Phonelationships: Haily Tift

Phonelationships (n.) (derived from phone + relationships) – 1. an individual’s personal connections to a mobile device, 2. the Western Front’s new blog feature, a fun way to find out what our peers are up to on their phones, 3. check out part 1 or part 2

 Name: Haily Tift, 21 Class Standing: Junior Major: Marketing Phone: iPhone 6, she’s had it since November. Phone case: It’s a pink and blue hard case with cool typography of California cities. It’s cute, but also functional: Tift said she’s dropped her phone before. Total apps: Tift said she has about 20 apps outside of the mandatory Apple apps. Her main home screen houses the Apple apps she can’t delete and her professional apps, and her second screen holds her personal apps and social media.

Most frequently used app: Instagram and Snapchat, but she posts more often to Snapchat. She likes Snapchat because it’s entertaining. “I can send silly pictures without people potentially saving them for blackmail,” she joked. She said she posts a Snap story every other day. She has about 20 friends on the app, but only regularly snaps about 5 of them. She doesn’t use Snapchat Discover. “I think it’s weird,” she said. Phonelationship style: Tift admitted that she’s pretty dependent on her phone. “It’s never out of reach,” she said.  Her idea of a perfect app: Tift, like most Western students this time of year, wants a more accurate weather app.

Recommendations: Based on Tift’s interest in the customizable attractiveness of Instagram and need for accuracy in her weather app, I would recommend she download a new app called Fresh Air, available for free on iOS. The app uniquely offers minute-by-minute weather updates in a stylish and swipe-able linear graph. The default graph shows temperature and conditions, like “2:00 p.m., partly cloudy”, but users can just tap to add an overlay graph of cloud cover patterns, humidity and precipitation. Also on the main screen of the app is an abbreviated seven-day forecast and the current weather conditions. Within the app, you can share weather stats via text message or social media posts, request to receive a daily weather summary notification and send feedback to the developers. The one word I can think of to describe the app is cute. It’s adorable – when you open up the app, little banners (“Tap to see sunrises!”) and swipe cues appear to show you the cool parts of your day. Users can upgrade to Fresh Air Premium for $2.99 for some additional features that I think are really cool. With Premium, you can add events to your in-app calendar (or sync the app with iCal) to get weather updates for those specific dates and times. For instance, if you’re planning a camping trip for a weekend in July, you can keep up-to-date with weather predictions for that weekend, a perk lots of mobile weather apps don’t offer. The upgrade also lets you add multiple locations so you can keep track of weather conditions all over the world.

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