IPhone App Store encourages new affliction: Appiphilia

For the last few weeks, I've been staying up late glued to my screen, and frankly it has been wreaking havoc on my sleep patterns. No, not watching the Olympics or the nonstop political gabfest on 24/7 news channels.

I have been obsessively logging in to iTunes.

It's not about the songs, audiobooks, TV shows or movies. It's all about the apps.

As an early adopter of the iPhone -- yeah, I paid full price last year; what of it? -- the one thing I really missed in retiring my Palm PDA was having all of the many applications that entertained and aided me in living my life. Apple didn't let developers create programs for the iPhone when it launched (only its Web browser, which is a huge difference). So I couldn't track my expenses, calculate my calories and get my game on, like I could through those programs I downloaded for my Palm. I mourned the loss of those conveniences daily, though I was comforted (and distracted) by getting the real Internet at the touch of a finger.

But all of that changed when Apple opened the App Store last month.

I was so elated that the night the store opened I was there downloading applications I couldn't even use yet. (We had to wait for the free software upgrade to iPhone 2.0 the next day.)

Which all leads me to this: I'm addicted to apps. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.

My problem started gently with the free apps. They're free, right? So a Mobile Banking and Pandora Radio app here, a Facebook and AIM app there. Shazam, Truveo, Mobile News Network. Download as many as you want. Maybe browse through some of the other App Store offerings while the phone is syncing. What's the harm?

That's how appiphilia starts. The free apps were a wonderful appetizer. But ...

(Are you app-addicted too? Share your virtues on this vice in comments below.)

... there wasn't enough variety. I wanted more.

A colleague of mine steadfastly adheres to an I-will-spend-no-money-on-apps stance. That's admirable, but that's just not me. After all, I'm the gal who can't watch an "I Love the '80s" marathon with my laptop nearby, for fear of an impulsive nostalgia-fueled shopping spree with every song snippet.

After a while, 99 cents an app didn't seem like too much to spend on something I'd use over and over. Hey, I thought, it's what I'd spend on a song on Amazon.com or iTunes.

Soon, I moved on to the harder stuff, downloading $3 and $6 apps without a thought. Click, click. There was MLB.com At Bat for baseball stats and video, Wine Snob to track my tastings. One-click shopping (Apple stored my credit card information) eliminated the pondering process. It's an impulse buyer's dream -- and nightmare.

I'd click in at work during downtime to do a quick look, or tap the App Store on my iPhone when riding on a Wi-Fi connection: Did something cool show up in the middle of the day?

I'd click in at night to scour an entire category page by page.

I even began to share my addiction with my mom, who inherited my 1st-gen phone when I upgraded to the 3G. (Come on, Mom, I said, it's just a click -- everybody's doing it.)

Somehow $10 for a game began to seem the same as a 99-cent click. From all reports, Super Monkey Ball was well worth the money. No argument there, but the game frankly stresses me out a little too much -- something about the bubble-bound monkey flying off the track into the water way too often.

Soon I had more apps than I could ever think of using -- 5 iPhone screens worth. I had downloaded about 80 apps. Although many of them are free, I'd spent $90 within a few weeks. 

I tried grouping them page by page on the phone to be able to make sense of them. This is no small task as dragging an app from the first screen to the last takes some serious digital dedication. (Note to Apple developers: You might consider figuring out how to offer users the ability to configure the screens within iTunes.)

This application shuffle helped distract me from the fact that I had to connect my 3G phone to a computer or power outlet about every 20 minutes to keep it charged should I actually want to use the phone. Checking e-mail and using all those apps kept sucking my battery dry.

Every time I checked the App Store, there was another offering I wanted to try out. There are about half a dozen different Weight Watchers-friendly apps. Which one is better? Since there are no trials, you have to buy the app to figure it out -- or base your purchase solely on the reviews.

(A plea on behalf of the app addicted -- a core constituency: Apple, how about offering trial versions? It seems to work for Pocket PC and Palm.)

Then I hit my highest high. (No, I didn't buy the "I Am Rich" app for $1,000. I have my standards.) In a fit of iPhonic euphoria, I clicked away $30 within seconds to download the American Heritage Dictionary app. You never know when you might need to define something, right?

But that's where I had to draw the line. I had become app-pathetic.

To slow the flow of money from my account into Apple's coffers, I've had to put on my own parental controls, so to speak. I activated the shopping cart feature. Imposed prudence, I thought.

Unfortunately, it doesn't apply to application purchases.

I still have twitchy fingers, but I'm trying to think before I click.

-- Michelle Maltais

Maltais is the Business section's Web editor

Are you app-addicted too? Share your virtues on this vice in comments below.

Comments

[Bill]

Yep, me too. I check for new apps once or twice daily. I have all free apps but one, Mobilefinder. It uses FTP to send many types of files from a PeeCee or Mac to my iPhone. It will crash on larger files at first sometimes, but then usually opens them on the second try if it happens. There are many similar apps, but this one is only 2 bucks. The latest update gave us landscape display, the next hopefully solves the crashing of large files. You can add and name new folders too.
I just tried the syncing folders with MS's Live Mesh beta [mesh.com] on my PeeCee [Windows only right now] which will still UL and DL files from a Mac browser, but only one files at a time. Hopefully, it will fully support Macs and iPhone in the future, because it's free!

[Stacy A]

I think iPhone apps are not only cool; they can be highly innovative. Pandora is a huge example of that. By selecting music for me that are in the same "influence" neighborhood as a favorite group I type in, and playing that music in an iPod-style continuous-play format, Pandora has widened my music horizons. This has resulted in me buying songs & albums from iTunes which, were it not for Pandora, I wouldn't have known about.

The RIAA and others who think that the Internet has been a disaster for the music industry have it all wrong:

The world has changed for the better because of the current technology revolution. Access to audiences is no longer controlled by the big recording studios. Niche artists can develop and market directly to their niche. This is vital to the survival of a diversity of music. The old system led to a handful of recording studios telling us on FM radio what the top-40 were. That system is dead.

But the old-line studios’ fear of living in a free market shows how fatally rigid and reactionary they’ve become.

My addiction to Pandora is very real. I have spent a bunch of money to buy legal (iTunes) music files thanks to Pandora.

The old studios should take notice of an app like Pandora: it feeds an addiction to buying music!!! Broadband-capable cell phones like the iPhone open new vistas for generating sales and widening the customer base. Even these old studios could benefit from Pandora: buy "advertising time" from Pandora (relatively small $$$ to Pandora), Pandora sets up a company-focused "Sony radio" channel. I would definitely hook into that just to see what they offer, and yes, I'd probably buy their stuff (huge $$$ to Sony). Win-win-win?

While the Internet creates and destroys business models as it evolves, the net result is a wider selection of goods for the consumer, and producer business models that are viable and with huge sales-volume growth potential as more of the planet gets connected.

[MacBernac]

*

My Name is MacBernac and I am an Appiphiliac.

It's comforting to know I'm not alone in my struggle to avoid the treacherous Just One Click affliction. I know all too well where it leads. I thought I was alone. I need a support group. Or a 12-step program. I'm currently going on six screens.

It would be an interesting psychosocial research project to study the App downloading habits of men vs. women. As a gal, I have a very low tolerance to the allure of shiny Apple tech toys and instant gratification via m te

It's only a matter of time before the term "appiphilia" goes mainstream.

Enjoying the candid, sobering (and often hilarious) confessions!

[Jason]

Wow, $30 for a dictionary? You'd be better of just going to dictionary.com on the web browser.

[Steve]

I feel your pain!
I vote we all petition Apple so we can have more than 9 screens to hold all our apps. Yes, I'm getting near the 9 screen limitation and don't know what to do.
I KNOW....another iPhone...carry two and have the use of 18 screens!
Somebody stop me....pleeease.

I do draw the line at Koi though...desktop aquarium screensaver made me sick of virtual fish.

[steveballmer]

You people really need to stop this mess! Anything from Apple is unhealthy for you!

[Sandrah]

OMG, I thought I was bad! LOL. I'm just glad I'm not alone!

[Snaggy]

Ha ha... great article Michelle,

You might want to check our our comic about App Store Addicts.... :-D

http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1130.html

[Andrew]

Wow and all this time I thought I was alone! ;)
I am so addicted to the apps - by far the coolest thing about the new iPhone. I have limited my purchases to only those absolutely necessary apps:

> Beatmaker$19.99 (such an amazing app and a must have for any music lover and worth every penny)
> Pinball - $4.99 simply cause I love pinball!
> Guitar Toolkit - $9.99 again worth every penny - the guitar tuner is worth the price alone!

The consumer ratings are my only reason I have not spent more - some of the more expensice apps have absolutely horrible ratings.

I'm addicted to new apps and wish there was a site that kept a running list!

[TDMB]

Having just slipped into my third screen of icons I thought it was a good time to add a post to this message board! Am so glad I'm not the only one with this problem . . .

My weaknesses are 'utilities', 'productivity', 'lifestyle', 'entertainment' and 'photography'. I love that fact that you can email the developers and they actually reply - and sometimes even say 'yeah, no problem, will add that to the next update'. Not always mind you, but sometimes! It's such a refreshing change from dealing with faceless corporate institutions the rest of the time.

I knew I was addicted when I changed the sort order of each page to show all the newest apps at the top, which of couse I check every day!

Happy downloading one and all . . . .

[Mark]

I can totally relate to being addicted to the App Store. I bought my iPhone 3G 16 GB phone towards the end of July. I recently went to the iTunes store to view all the apps I've purchased. I hate to say it but in about 2 1/2 months, between buying all kinds of apps for my iPhone as well as some music here and there, I spent about $250 in total. I love the iPhone and I'm constantly checking for new apps. Thank goodness at the workplace they turned off the broadband Wi-Fi access, as I was often checking for new apps in the workplace. Of course, I'm an impulsive buyer to begin with and I'm terrible at managing my money. And these days, since I'm now working at a job that pays $25,000.00/year less than what I was earning at a different company a few years ago, I've had to adjust my spending, but it never lasts for long. It reminds me when I decided to purchase a DVD player: I was buying DVD's left and right and before I knew it, I had over 100 DVD's (and if you figure paying on average at least $10.00 per DVD, that amounts to $1,000.00 for all those DVDs). God help us impulsive/compulsive spenders out there!