Which apps do you use on your cellphone on a daily basis and why?

Which apps do you use on your cellphone on a daily basis and why?

There are a host of apps that I use on my Cell phone everyday.

1.       Google assistant – I talk to my phone – which means that I use google assistant every day.  I ask for the weather, I ask questions, I use home automation, I ask for the news.  You get the idea.  I use this app because it is very convenient and a gateway for many of the apps that cellphone provides.

a.       Easy to use – just talk to your phone. 

b.       Very utilitarian – the foundation of the google empire – it was search but search is becoming the upper app that is assistant. 

c.       Seamless integrated – most of the time you don’t even know you are using it. 

d.       If I had to make one recommended fix – I find that I ask a question to google assistant (this applies to the speaker version more than the phone version but sometimes when using voice – it answers on the speaker instead of the phone – it actually calls this out – answering on another device.)  Anyway, it sometimes does not understand me or gives me the wrong answer.  When it gives the wrong answer, I’ve caught myself asking again.  Or when it does not give an answer – instead of just saying I don’t understand it would be a great feature if it offered you some choices like I don’t quite know what you are asking – it could then give you a choice or three and you could respond with I meant the 3rd one or the 3rd choice provided is the closest to what I was looking for.  Not only would this be good for the user but it would be gold training the ML algorithms.   Again trigger this whenever the answer is null or the user repeats the same question twice). 

2.       Google Search   Really the same as above – but search is a core part of accessing the phone. 

3.       Google Podcast - I use this on my morning walk.  It provides me the news and stories that I want to listen to, etc.  I have subscribed to a ton of podcasts.  Hidden Brain, Planet Money, The Daily, etc.

a.       Easy to  use

b.       Utilitarian – entertainment and news at my finger tips. 

c.       If I had to make a recommendation - My morning walk with the dog takes about 50 min – if I listen to a 30 min Daily and then a 10 min indicator, then I have 10 min left in the walk.  None of my other podcasts are 10 min (this happens all the time).  I start one and then never finish it.  Maybe recommend a 10 min podcast for the remainder of my walk based on my interest.  Good use of AI and machine learning and promotes other podcasts – could even be sold as advertising. 

4.       Youtube Music – I listen to music and cast it to devices around my home. 

a.       Recommendation  - I’m stuck in the 80’s and my music list is stale.  It would be great if during my set it did a little DJ mode and offered by a new selection with a quick verbal explanation of why.  “Here is a new song by …..  we think you will like it because it’s a modern throwback based on 80’s alt rock.”  You could always turn this on or off as a feature. 

5.       Gmail – I check my email multiple times a day.  The conversations are all there and I scroll through the list and read the ones I want. 

a.       Utilitarian – keeps me connected to the items I need to know

b.       Easy to use

c.       Recommendation – I have to admit I’m a messy email keeper.  How about unsubscribing me or auto archiving reoccurring emails that I never read.  It could even prompt me you have 200 unread emails from …. Would you like to delete them, create a folder for record keeping or unsubscribe (we’ll take care of that for you). 

d.       Calendar - If it’s not in my calendar it don’t exit. 

                                                               i.      Utilitarian – keeps me organized

                                                             ii.      Easy to use

6.       Google Photo (maybe not everyday – but lets talk about it)

a.       I don’t open google photo everyday but it does auto backup my photo’s when ever I take them.  When I do use it I love the AI and ML features that google photo has from face recognition to highlighting great photo’s to making a little action sequences when I snap multiple photo’s in a row. 

7.       Facebook

a.       Highly additive social network. We all get a dopamine rush from looking on others and having them like the lives we show on social. 

8.       Linkedin

a.       Highly additive social network. We all get a dopamine rush for looking on others and having them like the lives we show on social. 

b.       I’m looking for a job so I need to see the job posts. 

c.       Recommendation - I’m getting more annoyed because it seems less about updates from people I really know to a collection of posts by social influencer that I’m not really concerned about.  Facebook and Instagram get away with this because people believe they care about celebrity.  I’m not sure this is sustainable for LinkedIn because outside of LinkedIn these people have no connection to me.  I think this is something LinkedIn needs to monitor – as posts from LinkedIn social influencers take up more and more space what happens to overall usage.  

9.       Golf Clash

a.       Highly additive game.  Based on a gambling model and users need to buy in more to keep their gambling funds – you paly against another person and each round costs coins.  If you loss more than you win then coins cost money.

b.       Recommendation – I’ve noticed that the house doesn’t take a cut from the players on each round.  What if you offered a service like a caddy that provided the player with additional guidance (how to play the wind and ball spin advice for a for fee % of the cost of the round).  This would suck coins out of the system and require more users to buy in $ for coins.  I can’t believe I just told a game app how to make more money. 

10.   Backgammon easy game to that I can play one handed while cuddling kids to bed at night.  It have enough skill and chance that it keeps me busy as a I put a kid to bed. 

11.   Text – we all send text message. 

12.   Phone Dialer – I call my dad every day. Hard to think that we would call dialing on a phone an app – but technically it is. 

13.   Nest fire alarm – I wouldn’t check this everyday but my OCD daughter wants to see it before bed – green circle means everything is OK.