This week, the iPhone 4S was released exciting avid Apple users everywhere and enhancing cell phone technology once again. The original iPhone, although it may now seem archaic, revolutionized the way human beings stay connected. Gone are the days when cell phones’ main purpose was to communicate via phone calls and even text messages. Today, what matters the most are the apps on your phone. 

Apps have a vast range of purposes from calendars and high-tech calculators to seemingly pointless yet entertaining apps like Fatbooth, which takes a picture from your library and adds features to make the subject appear much heavier. Gaming apps serve to entertain users for hours on end, which is acceptable in an airport terminal but not as appropriate in a classroom. Angry Birds can be very tempting during yet another monotonous lecture.  

Apps also expedite the process of sharing media on many social networking sites. Hardly anyone ever uploads pictures to Twitter via a computer and the phrase ‘mupload’, meaning mobile upload may soon be recognized by Microsoft Word as an expression.. All in all, phone applications make our lives easier, and although Apple products opened the door for them, they are not the only company to offer apps.

 One of the most popular apps recently is ‘Words with Friends’ and the subsequent related games such as ‘Hanging with Friends.’ A possible reason for the widespread success of these Zynga games can be attributed to their universality. ‘Words with Friends’ is available on more software than just iPhones. Android users can join in the fun too and compete in a crossword puzzle against their iPhone-loving best friend. 

 ‘Words with Friends’ made Scrabble popular once again, and parents should be thankful. At least devotees to this game are spending hours attempting to form complex words rather than watering plants and harvesting crops on Farmville. 

‘Hanging with Friends’, though not as intellectually stimulating, enlivened the age-old game of hangman, and many have jumped on the bandwagon by downloading the app and beginning to play. Most recently, Zynga, the company responsible for games ‘with friends’ has released Chess with Friends, for the intellectuals who are now too busy to sit down and play a game of chess with a fellow scholar. As long as cheat codes aren’t being used, there lies no problem in updating the way in which we play classic games. In a world where everything else is going online, games are too. Who knows, hopscotch and hula hooping may be next. 

Another extremely popular app, one that is continually on Apple’s Top iPhone App list is Angry Birds. The success of Angry Birds is due to its constant scene and version changes. As soon as a user might be getting bored with a version of Angry Birds, out comes Angry Birds Rio or Angry Birds Magic, without forgetting that the masterminds behind Angry Birds release special edition versions at appropriate times, such as Angry Birds Halloween.

For those readers that have never played, Angry Birds premise is simply players launching a slingshot at pigs stationed on various structures, in the hopes that these structures will collapse, thus gaining access to the next level. If this does not sound appealing, just wait until you are so desperate for a new game that you try it out and hooked you will be. 

Similar to Words with Friends, Angry Birds is available on numerous devices including all Apple devices, the Android Market, Palm Pilots, and Nokia handsets. Angry Birds has forever changed the way in which we look at construction sites, pigs with helmets and of course, birds. 

Does a heavy reliance on applications really affect our minds? There are several arguments to be made for and against this generation’s addiction to technology and no right or wrong answer has been reached. For young people that have grown up knowing nothing else except technological advances on computers and phones, not much aversion to continued advance is felt. As of now, having pages of apps on your phone is the norm and the few that were listed are the most trendy. If you don’t already have them downloaded, be sure to check them out!