A Parking Lot For Apps?

To keep my phone from becoming a parking lot for apps, I periodically purge the screen and gleefully hit delete on things I’ve never used or won’t use. It came with a bunch of pre-installed junk that I got rid of rapidly. Good riddance.

What do I use? Well, obviously the phone, but beyond that, the five apps that get used most are Safari for searches, Maps, Camera, the Health app for steps, and the Weather app. Those cover all my basic needs. Some lesser apps stay on the phone because, like the calculator, when you need it, you really need it. I don’t use them often, but there might not be a convenient replacement at the time, so they get spared deletion.

I don’t believe my phone is the best place to watch silly cat videos or conduct elaborate web searches; that’s what my laptop is for. And I don’t load it up with apps I wouldn’t use frequently. You won’t find an app for monitoring atmospheric Carbon dioxide, or one for monitoring local traffic tie-ups. For some people, those may be very useful, but not for me.

My phone has a very plain case. No rhinestones, gems, frills of chiffon, bells, or beads. It has a simple protective case to insulate it from the general run of falls and shocks.

Your phone may say a lot about you in terms of how it’s decorated and what you feel you need to have on it for daily use. It’s like many other things: a place for personal preferences to take precedence, balanced with practical needs. Science Fiction predicted devices like this, but never fully inked in the way personal interests and practical needs joined together in such a compact device. Today I was driving to a location I had never visited. The trip was a bit involved. In the old days, I would have been pulling over and looking at a map multiple times, reading notes and cursing. Today, the phone directions took me effortlessly to my destination.