Smartphones will rule our world
For some of us they probably already do rule our worlds, but if you needed some statistics to back up the importance of smartphones in the years to come, a new study from research firm IHS iSuppli forecasts the global shipment of smartphones will pass 1 billion by 2015 – that’s more than double the amount shipped this year. The prediction is 1.03 billion units in 2015,compared to 478 million in 2011. The study suggests that by 2015, 54.5 per cent of the mobile phone market will be held by smartphones, compared to the 32.5 per cent currently reported. The future dominance of Android is further propelled by the findings that suggest the majority of the growth will come at the low-end of the market where the open-source Android is likely to have considerable success against its rivals. On the back of the same, it will be interesting to see whether Apple will look to break away from brand in order to compete and offer a budget version of the iPhone to reach out to the growth area of the market. Certainly, if you are not yet designing for mobile phones you certainly need to be soon.
Top six weird or disturbing mobile apps
According to Apple, you can get hundreds of thousands of apps for your iPhone. And there are tens of thousands of titles available if you have a mobile phone which uses Google’s Android system. As you’d expect given the choice, there are plenty of useful apps. And there are plenty of lists to help you find them. But there are plenty of useless, weird and disturbing ones too. Here’s our rundown of the top six. If you don’t want to install them, we completely understand: The ASBOrometer. Ever wondered how where you live or work ranks in the anti-social behaviour league tables? Wonder no longer: the ASBOrometer uses government data to give you statistics for anti-social behaviour right on your iPhone. Just the thing if you’re the jumpy sort – next time you’re wandering in a strange neighbourhood, you can check exactly how safe you are. Wheretheladies.at. This app is in development. It was recently covered on TechCrunch and uses information from Foursquare to find places near you which have the most women ‘checking in’ to them. Seriously. Whatever your opinion, it’s quite telling that there’s no corresponding service to help find where the men are at. MEanderthal. This app comes from the highly-respected Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, yet still has the ability to make your photos look decidedly odd. It does this by transforming your face into the face of an early human. Disturbing? Yes. Educational? Probably. Give it a go to decide for yourself (warning: it’ll probably make your nose much bigger). Find out more > HealthMap. If the ASBOrometer hasn’t done enough for your levels of paranoia, hop on over to HealthMap, a service which tracks the global state of infectious diseases. Of course, it plots them on a nice map, so you can see exactly what outbreaks are happening near you. It could be essential, if swine flue returns this winter. Honest. Find out more > Photo Shooter. Having a bad day? Use this app to pepper photos of your choice with paintballs or bullet holes. Ok, so even though they’re not real bullets, we still can’t help thinking that if one of your colleagues finds their photo covered in bullet holes, they might feel a little worried. Find out more > iLickIt. Like the website says, ‘to make the iPhone hygienic, clean it with an alcoholic wrap’ before you use this app. It’s the first iPhone game you can play with your tongue – you have to lick clean a plate displayed on the screen. Ideal for a gadget which gets carried all day in grubby or dusty bags and pockets and doesn’t react well to water. Find out more > So, those are our top six (and we didn’t even have room for iDrunkTxt or Pocket Heat). Have you found any other weird apps for your mobile? Leave a comment here and we’ll go check them out.