iOS Apps by Genre and Every Day Apps #edapp

Since our family shares a common iTunes library on an external hard drive which isn’t always plugged into a computer, we don’t sync our iOS devices on a weekly basis. This evening as I downloaded app updates (about 79 of them, wow!) and did some routine updates as well as backups, I noticed the latest version of iTunes lets users view installed apps by genre. This is an interesting way to look at our apps.

Can you tell my 13 year old son is the most avid app “taster” in our family? I’m sure it’s not an exaggeration to guess 90% of the 172 games in our current app library are games he’s tried. In its current iteration, and the way we share an iTunes library as a family, it’s fairly hard to completely DELETE an app forever if at least one person keeps it on their device and chooses to transfer it back to our shared app library when they sync their device.

I took a few minutes and used the automated “App Library Builder” on the Appolicious website to upload our most recently installed apps tonight. It added 44 new apps to our online Appolicious library! 75% of those are apps my kids have tried and I have NOT. Apps like “Christmas Fireplace FREE” by “Snoobo the Elephant” and “The Moron Test” are NOT recommended education apps which I include in my “iOS Apps for Productivity and Fun” workshop, but they still show up in MY personal Appolicious library. Please don’t judge the person simply by their apps– App libraries can be deceiving! 🙂 We’ve installed and tried (as a family) over 500 apps now– that’s a bit overwhelming to consider!

My favorite iPhone apps which I’m using on a daily basis now are Pro HDR, the YouVersion Bible, Reeder, Audible and Tumblr. My wife and I were using HeyTell quite a bit (kind of like a free, digital walkie-talkie) but we’ve slacked off in recent weeks. (Back to plain ‘ole text messages and voice calls.)

I don’t play games on my iPhone very often, but these days when I do it’s definitely Plants versus Zombies.

What apps are you using every day or almost every day?

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