apps

Community-based apps on the rise

@spot.angels

I’m assuming most – if not all people – have heard of the traffic/direction app called Waze. When it came out a few years ago, it took a long time for people to understand the premise, and for it to gain enough customers for the community-based platform to actually work. The goal was to have users report accidents, heavy traffic, and even cops on the road for others to see (and hopefully avoid). My dad was a very early user, and swore by it. Now, years later, it’s one of the biggest community-based apps on the market.

Insert another one I found the other day: Spot Angels. They only have a few locations – mostly high density urban areas – where parking can be an absolute nightmare. The app let’s users report empty parking spaces (and rates for each). Their website also claims to warn their users of street cleaning warnings, snow plowing, etc.

I lived in Portland, and not having a designated parking space within my apartment building – and that city being majority biking and walking (aka not a lot of available spots) – I found parking to be horrendous, especially on weekends where there were big events going on downtown.

I find community-based apps to be really interesting. In the age of Amazon and Google, many people find people-oriented tech to be more reliable and connected. Although it rides on the average person being trustworthy and dependable (and people inevitably doubt the good-nature of those on the platform) I’ve found they’re usually pretty flawless. I’m interested to see what other community apps people come out with in the future.

Decluttering my phone

Welcome to my lock screen and home screen. I have no idea why I had the intense urge to go through my phone and rearrange everything last night. I used to be a big app person, but over the past year, I’ve gotten in the habit of purging things from my phone that I don’t use. I only deleted about 5 apps last night, so the main event was organizing them.

We clean our house pretty frequently. We do laundry often. We clean out our car every few weeks. Yet, for some reason, we never clean out our technology. That seems off. I feel this great relief, knowing I only have apps that are essential. And storing them in folders (color coordination was very pleasing to me) puts them out of sight and out of mind. I’ve swiped through people’s home pages before, and the worst one I ever saw was an ex-boyfriend of mine. He had almost 9 pages of screens, all completely full of apps. I had asked him if he used all of them. He said maybe 50% of them were something he touched on a weekly basis. That enraged me for some reason. If you don’t use it, why is it there?? I’m not judging other people’s habits, but rather, questioning why this isn’t something the general population is aware of with technology.

I’ve been trying to use my phone less and less. If I watch Netflix, I do it on my laptop. If I need to write down notes, I do it in a physical notebook. I’m not claiming to be some guru on time management (because quite frankly I’m a terrible procrastinator). But, I find that if I don’t have anything to do on my phone, I put it down and get on with my life. I remember spending hours, yes, HOURS, on certain apps (RIP Vine). I never realized how much time I was spending on my phone until I’d look up – seemingly rising from a deep sleep – and panic that the past 2 hours were wasted. Time I’ll never get back. Because of that, I am starting to believe that your phone should be used for just that: being a phone. Aka you call and text, look at the occasional email, listen to music, and FaceTime people.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was “don’t do your homework in bed.” It sounds stupidly simple. But the premise is that, your bed should be for sleeping, and a desk or homework area should be for working. Separating those activities and spaces – compartmentalization of your life – creates a more utilitarian and focused approach. But why don’t we do that with our phones? They become a magnet for all of these unwarranted and useless activities. I’m compartmentalizing my phone into a specific use, and hopefully that does some magic for me.