4 and it was impressive. It give links to more detail and updates to the software and applications mentioned in the post. 

I am in my mid thirty's so I could be showing my age in the fact that I dislike and don't get the attraction to sharing my details online and I dislike being tracked by faceless machines. I don't really understand why people are so willing to give up valuable information about themselves which data mining companies will make money from for perhaps a cinema ticket? If they're lucky..

Overall I really liked how they wrote up the posts and used pintrest to supplement the information being given. I prefer Rudai23 though! 



 




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