A few words by Ms Grace

AndroidZoom’s anniversary is here and I’ve been asked to write about my opinion about it all. So here I am. It’s me, I’m the girl who writes half of  the reviews that you come across at AndroidZoom. The one that has yet to give a five-star rating.

The truth is, up until last may, I hadn’t actually used an Android device. I had seen some friends’ phones and maybe even played with them a little but I hadn’t had the experience of using them fully. I knew about its advantages and main features but I hadn’t tried them in detail, although I was interested in the popular phenomenon. It’s not only that iPhones are far more expensive, but also there was a lot of people around telling that they have a disproportionated cost.

I knew little about the wide and endless word of applications. I only used the main ones such as mail, Whatsapp, Facebook and Twitter but I thought I didn’t want to spend my free time playing little games or trying new or bizarre applications that you never even knew they existed. Far away are the times of endless hours playing Nokia’s snake. We all grow, you know.

But as soon as I entered the world, I was hooked. They say that once you’ve known what good is like, you don’t want to settle for less. And that’s exactly what happened to me. Because the universe of applications is as addictive as it can get; and as anything good these days, it’s all about the user. I know what you’re thinking right now: “well, she works in AndroidZoom, what could she tell us?” Yes, it’s true, I do. Working in an Android company trying to explain to our users what I feel about something that didn’t concerned me until a few months ago. I can only ask you to trust in me, because I’m a user as you are and my story may be the same as yours.

I play around with a ton of apps each week and narrow down them. I can smell the scent of an app cooked in a garage from the suburbs and a game mass developed. Yes, I’m neither a programmer nor a producer, but I have what I need to undertake this job. Anyway, what I can tell for sure is that Android applications are meant to satisfy the user completely: they give response to his most basic needs (morning alarm, cooking recipes, communication), and most importantly, they create needs. Did you ever imagine you could not live without those little games like Angry Birds or Jewels? Or that you couldn’t spend one hour without checking the mail outside home? Or even talk to your friends via whatsapp, whatever. This new light in our behaviour, as all changes, has its own perks and drawbacks.

On the one hand, we depend on our devices too much. Some people are completely addicted and can’t seem to have a normal conversation in the daily social events without checking if they got new mail every five minutes. Others have lost the much healthier habit of reading in the public transport or the wait rooms. We have too much to learn about mobile usage. Who knows if our breed will receive lessons about it at school in the same way that I learnt nutrition at high school.

On the other hand, apps have made our life so much easier in so many ways. We don’t need to spend money on calls or messages, we can easily send a whatsapp to our friends in case we’re late for dinner. They’ve made the boring moments less boring. We’ve organized ourselves better and we’re constantly reminded of the upcoming events. We can share what we’re doing at all times and post a picture so everyone can see it. We can look up something we don’t know at the moment (a word, a movie) and we can even tune a song we don’t remember so SoundHound does the work for us.

What did I do before I knew you?

I honestly don’t know. Thank you, Android, for making life easier and for keeping me connected to the rest of the world.

Ms. Anne G., writer at AndroidZoom.com