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One of the great features of smart phones is that they allow for the use of applications (apps) to personalize the smart phone so that it becomes a tool that does what you require of it. Apps can perform any number of tasks, such as recommending great nearby restaurants, compiling grocery lists, giving you reminders on upcoming birthdays, telling you the weather in far off cities, and any number of other functions.

Some apps are included with the smart phone or Android Tablet when you purchase it. Others are available from a variety of online sources. One of the best places to buy your apps is from your smart phone or tablet manufacturer’s website. The single most popular app is email. It is so popular, in fact, that most smart phones come with this app pre-loaded.

Apps are designed to be helpful and increase your productivity, but of all the downloaded apps, games are the clear front-runner. According to Information Week, more than 64 percent of all downloaded apps are games. In another statistic, they figure that iPhone users spend over 14 hours per week playing games while Android users are closer to seven hours per week.

These statistics from Information Week may be shocking, but our dependence on apps is limited only by the apps available. When there are more than 400,000 different apps available for Android alone, you can imagine there’s an app to do pretty much anything.

Whether you’re looking for an office app, social networking app or one to help you tell the weather, there are many available. Some of these apps are free, and others cost a bit of money. One thing is certain: apps greatly expand the ability of your smart phone.