Anyone can develop a new app – the
small computer program which links your mobile to larger IT systems –
and sell it or give it away through Apple’s App Store. Other mobile
producers have followed suit with similar accessibility to the source
application which is needed to make the apps work.
The app market has exploded because downloading one is fast and the
development costs can be divided between many which means costs are
kept very low. Last year 10 billion apps were downloaded world-wide
according to analyst company Gartner. This year the number is expected
to jump to 30 billion. in 2015 the number of downloaded apps is
expected to reach 50 billion. The 2011 app market was worth around 100
billion kronor (€11bn).
Tailor-made solutions
Another crucial factor is that smartphones and tablets automatically
know where the user is. This makes it possible to tailor information to
suit the user. One example is ads in digital media:
“We can develop systems where we give an ice cream producer the
opportunity to offer discounts in Gotland if the sun is shining there,
but not in Stockholm if it rains there,” says Raoul Grünthal, CEO of
media company Schibsted Sweden.
For simple tasks like finding information on the internet or
checking email it is now often faster and simpler to use a smartphone.
Traditional computers are being used less as a result. In Sweden the
use of home computers has fallen by 20 percent since 2008.
When computers were introduced in the 1960s they were so large and
expensive that only major companies could afford them. Many people had
to share one computer. With the development of personal computers
towards the end of the 1970s, everyone could have their own computer at
work and at home. It was no longer a given that the computer you worked
on belonged to your employer.
Many companies and businesses put a lot of effort into having an IT
structure where workers use the same type of program. Smartphones and
tablets have made computers even more private. Employees take their
work to bed with them and use smartphones and tablets in their own
unique ways. Louise Barkhuus is a researcher with a doctorate on
human/machine interaction. She used to work for UC San Diego in the
USA, but now works in Stockholm at Mobile Life Center. When she began
studying how people used these new tools it struck her how everyone was
doing it in their own particular way.
Everyone uses the mobile differently
“Smartphones are being used in different ways, and users mix and
change existing functions to create their own mix,” she points out in
an article in the journal Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.
‘Ubiquitous Computing’ is often abbreviated to Ubicomp and looks at
how IT is being integrated into everyday objects and how it affects
people. Other words for Ubicomp include ‘IT in everything‘ or ‘IT
toasters’.
The great change for working life is not whether you use a
smartphone or tablet to do your job or keep in touch with work. The big
change is how a company’s services will be affected by the fact that
nearly everyone is carrying a computer wherever they are.
To take a concrete example:
To run a municipal parking company you have so far had to use
parking attendants who make sure payment machines work and that those
who haven’t paid get fined. But Gothenburg municipality has developed a
free app called Parkering Göteborg. It shows free parking spaces, how
to get there, how much it will cost an hour and which cards you can use
to pay.
“In some cases we can even tell you how many free spaces there are.
This is something we will be developing further. We always look for
good solutions which make things easier for our customers, says Maria
Stenström, managing director at Gothenburg City parking.
And this is not only to help car owners:
“Research shows a lot of inner-city traffic is made up of people
driving around looking for a place to park. We can help reduce that
traffic.”
Some US statistics show 30 percent of traffic in big cities are cars
hunting for parking spaces.
There’s a plethora of parking-related apps. ‘The Parking Meter’ is a
digital parking metre which alerts the user of when time is about to
run out. The app allows you to note where you left your car or take a
picture of it. GPS coordinates will also show you where the car was
left and this can link up to Google Maps which makes it easy to find
the car if you are in an unfamiliar place.
The Swedish app ‘Jaga Lisa’ [‘Hunt Lisa’] takes things one step
further. It was developed by people with a strained relationship to
parking attendants, and allows drivers to warn other drivers if they
see one. Anyone who has the app and is nearer than 200 metres will get
a warning on their mobile.
Combining different functions
All this happens through by easily combining various functions which
are already built into the smartphone.
But the technology doesn’t stop there. There are already systems
which allow people to top up a parking metre without leaving their
cars. Each parking metre has its own mobile telephone and number. The
machine calls your phone and asks whether you want to extend your time.
Payment is made, of course, through the smartphone.
Apps allows companies and organisations to tailor services in ways
never before possible. And the user can to a large extent decide where,
when and how he or she wants the service to be used.
The third IT revolution is changing the lives of both companies and
their employees and those of the end users. In some cases it might be
more cosmetic changes, in other cases whole professions will become
obsolete and companies or organisations will change dramatically.
