From the course: Working with Computers and Devices

Work with mobile applications

From the course: Working with Computers and Devices

Work with mobile applications

- [Instructor] In addition to the applications you use on your desktop or laptop computer, you'll probably also spend a lot of time working with apps on your mobile phone or tablet. Apps behave similarly on mobile devices compared to desktop apps, but you'll often find more limitations to mobile apps in terms of power, functionality and ease of use. Now, this isn't to say that you can't get work done, play games and perform other tasks on your mobile phone. You definitely can. And apps for mobile devices are usually designed specifically for optimizing the experience of using a smaller screen and a virtual keyboard. Mobile apps are generally good for brief periods of work, especially on phones. Tablets with their larger screens are more suitable for extended periods of work. But with the prevalence of wifi and cellular connections on mobile devices these days, it's easy to not just to work and play on a mobile device, but also to continue your work on a desktop computer later. For example, let's say I'm working on a document here in Microsoft Word on my phone during my morning commute. It's a little difficult to see, but I can zoom in. And when I need to make edits, I can just tap on the screen and a keyboard will appear. Now, I have this document saved over the internet to my OneDrive account, which is a cloud-based service I can store my documents on. Then, later, when I arrive at my office, I can open up the desktop version of Word and here open the same document from OneDrive and keep working on it. But now, on a much larger screen with a full range of editing tools found in the desktop version of Word. Or I might add a lunch meeting to my calendar here in Microsoft Outlook on my computer. But later, on my commute home, I realize I need to change the appointment to another day. I can open up the mobile version of Outlook on my phone, see all of my appointments and make my changes. You'll find that many work and productivity apps now have this ability to sync over the internet so you can work seamlessly between devices, making your mobile devices an extension of your desktop computer, in a sense. But lots of mobile apps are also designed as standalone apps on your phone or tablet, apps that are designed for a quick check of the weather, or for finding driving directions, or to check on the status of a flight. Probably one of the biggest differences between mobile and desktop apps is that while you can acquire desktop apps through many different places, like the Microsoft Store or an app developer's website, or purchase physical copies of applications in a store, although, that's becoming less and less common, mobile apps, on the other hand, are acquired only through dedicated stores like the Google Play Store for apps that run on Android mobile devices, and the Apple App Store for apps that run on Apple's iOS mobile operating system. These mobile app stores are your one-stop location for every app you may want to install on your device. You can browse through multiple categories, or use the search feature to find specific apps. When you select an app, you can read about its features, check out reviews from people who have used the app. And if you want the app, you can download or purchase it to immediately install it. Once apps are installed, you'll find their icons among all the other apps you have on your device, and you can tap them to start using them right away.

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