Arts and the app

By Cindy Landrum  

NOVEMBER 5, 2010 11:46 a.m. (0)

With a record number of artists participating in this weekend’s Greenville Open Studios and two days in which to visit them, planning will be key for Piedmont’s Stacy Miller.

And there’s an app to help her do that.

Miller, an art lover who has lived in the Upstate just a few weeks, plans to visit as many as a dozen of the 142 participating artists on Saturday and another half dozen on Sunday, and she’ll use a new app to help her decide which artists she wants to see and the route she’ll use to get there.

The app – available at www.greenvilleopenstudios.com - allows people to access information on participating artists by name, medium and location, create a list of studios to visit and plan a travel route using Google Maps and GPS technology.

“It’s so convenient,” she said. “I use my smart phone for a lot of things I used to have to do on my computer at home.”

Morgan Stanley’s 2010 report on Internet trends predicts mobile Web usage will surpass desktop computer Web usage by 2014. There were 1 billion desktop computers being used in 2000, according to the report. By 2014, the company predicts there will be about 10 billion mobile units – from laptops to iPads to smart phones – being used.

“I’d be shocked if it did not happen before that,” said Matt McFadden, director of sales and marketing for Merge, the Greenville web development company that created the Open Studios app.

And an increasing number of businesses are turning to apps – or application programs that launch specific tasks, activities or services – to connect with that mobile audience.

Apps are used for a wide range of activities –ordering a pizza from a chain restaurant on the way home, allowing a company’s sales person to check inventory and place an order from anywhere they can get cell phone service.

“More people are on the road. The world’s getting bigger,” said Suzy Harvey, an account supervisor at Merge. “You can’t just stay at your desk any more.”

It is predicted the number of apps downloaded will jump from 7 billion in 2009 to nearly 50 billion in 2012, according to a study commissioned by the mobile app store GetJar Networks of San Manteo, Calif.

The average smart phone user has 27 apps on their phone, according to Neilsen Co. Users of the iPhone average 40 apps, while Android users have 27 and Blackberry users 14, Nielsen said.

There are two types of apps – Web apps, which can be accessed on any computer or smart phone, and mobile device apps, which may be accessed only on a specific smart phone platform.

If somebody writes an app for an iPhone, it must be tested and approved by Apple, a process that can take anywhere from two days to two months, Harvey said.

The Open Studios app is a Web app, although Merge does plan to develop smart phone apps during the next year, Harvey said. Android and Blackberry require similar approval for apps used on their devices.

“Open Studios have a specific date they wanted to go live,” she said. “We wanted to guarantee it would be available.”

Brad Garrett, who develops apps for Merge, said smart phones are now where the Web was when it first started.

“When we started with the Web, there was AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe and they each had their own platform,” he said. “Now with mobile devices, we’re right back in that divided phase. But as devices get faster, we’ll eventually have a universal platform for smart phones as well.”

Apps can be geared toward a business’ customers or its employees.

“It comes down to what problem a business is having because all businesses have them,” McFadden said. “We can figure out the problem and build a solution. Some apps are really fun, some are super secret that aren’t much fun but the business loves them.”

Having an app also gives the perception that a business is high-tech, Harvey said.

“They’re everywhere. They’re viral,” she said.