IMG: via Shutterstock
We’re in a time of technology, where being the next big entrepreneur often means coming up with the hottest new app for smartphone and tablet users to download and use to their heart’s content. The original idea of combining computing capabilities and telephones was conceptualized back in the 1970s, and cellular PDAs began showing up in the early 1990s; but what we refer to today as a “smartphone” didn’t gain commercial popularity until the 2000s: the first Blackberry devices came out in 1999, the Palm Kyocera was introduced in 2001, Android was founded in 2003, and the original iPhone was released in 2007.
Apple’s catchphrase, “There’s an app for that,” was truly indicative of the future of mobile technology; today, there truly is an app for nearly everything. Like anything else, apps come in a variety of qualities, from terrible to outstanding. They are susceptible to the volatility of digital media, so many also gain or lose popularity extremely quickly. Here are a few of this year’s hottest apps, according to Mashable:
Vine: With over 400% growth between first and third quarters, Twitters’ 6-second video app is the fastest growing app in the world.
Flickr: Yahoo’s photo sharing platform, Flickr, grew by 146% in the same period, making it the second-fastest growing app.
Instagram: Instantly snapping a photo, applying an easy filtering effect, and sharing it with friends is a trend that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. The Facebook-owned Instagram grew in popularity by 130%.
Clearly, photo and video sharing is a top priority for mobile device users (YouTube made the top ten as well). These days, it seems that a picture really is worth a thousand words.
