Multiple Apps Research Articles

Mobile Applications and Access to Private Data: The Supply Side of the Android Ecosystem

We analyze the data collection strategies of 65,000 developers in the market for mobile applications and track 300,000 applications over four years. Many apps belong to developers with multiple apps. This fact generates variation in the privacy behaviors of the same developer for our analysis. We uncover three stylized facts: First, developers “learn” to use increasingly intrusive data strategies as they become more experienced. Second, intrusive data collection is most likely in apps that target the 13+, and 16+ age category, which raises concerns for the protection of young app consumers. Third, even within developers, critical and atypical permissions predict problematic usage of private user data most successfully. Our findings inform both regulators and scientists who wish to model supply in the market for mobile apps.

Lifting inter-app data-flow analysis to large app sets

Mobile apps process increasing amounts of private data, giving rise to privacy concerns. Such concerns do not arise only from single apps, which might—accidentally or intentionally—leak private information to untrusted parties, but also from multiple apps communicating with each other. Certain combinations of apps can create critical data flows not detectable by analyzing single apps individually. While sophisticated tools exist to analyze data flows inside and across apps, none of these scale to large numbers of apps, given the combinatorial explosion of possible (inter-app) data flows. We present a scalable approach to analyze data flows across Android apps. At the heart of our approach is a graph-based data structure that represents inter-app flows efficiently. Following ideas from product-line analysis, the data structure exploits redundancies among flows and thereby tames the combinatorial explosion. Instead of focusing on specific installations of app sets on mobile devices, we lift traditional data-flow analysis approaches to analyze and represent data flows of all possible combinations of apps. We developed the tool Sifta and applied it to several existing app benchmarks and real-world app sets, demonstrating its scalability and accuracy.

Does this App Really Need My Location?

The enormous popularity of smartphones, their rich sensing capabilities, and the data they have about their users have lead to millions of apps being developed and used. However, these capabilities have also led to numerous privacy concerns. Platform manufacturers, as well as researchers, have proposed numerous ways of mitigating these concerns, primarily by providing fine-grained visibility and privacy controls to the user on a per-app basis. In this paper, we show that this per-app permission approach is suboptimal for many apps, primarily because most data accesses occur due to a small set of popular third-party libraries which are common across multiple apps. To address this problem, we present the design and implementation of ProtectMyPrivacy (PmP) for Android, which can detect critical contextual information at runtime when privacy-sensitive data accesses occur. In particular, PmP infers the purpose of the data access, i.e. whether the data access is by a third-party library or by the app itself for its functionality. Based on crowdsourced data, we show that there are in fact a set of 30 libraries which are responsible for more than half of private data accesses. Controlling sensitive data accessed by these libraries can therefore be an effective mechanism for managing their privacy. We deployed our PmP app to 1,321 real users, showing that the number of privacy decisions that users have to make are significantly reduced. In addition, we show that our users are better protected against data leakage when using our new library-based blocking mechanism as compared to the traditional app-level permission mechanisms.

Identifying factors associated with sleep disturbances among health workers using WhatsApp in Malaysia

Background: The intricate demand of 24/7 work-lifestyle in modern medical practice has prompted health care professionals to adopt the ubiquity of smartphones for virtual communications through multiple apps functionality like WhatsApp. While these mobile apps have shown a commensurate increase globally, studies have hypothesized that such technological addictions could potentially harm individual’s sleep health. This preliminary investigation aims to explore the prevalence and factors associated with sleep disturbances (subjective poor sleep quality and perceived excessive daytime sleepiness) among health care workers using WhatsApp in Malaysia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 306 health care workers comprising of doctors and nurses in a Malaysian public health hospital. A self-administered questionnaire consisting of items on socio-demographics, WhatsApp usage characteristics, perceived sleep disturbances, addictive lifestyles and validated items on psychological factors was used. Data were analyzed at descriptive, univariate and multivariate logistic regression levels. Results: The prevalence of sleep disturbances among health workers using WhatsApp in our study sample was relatively high. In multivariate analyses, respondents aged 30 years or younger and those being anxious when denied access to “WhatsApp-ing” activities had significantly higher odds of experiencing poor sleep quality and excessive daytime sleepiness. Women had significantly higher odds of experiencing poor sleep quality than men. Respondents who initiate WhatsApp-ing activities immediately after sleep experienced significantly higher odds of excessive daytime sleepiness as compared to those who don’t. Conclusions: Perceived sleep disturbances among health workers in our sample was significantly associated with demographics, usage characteristics and psychological factors. It warrants further robust research as the use of mobile phone applications among health workers is rising exponentially.

Abstract: Revolutionizing Remote Monitoring of Free Flaps with Laser Doppler Flowmetry and Smart Devices

PURPOSE: The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate an innovative method for remote free flap monitoring using laser Doppler flowmetry and smart devices. INTRODUCTION: Newer generation of free flap monitoring device using tissue oximetry offers web-based capability for transmission of recordings to the smart phone. However, remote monitoring capability does not currently exist for the Perimed laser Doppler (Perimed AB, Järfälla, Sweden) when used without connection to a computer. Using an existing tablet and a free app (application), the smart device can be converted into a Wi-Fi camera, which can be placed adjacent to the laser Doppler monitor to allow instant, real-time monitoring remotely. Multiple apps are currently available which can convert a smart phone or tablet (e.g. iPad) into a remote camera, which can then be linked to the provider’s smartphone over the internet. METHODS: We present our preliminary experience with this smart device app to a well-established modality, laser Doppler flowmetry,1,2 for monitoring free flaps. We employed the AtHome app from the app store which converted a used iPad into a camera and multiple smart phones into independent viewers. No patient identifier was transmitted with this remote monitoring set-up. RESULTS: We monitored 9 head and neck free flaps, each for 4–6 days remotely with near 100% reliability. We had minor mechanical issues: capturing angle of smart device getting displaced; device getting knocked off the table; and charge cord dislodging. Auto-lock needs to be turned off on the capturing smart device. On one occasion, the camera app needed restarting due to automatic software update. These glitches were each corrected by a phone call to the nurse or by the provider in person. For one flap, nursing over-sedated the patient leading to profound hypotension. The steady decline in the laser Doppler reading witnessed by the surgeon remotely allowed him the opportunity to rapidly return to the ICU to resuscitate the patient, thus avoiding anastomotic thrombosis from hypoperfusion. CONCLUSION: Remote monitoring of the laser Doppler readings by multiple providers on the team for all 9 flaps was successful for the duration of 4–6 days. The ability to remotely look at your patient’s laser Doppler numbers (or recordings from any monitoring modality) in real-time can be provided by a simple, inexpensive, and reliable adaptation of smart device and app technology. Reference Citations: 1. Bellamy JL, Mundinger GS, Flores JM, et al. Do adjunctive flap-monitoring technologies impact clinical decision making? An analysis of microsurgeon preferences and behavior by body region. Plast Reconstr Surg 135:883, 2015. 2. Yuen JC, Feng Z. Monitoring free flaps using the laser Doppler flowmeter: five-year experience. Plast Reconstr Surg 105:55, 2000.

MobiGemini: sensitive-based data and resource protection framework for mobile device

With the popularity of smartphones and the rapid development of mobile internet, smartphone becomes an important tool that store sensitive data of owner. Encryption naturally becomes a necessary means of protection. In certain situations, this is inadequate, as user may be coerced to hand over decryption keys or passwords of sensitive APP (AliPay) on mobile device. Therefore, only encryption cannot protect sensitive APP and privacy data stored on user’s smartphone. To address these obstacles, we design a protection system called MobiGemini. It enables automatic uninstalling service that can immediately uninstall multiple APP at same time, and also enabling plausibly deniable encryption (PDE) on mobile devices by hiding encrypted volume within random data in free space of cache partition. We improve the key store way of previous PDE schemes on mobile device. The evaluation results show that the scheme introduces a few overhead compared with original android system enabling full disk encryption.

Patterns in Teachers' Instructional Design When Integrating Apps in Middle School Content-Area Teaching

The purpose of this study was to examine patterns evident in the ways middle school teachers, who value technology integration, design instruction that leverages educational applications (app) affordances. Using the pedagogy of multiliteracies (Cope & Kalantzis, 2015) and app affordances of multimodality, collaboration, and interactivity as guides, 17 instructional chains designed by nine teachers were analyzed for patterns. Findings revealed teachers launched iPad-integrated instruction by using content apps to engage students in experiencing information at the beginning of each lesson or by using a flipped classroom model. Additionally, all instruction incorporated multiple apps and multiple knowledge processes, although some sequences were all-digital and others combined digital and nondigital activities.

Review of Mobile Learning Trends 2010-2015: A Meta-Analysis

Introduction With the advent of mobile technologies, new paradigm of teaching and learning with technology aid had been emerged, that is mobile learning (M-Learning). Mobile technologies purvey opportunities to hold new and interesting methods of teaching and learning, both beyond and inside the classroom. Apropos to the teaching-learning process, the integration of mobile devices into educational context has considerable benefits and profoundly potential which consistence with Valero et al. (2012) who claimed that the technological features of M-Learning are portability, immediacy, connectivity, ubiquity and adaptability. It enables collaboration among pupils, knowledge creation, information searching and improved interaction and communication between teacher and student. Moreover, it facilitates access to learning anytime and anywhere by enabling connectivity and the employ of multiple apps for educational purposes (Fundacion Telefonica, 2013). In short, M-Learning has been recognized as one of the most influential technologies for education (Johnson, Adams, & Cummins, 2012). Therefore, this paper intends to provide insights into the research trends and issues in the studies of M-Learning through content analysis of selected journals from January, 2010 to December, 2015, covering six major journals: (1) Computer & Education (CE Keengwe, 2014) that integrates several software and firmware technology in multimedia applications (Lavin-Mera et al., 2008) which facilitate learning through a variety of wireless mobile devices (Kukulska-Hulme, 2005; Stevens & Kitchenham, 2011) using wireless networks (WiFi) or broadband services (Caudill, 2007) without limit in terms of location or time. (Kukulska-Hulme, 2005; Hussin et al., 2012; Quinn, 2000). Furthermore, Keegan (2002) contemplates the possibility of M-Learning as a harbinger of the future of learning. M-Learning research The use of mobile devices for educational purposes, recognized as M-Learning has gained substantial attention from researchers in the technology-enhanced learning discipline. Recent research findings on using mobile devices in different learning environments have exemplified their ability to effectively enhance students' learning knowledge. …

Mobile App Platform Choice

Since Apple and Google launched their mobile app stores in 2008, the market for mobile apps has experienced rapid growth. Given the existence of multiple app platforms, fundamental questions in the app industry are how app developers choose which app platform to enter and which market designs benefit the platform expansion. This paper studies these questions using a unique daily-level panel data set that contains information on every app in the two leading app stores, Apple and Google, over a 2-year period. Combining machine learning techniques for big data problems and computationally efficient econometric approaches, I construct and estimate a structural model for heterogeneous app developers' platform choice decisions within an incomplete-information game framework. I find that in general low-quality apps make the platform less favorable for high-quality entrants. In Google app store, the presence of low-quality apps induces more low-quality apps to enter, while Apple app store exhibits strong competitive effects among high-quality apps. Increasing smartphone user base and improving user engagement could accelerate the platform expansion, but also encourage many low-quality apps to enter. Regulations on low-quality apps and attenuating competition are more effective attracting high-quality apps. Platforms can bundle these policies to achieve better marketing evolution.

모바일 앱 사용에 영향을 미치는 요인에 관한 연구: 앱 카테고리 간 상관관계를 중심으로

모바일 앱 사용에 영향을 미치는 요인에 관한 연구: 앱 카테고리 간 상관관계를 중심으로

DelayDroid: an instrumented approach to reducing tail-time energy of Android apps

Mobile devices with 3G/4G networking often waste energy in the so-called ``tail time during which the radio is kept on even though no communication is occurring. Prior work has proposed policies to reduce this energy waste by batching network requests. However, this work is challenging to apply in practice due to a lack of mechanisms. In response, we have developed DelayDroid, a framework that allows a developer to add the needed policy to existing, unmodified Android applications (apps) with no human effort as well as no SDK/OS changes. This allows such prior work (as well as our own policies) to be readily deployed and evaluated. The DelayDroid compile-time uses static analysis and bytecode refactoring to identify method calls that send network requests and modify such calls to detour them to the DelayDroid run-time. The run-time then applies a policy to batch them, avoiding the tail time energy waste. DelayDroid also includes a cross-app communication mechanism that supports policies that optimize across multiple apps running together, and we propose a policy that does so. We evaluated the correctness and universality of the DelayDroid mechanisms on 14 popular Android apps chosen from the Google App Store. To evaluate our proposed policy, we studied three DelayDroid-enabled apps (weather forecasting, email client, and news client) running together, finding that the DelayDroid mechanisms combined with our policy can reduce 3G/4G tail time energy waste by 36\\%.

Digital writing practices: a close look at one grade three author

AbstractThis paper reports on the digital writing practices of a Grade Three primary school student as he used an iPad to plan, produce and share digital texts. The case study acknowledges that writing is undergoing a period of great change in many classrooms and works to show how a student author has interpreted and produced digital texts with new technologies. In particular, the specific practices, digital materials and literacy concepts will be explicated through analyses of two digital texts created by this author. This focus acknowledges the ways texts can be planned, produced and shared using multiple modes and media. These social practices and the wider learning opportunities afforded through the flexible and recursive ways students produce text have yet to be fully explored. This paper also extends current understandings about digital writing practices through its examination of the connections between and among multiple apps as an author crafts digital text.

Uptake and usage of IntelliCare: A publicly available suite of mental health and well-being apps

BackgroundTreatments for depression and anxiety have several behavioral and psychological targets and rely on varied strategies. Digital mental health treatments often employ feature-rich approaches addressing several targets and strategies. These treatments, often optimized for desktop computer use, are at odds with the ways people use smartphone applications. Smartphone use tends to focus on singular functions with easy navigation to desired tools. The IntelliCare suite of apps was developed to address the discrepancy between need for diverse behavioral strategies and constraints imposed by typical app use. Each app focuses on one strategy for a limited subset of clinical aims all pertinent to depression and anxiety. This study presents the uptake and usage of apps from the IntelliCare suite following an open deployment on a large app marketplace. MethodsThirteen lightweight apps, including 12 interactive apps and one Hub app that coordinates use across those interactive apps, were developed and made free to download on the Google Play store. De-identified app usage data from the first year of IntelliCare suite deployment were analyzed for this study. ResultsIn the first year of public availability, 5210 individuals downloaded one or more of the IntelliCare apps, for a total of 10,131 downloads. Nearly a third of these individuals (31.8%) downloaded more than one of these apps. The modal number of launches for each of the apps was 1, however the mean number of app launches per app ranged from 3.10 to 16.98, reflecting considerable variability in the use of each app. ConclusionsThe use rate of the IntelliCare suite of apps is higher than public deployments of other comparable digital resources. Our findings suggest that people will use multiple apps and provides support for the concept of app suites as a useful strategy for providing diverse behavioral strategies.

User Reachability in Islands of WebRTC Communication Apps

Recent progress in Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) promotes multi-apps environment by creating islands of communication apps where users of one website or service cannot easily communicate with those of another. We describe the architecture and implementation of a multi-platform system to do user reachability in multiple communication services where users decide how they want to be reached on multiple apps, e.g. in an organization that has voice-over-IP, web conferencing and messaging from different vendors. We argue for user and endpoint driven reachability policies and cross-app interactions, instead of pair-wise service federation or global location service. Our architecture separates the user contacts from reachability apps, and has several independent and non-interoperable WebRTC-based apps for two-way and multi-party multimedia communication. Our software is implemented using HTML5 and JavaScript, and using a cross-platform development tool, runs as native apps on mobile as well as personal computers. Our flexible implementation can be used for enterprise or personal communications, or as a white-labeled app for consumers of a business.

Mining Collective Opinions for Comparison of Mobile Apps

User review is a crucial component of open mobile app market such as Google Play Store. These markets allow users to submit feedback for downloaded apps in the form of a) start ratings and b) opinions in the form of text reviews. Users read these reviews in order to gain insight into the app before they buy or download it. The user opinion about the product also influence on the purchasing decisions of potential users; indeed play a key role in the generation of revenue for the developers. The mobile apps can contain large volumes of reviews and it is impossible for a user to skim through thousands of reviews to find the opinion of other users about the features he/she is interested in. Towards this end, we propose a methodology to automatically extract the features of an app from its corresponding reviews using machine learning technique. Moreover, our proposed methodology aid user to compare the features across multiple apps, using the sentiments, expressed in their associated reviews. The proposed methodology can be used to understand user's preference to a certain mobile app and can uncover the relational behind why users prefer an app over other.

The APP Intracellular Domain Is Required for Normal Synaptic Morphology, Synaptic Plasticity, and Hippocampus-Dependent Behavior.

Synaptic dysfunction and cognitive decline are early hallmark features of Alzheimer's disease. Thus, it is essential to elucidate the in vivo function(s) of APP at the synapse. At present, it is unknown whether APP family proteins function as cell surface receptors, or mainly via shedding of their secreted ectodomains, such as neurotrophic APPsα. Here, to dissect APP functional domains, we used APP mutant mice lacking the last 15 amino acids that were crossed onto an APLP2-KO background. These APPΔCT15-DM mice showed defects in neuromuscular morphology and function. Synaptic deficits in the CNS included impairments of synaptic plasticity, spatial learning, and memory. Collectively, this indicates that multiple APP domains, including the C-terminus, are required for normal nervous system function.

Mediated Pedestrian Mobility: Walking and the Map App

While walking has always been mediated, the arrival of smartphones with multiple apps has changed how we walk and how we use apps. In this study, we investigate the relationships of pedestrian-in-the-street and app-user-on-screen actions. We display and describe a series of intersubjective practices constituted by, and with, walking while using a mobile device. The video data used are from a larger study of pedestrians using smartphones in urban settings, with our analysis here turning on how a smartphone is used and interacted around to accomplish walking together. Our approach draws upon ethnomethodological conversation analytic studies of the sequential and category-based organisation of mobile and on-screen actions. The analysis shows how walking actions (such as unilateral-stopping, turning, restarting) are connected to map actions such as displaying the map, manipulating the scale and monitoring the movement of the you-are-here dot. We conclude with remarks on the collaborative inter-subjective nature of walking with apps.

Service experiences beyond the direct use: indirect customer use experiences of smartphone apps

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine customers’ use experiences in a smartphone application (app) context. Apps have emerged as popular tools among marketing practitioners. In service research, however, smartphone apps, and their customers’ use experiences, have received limited attention. Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides a conceptual overview and draws on an empirical two-phase study comprising diary narratives of using a specific app and semi-structured interviews on the use of multiple apps by app users. Findings – Results show that indirect use experiences play an important role in the holistic service experience. Compared with direct experiences, indirect use experiences do not require the actual use of apps or direct contact with the user. Also the context, such as the time and location of app use, is important for both direct and indirect use experience. Research limitations/implications – This paper highlights indirect use experiences as a vital component of service experiences and encourages researchers not to restrict use experiences to direct use only. Indirect use experiences enable managers to gain deep insights into the everyday use experiences of current and potential customers. Originality/value – First, previous research on service experience has mainly focused on direct use experiences. This study highlights that indirect use experiences are an important part of the service experience. Second, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first attempt to investigate the use experiences of smartphone apps in a service marketing context.

Creating Innovative Student Projects with App Smashing

Although the iPad has many possibilities as a learning tool, its apps are limited in their functionality. By app smashing, or using multiple apps to complete a task, students can create cross-disciplinary projects that encourage higher-level thinking, collaboration, and innovation. The steps to getting started with app smashing are included, as well as examples of real-life student projects.

Behavior change techniques in top-ranked mobile apps for physical activity.

Mobile applications (apps) have potential for helping people increase their physical activity, but little is known about the behavior change techniques marketed in these apps. The aim of this study was to characterize the behavior change techniques represented in online descriptions of top-ranked apps for physical activity. Top-ranked apps (n=167) were identified on August 28, 2013, and coded using the Coventry, Aberdeen and London-Revised (CALO-RE) taxonomy of behavior change techniques during the following month. Analyses were conducted during 2013. Most descriptions of apps incorporated fewer than four behavior change techniques. The most common techniques involved providing instruction on how to perform exercises, modeling how to perform exercises, providing feedback on performance, goal-setting for physical activity, and planning social support/change. A latent class analysis revealed the existence of two types of apps, educational and motivational, based on their configurations of behavior change techniques. Behavior change techniques are not widely marketed in contemporary physical activity apps. Based on the available descriptions and functions of the observed techniques in contemporary health behavior theories, people may need multiple apps to initiate and maintain behavior change. This audit provides a starting point for scientists, developers, clinicians, and consumers to evaluate and enhance apps in this market.