Wow, the Internet and email have come so far in the last 25 years. Virtually every grandma now has email and it is possible to purchase everything from a pair of batteries to 50 inch flat screen on the Internet.
Not only can you do all of of that, but you can do all of that now on a smart phone. There are applications or apps for children’s learning shapes and colors as well as math or spelling. You can either use free apps for sending text messages or purchase something for video conferences.
My colleague Zach had a really nice phone but it was not using one of the more mainstream operating systems. Zach didn’t really trust the big three companies who sold phones. These new smart phones only seemed to be a means for those corporations to learn about the users habits.
Imagine Zach’s surprise when he received an update for his keyboard app. The alphabet didn’t change so Zach checked to see what was different. It seemed that this app had one additional permission. The keyboard app wanted access to his contacts. You have to remember that this app only brings up an on-screen keyboard for typing.
Needless to say that Zach didn’t install that update, but this incident did help cement a real distrust of “free apps”, well, actually all apps.
Lessons Learned: Always read the fine print.