Insatiable APP-etite

It is said that we use only 10 percent of our brain's potential.

It is also said that we use less than 10 percent of the programs on our computers.

Using my limited brainpower and marginal computing prowess, I determined that I was using less than .01 percent of the application capabilities on my months-old Apple iPhone.

So, with me in one corner and 850,000 software developers in the other, it was time to test whether these programs could better my analog lifestyle. Let the smackdown begin.

Like many of the 21 million iPhone owners, I upgraded from a standard cell phone to have full access to e-mail when I was away from my computer. Yes, I'll admit it: I bought a $200 smart phone so that I would know if baseball practice was canceled before I showed up with three kids to a wet, empty field. (Trust me, there have been worse abuses of technological advancement - just Google iVomit.)

So, several weeks into using my phone, I could make and receive calls without dropping them, send and receive e-mails, and use the GPS and map functions. Yet, other than uploading some favorite photos and music and being persuaded to put a bubblewrap-popping game on my phone, it had not yet become, as Apple promises, "a way of life."

Apparently, what I needed in my suburban existence of juggling schedules, hockey sticks, and grocery bags was more shopping. Specifically, shopping in the applications, or "App" store, through either iTunes on a computer or my phone itself.

That's where the mysterious alchemy happens - of changing a reasonably utilitarian tool into an instrument of seemingly limitless potential pleasure. Thousands of mini-computer programs to meet every need, interest, and whim can be downloaded directly onto a smart phone for free or for fees ranging from 99 cents to hundreds of dollars.

And it's these tools, games, and links, experts say, that will change the way people use their handheld device - whether it's a BlackBerry, Treo, Nokia or HTC, or any new release in the smart phone arms race.

"No one could have seen what the app store would become," says Peter Fader, a marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. "You hold this thing in your hand for so much more than just communication now - obtaining information, entertainment, socializing, GPS."

Since its launch last July, more than 35,000 applications have been added to iTunes' App Store. And there have been more than 1 billion consumer downloads of those programs, according to Apple. Games and entertainment - some more tasteless than others, like Baby Shaker, which Apple pulled two days after its debut - are the clear leaders in sheer volume of apps, but productivity, lifestyle, travel, and education tools are gaining in popularity as users become more discriminating in how many programs they really want to house and use on their phones.

That wildfire success has caused other smart-phone purveyors to jump into the applications market or to emphasize their existing app capabilities. The BlackBerry App World opened earlier this month, Microsoft is preparing to launch its Windows Marketplace for Mobile, and technophiles are giddy in anticipation of Palm's Pre, which promises to combine the novelty of a touch screen with the practicality of a slide-out keyboard - and tens of thousands of available applications as well. Still, since Apple fueled the app phenomenon, it's the iPhone that's become synonymous with a lifestyle loaded with does-it-for-you software.

"The devices are no longer just for business or just for consumers - they are now people-centric devices," says Michael Gartenberg of Interpret LLC, a media and technology market research firm.

So after a concerted effort at self-improvement through gadgetry, I have more than 70 apps that focus on productivity, games, education, travel, content and entertainment.

Have I achieved technological Nirvana? you ask.

Well, as with a lot of technology, I can now do many, many things that previously I had no idea I might want to do. The apps certainly make many tasks simpler and more enjoyable - such as Flixster, an app that can give movie ratings, trailers, and showtimes in my area without my having to use a Web browser or the ever-popular Internet Movie Database.

Through some trial and error, Web surfing, polling friends, and alternating moments of "wow" and "you've got to be kidding me," I amassed a reasonably effective app library.

First, I looked for apps that matched activities or interests that already exist in my life and considered whether they could be done more effectively with my phone.

Did I really need iHandy Level to help me hang pictures, Ambiance to deliver whale-song sounds to me while I read, or CleanFreak to tell me the last time I vacuumed? Not likely. But when my family went to Washington, D.C., during spring break, DC Envi - a travel guide to the monuments and museums and an interactive metro guide - was a must. And the Prez Match "concentration"-style card game was a perfect app to while away the time waiting to see the First Dentures at Mount Vernon.

As you size up interests and activities and app offerings, you find yourself sounding like a familiar commercial. You're an avid birder? There's an app for that. Interested in the constellations while camping? There's an app for that. Want to keep track of your fantasy baseball team? Counting your calories or logging your runs? Yep, there are apps.

Jill Wurman, a stay-at-home mother of two in Bryn Mawr, was an early iPhone owner, using it for calls and e-mails. Now, with the available apps, she uses it for everything she can. "I track my stocks, I check the weather forecast where my friends live, I buy clothes, and if I'm listening to NPR, I can put a book on my Amazon wish list right that second."

One of the biggest beneficiaries of the App Store? Her kids, ages 7 and 1. "I wouldn't have let them use my phone before, but now with apps, it's great for airports and doctors' offices." Her handheld is loaded with Solitaire, Lightsaber Unleashed, Times Tables, Wurdle, Animal Talk, and even a Time-Out application to count down her youngsters' moments of "quiet reflection."

One app on her phone gets her "pure genius" rating: Baby Monitor. Turn the app on, leave the phone near your sleeping baby, and when the baby wakes and makes enough noise, the app will call you at a phone number of your choosing.

Now that's an app worth making some noise about.