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, audio books, 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 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 as I could through the programs I had 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. IPhone 2.0, the free software upgrade needed to make the applications useful among other things, wasn't available until the next day.
Which 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 there wasn't enough variety. I wanted more.
A colleague 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. It's what I'd spend on a song on Amazon.com or iTunes.
