New programs

The phone already had the camera, played music and radio, accessed the Internet, began to use GPS, motion sensors and touch screens. When it seemed that all the limits of the hardware had been extinguished, what else could he have? "Applications", defined the Apple App Store when it launched in 2008 and created what would become the main source of innovation today.
The idea of ​​installing programs on the phone was not new - many young adults have downloaded games and used Word and Excel on their Palms and PDAs with their stylus pens. But after launching the iPhone, Apple realized that people could do much more with your phone if it would open its system to other companies and developers so they create new content.

Today, applications are viewed as the internet for little more than a decade. The most promising startups such as Foursquare, Instagram, and Flipboard Rovio (which makes the game Angry Birds), came out creating new features for the mobile.

Gartner estimates that sales of applications like these will add $ 15 billion this year. To avoid losing relevance in a mobile Internet, Google also began to focus on the launch service for mobile phones and tablets and its Android became the chief rival to Apple in this scenario.

No wonder that sales of this type of mobile application that runs like the iPhone, also just take off. Last year, we sold nearly 300 million smartphones in the world - more than half of them, iPhones, BlackBerrys and Androids - a figure 72% higher than the previous year. In 2011, the expectation is that they sell more, including Brazil, where prices have fallen to a range of models already quite high.

The stakes for Apple's applications - repeated on the iPad - has been responsible for its impressive growth. Just from January to March, it sold 4.69 million and 18.65 million iPads iPhones (117% more than the same period in 2010), according to the statement released last week. Sales of appliances earned the company Steve Jobs a total revenue of $ 24.67 billion, 82% higher than in the last three months of 2010.


BEFORE YOU BEGIN

• Before dropping out, see how much memory on your phone or tablet. In Androids, there are two types - internal and external. Until version 2.1, apps can only be recorded in internal memory. From version 2.2, they can stay in the memory card (external). In devices from Apple, you can use all the space for storing applications. Be aware, however, the size of them. The iBook has only 14 MB. Already Riven, game for iPhone and iPad has 1 GB.

• Applications downloaded (free or paid) are logged into your account or the Android Market App Store. If you change device, can access the account through iTunes or the Android Market site to download them again. But beware: not all applications are available in Brazil. The Pandora online radio, for example, you are licensed to play music in the U.S. territory. Other apps are blocked by the Brazilian operators.