Monday, October 12, 2009

What’s your widget?

You can tell a lot about people by their apps. Here, randomly selected New York City locals— some recognizable names, some not— reveal their current smartphone obsessions.

New York Mag reports:
Jimmy Fallon, late-night host, NBC
Favorite app: Bionic Eye (iPhone/iPod Touch), $.99
“Basically, you aim your camera down the street and it will show you floating graphics of where, say, the nearest Starbucks is.”

Jonathan Ames, creator, HBO’s Bored to Death
Favorite app: GPS (Palm Pre), free
“I feel very futuristic sitting in the backseat calling out turns.”

Matthew Settle, actor, Gossip Girl
Favorite App: Attractor (iPhone/iPod Touch), $4.99
“You type in what you want in life—I put in ‘daughter’ even before I found out my wife was pregnant—and it reminds you every day, so it gets stuck in your mind.”

The Naked Cowboy, busker
Favorite app: Beyond411 (Blackberry), free
“When I’m out in the field (Times Square in my underwear), I can look up a phone number or address, then sync it by Bluetooth to the GPS in my 2010 Escalade.”

Salman Rushdie, writer
Favorite app: Bump (iPhone/iPod Touch), free
“It’s the one where, if you and I both had iPhones, you bump yours against mine and it exchanges our information.”

Katie Couric, anchor, CBS Evening News
Favorite app: TwitterBerry (Blackberry), free
“Makes tweeting really easy, like sending a text message.”

Will Swenson, actor, Hair
Favorite app: Sheep Launcher (iPhone/iPod Touch), free
“You have to launch a sheep into space. If you’re good, he goes to the planets. I’ve gotten to Jupiter, but my 8-year-old son has sent him all the way to Uranus.”

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