APP Review

While contemplating this app review I realized that I don't use that many apps. I have my basics: Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Instagram, Netflix, Hulu, Flixter and Voxer (my nephews and nieces have Voxer and they love to chat). I have a few others that I use on a regular basis but they aren't "amazing": Kindle, Audible, Amazon, Dropbox and YouTube. I then have the few apps that I use but only about once a week or sometimes even less: GasBuddy, Blogger, Zedge ( a ringtone app that is pretty cool), Tonight Show and Gmail.

 My conclusion -- I am not using my "smart"phone to its full potential.

I know that I could have hundreds of apps that help simplify my life but in doing that, it makes it more complicated because I have to remember that they simplify my life.

I downloaded at least 10 different apps that I thought were cool and after about two days I had forgotten all about them.

So I went boring, I am; however, going to review two apps because they are ones that have made my life easier and also because I couldn't decide between the two.

GasBuddy -- While this may sound super boring it is more than helpful on road trips.

Dustin Coupal and Jason Toews founded GasBuddy Organization in April 2000 in Minneapolis, Minn. It filed for Minnesota for-profit corporation in April 2004 as Buddies Forever Inc. (As of 2013, gasbuddy.com lists the operator as "GasBuddy/OpenStore LLC".)

Coupal worked as an eye doctor prior to starting the company. Toews was a computer programmer. Toews and Coupal started GasBuddy to help people find the cheapest gas in their area.

HOME SCREEN

In March 2013, UCG, a privately held, business-to-business company headquartered in Rockville, Maryland, announced that Oil Price Information Service (OPIS) had acquired GasBuddy; OPIS is a UCG subsidiary established in in 1977 as the Oil Express Newsletter and specializing in worldwide petroleum pricing and news for businesses.

GasBuddy operates apps and websites for the public to report and see prices of motor fuel in many areas of United States and Canada. Users report motor fuel prices in their area, which is made available to other visitors. Each entry is time stamped. As of April 2011, data on the website and in apps is provided by spotters, stations and relationships with credit card companies.

Although registered users are not directly compensated, they are given points for their participating which allow them to obtain electronic tickets to games of chance in which they can win prizes, such as prepaid gas cards.

Its website offers additional features such as fuel log book which allows users to record fuel purchases, odometer miles and keep a log of fuel usage.

I went to Corpus Christi for Christmas this year and because I am apparently the most "tech" savvy person in my family I was put in charge of finding cheap gas along the journey. On the home screen it gives the option of putting in a zip code or just "Find Gas Near Me" that saved a ton of time because traveling you never know what the zip code is unless you are some sort of zip code freak and know every possible zip code.

The app connects to the GPS on your phone and works with the maps app on the iPhone. So all you had to do was click on the gas station you wanted hit get me directions then it would redirect to the maps. The only bad part about this was that it would ask you every time if you really wanted to leave the GasBuddy app. I screamed at it every time because if I didn't want to leave the app I wouldn't have clicked "Take me to the maps".

The trick was that one vehicle required gas and the other diesel. GasBuddy was amazing in that it would bring up the gas places first then all I had to do was click on the diesel and it would knock out all of those stations that didn't have diesel.

The second app that I am doing (just for fun) is The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon. This app brings the convergence of TV and the third screen to a whole new level. 

Through this app you can watch a highlight from the most recent episode, and see whats coming up for the next episode. 

Every week Jimmy does a hashtag where he creates a hashtag, then tweets his experience with that particular hashtag then invites everyone else to join in and send in their tweets about the subjects.

From the app you can read the tweets that others have posted, you can also post directly from the app instead of having to go into twitter. 

The show also has a YouTube channel that you can access and subscribe to right from the app. 

This app shows just how incapable we are of focusing on just one thing.