Interesting what happens when you become a grown-up. The hard truth is, there is no “balance.” Balance is an ideal, but it doesn’t play out like that. You don’t work for an hour, relax an hour, eat healthy, work out at exactly the right time, have time to yourself, be social… it sounds nice, but life goes more like this: work really hard and sacrifice your social life, family life and health. Then cram a bunch of social activities in, get on the road for a few days, get sick for a few days, take a vacation, go on a diet. Things happen in bunches, phases, often in reaction to pendulum swings in other directions. THAT’S life. The average height of a roller coaster is somewhere between the ground and the highest point, but that doesn’t explain what it’s like to ride one.
Mobile technology is important because whether you’re on the upswing or downswing, it is there with you. Not many things can travel with you through all your phases. I think we are just starting to see the potential of what that can mean to us as we watch our behaviors change. We often evaluate technology on the big shifts that it creates – the printing press brought news to the world, airplanes made the world smaller, etc. – but not on the personal shifts. The applications that are coming out for mobile devices affect our smaller moments. So that while we often find ourselves pinned to one side of the car or the other, we can start to envision a life with a little more center.
The following are 5 apps that have changed my life. Not in the enormous sense, just in the behavioral sense. And, really, these are the kinds of shifts that affect us the most – personal ones.
1. Runmeter. It was a new year’s resolution to start running again. I said it, but I still didn’t want to do it. Saying it was part of my way of getting myself motivated. But then came the time to pony up. I found Runmeter and it’s actually made running somewhat enjoyable. Runmeter does everything that Nike+ can do; log runs, give you audio split times, compare how you’re doing to previous runs, show you routes on a map, all while you listen to your music mix, etc. But where Nike+ entails using a combination of their shoe, their chip, your iPod and their website, Runmeter does all of it through the iPhone. Way way easier to set up. Way way easier to use and enjoy. Also, it has incorporated social networking in a really innovative way. You can set it to tweet that you’ve gone for a run and it will fade out your music and text-to-voice you the encouraging replies from your Twitter followers. That’s smart, and it makes you smile while you run. And I never smile while I run. The calendaring function is great and you really get a macro view of how you’re doing. I’m looking forward to my runs and the in-depth look at how I’m doing adds a game-like aspect to the whole thing that I enjoy. That’s a behavior changer.
2. Momento. I’ll be straight up, this is a diary application. I never considered myself a diarist, but here’s the thing, if you partake in social media, you’re a diarist. This app puts it all into a new perspective. The main “new math” is that it imports your social media activity (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Blip.fm) and logs it in the calendar. It also does it retroactively, so as soon as you get the app and give it your info, you can go back and look at all your status updates through a calendar interface and it changes your perception of social media and your life. All of the sudden, I find myself logging little notes about things going on in my day and uploading pictures taken on my iPhone, too. The truth is, we partake in social media for ourselves anyway. We like to mark moments, we want to remember our days and not let life slip by. This app has brought a lot of elements together to make that possible in a way I’ve never seen before.
3. Photo Apps. I use the broad topic because there are so many and which one you use is a matter of preference. I like Camera Bag and Hipstamatic. The thing about these apps is that they do such a great job of making the images look like a Lomo, Diana, viewfinder or old Polaroid camera that they need absolutely no post work for what they are. I have a very good SLR camera and I do a ton of photography and like a lot of other photographers, I make a distinction between shots that just capture a moment and shots that I go create. For the former, you often feel compromised in the quality of the image. You know how you SHOULD compose it, but it’s not that kind of shot. With these apps, you feel better about posting to FB or just having them in your library of captured moments. The idea of EVERY shot in my collection having a certain creativity to them is very exciting.
4. Four Track. Four Track is a legitimate four-track recording application. You can record separate tracks, mix them down, adjust volumes and balance and it has a number of add-on features that surprise you for a $10 app, including the ability to cut and paste drum loops in from another app of theirs. Now, let me be clear, I’m not looking to get my songs on the radio or anything like that, but can I throw down a guitar track and then go back and add in some vocals? Hell yeah I can. And if it’s in my bathroom, it sounds… well, it sounds terrible, but it sounds like me. I gave up the idea of being a musician a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have music inside me. An app like this makes it possible for a regular guy with a guitar to have a little musical outlet without all the expensive software and hardware. And ego.
5. NBA League Pass. Aside from local games, which are blacked out, League Pass plays all the NBA games either live or recorded from that day. The quality is not bad, either. I’m a basketball guy, so for me this app brings me games I never would have been able to see other than through highlights on SportsCenter. And I’m not a SportsCenter guy. Also, more than anything, I’m a Laker fan. So, seeing Laker games on the road with this is a joy that is hard to even explain. Of all the apps I’m talking about here, this one is probably the one that comes closest to a Big Life Change. Watching TV on your mobile device has large implications for many industries, but it is really the deeper personal relationship to a sport that makes this so amazing.