Question Of The Month: The Smart Phone Edition

As I (Kris Fletcher) struggle to master my first seriously-smarter-than-me phone, I posed this question to the Super authors: 

What feature do you most appreciate on your phone OR - if you can't choose - what do you wish they would add to phones next?

Pamela Hearon: I love the MyFitnessPal app!  It lets me keep up with my calorie count for the day, and also syncs with my FitBit to automatically add in my activity.  Easy to use--great price!  Do I sound like an advertisement?  I received no compensation for this endorsement :-)

Cathryn Parry:  Honestly, we most the smart phone to text with our neighbor as we co-parent Otis the cat.  I also love the "coach" app to record and play back figure-skating moves in slow-motion, as well as the Navigator app to get directions while driving.  It seems the only thing I don't use the phone for is to make calls, lol.

Anna Sugden: For someone who resisted having a smart-phone, I LOVE all the various apps. In fact, I don’t make many calls at all. I tend to use my phone for everything from checking the latest hockey scores (even live-streaming hockey!) to reading books to playing games to … well, you name it, I’m sure there’s an app for that! And yes, I’m app-addicted!

One of my favourite features at the moment is the photo-stream, so we can see pictures of our gorgeous, 9 month old grandson.

Sarah M. Anderson: I love the combo of being able to take pictures and immediately send them to people. It keeps grandparents very happy!

Geri Krotow:  I love my Fitbit app. I can see how many steps I have to go to hit my daily 10K goal. 

Vicki Essex: When I got my first smartphone, my whole world changed. I could keep up with Twitter, check my emails on the go, find out when my bus was coming... I think I actually increased my productivity by filling my travel time in. The downside to that, of course, was that I was also playing games and spending a lot of time looking down, focused on a tiny screen. If I could get a phone to do anything, it'd be to give me all that time back so I can appreciate life again!

Jennifer Lohmann:  I don't have internet access at home, so I most appreciate that my phone can become a mobile hotspot when I need to do things like check email, write blog posts, and research points in my book. I'm sure I underutilized my phone and I'm interested to see other people's favorite things.

Rogenna Brewer: LOL--Jennifer, I think we could benefit from not having internet access at home (or wherever it is we write ;)  I do have internet access at home, but have begun using my phone to screen for important emails so that I"m not tempted to log on first thing in the morning unless I really have to. 

I set the alarm on my phone for every 3 hours so that I know to get up and move.   

I use the MapMyWalk app every morning and discovered though GPS my route is much longer than I'd thought.  Heck, I walk a 5K every day.  I also recently used the Kindle app to read a book during a long wait at the doctors office.  I'm sure there are more apps out there than I know what to do with.  I just wish they could find themselves when lost :)

Kris Fletcher: Well, I've had the phone a full week now, and I no longer curse with every attempt at sending a text. I've watched a Youtube video, played a couple of games, and even installed the Flashlight app. I think this might be the start of a beautiful friendship. :-)

And now, readers, tell us - what awesome apps have YOU discovered?