Evaluating usability of cross-platform smartphone applications

The computing power of smartphones is increasing as time goes. However, the proliferation of multiple different types of operating platforms affected interoperable smartphone applications development. Thus, the cross-platform development tools are coined. Literature showed that smartphone applications developed with the native platforms have better user experience than the cross-platform counterparts. However, comparative evaluation of usability of cross-platform applications on the deployment platforms is not studied yet. In this work, we evaluated usability of a crossword puzzle developed with PhoneGap on Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry. The evaluation was conducted focusing on the developer's adaptation effort to native platforms and the end users. Thus, we observed that usability of the cross-platform crossword puzzle is unaffected on the respective native platforms and the SDKs require only minimal configuration effort. In addition, we observed the prospect of HTML5 and related web technologies as our future work towards evaluating and enhancing usability in composing REST-based services for smartphone applications

On the Unicity of Smartphone Applications

Prior works have shown that the list of apps installed by a user reveal a lot about user interests and behavior. These works rely on the semantics of the installed apps and show that various user traits could be learnt automatically using off-the-shelf machine-learning techniques. In this work, we focus on the re-identifiability issue and thoroughly study the unicity of smartphone apps on a dataset containing 54,893 Android users collected over a period of 7 months. Our study finds that any 4 apps installed by a user are enough (more than 95% times) for the re-identification of the user in our dataset. As the complete list of installed apps is unique for 99% of the users in our dataset, it can be easily used to track/profile the users by a service such as Twitter that has access to the whole list of installed apps of users. As our analyzed dataset is small as compared to the total population of Android users, we also study how unicity would vary with larger datasets. This work emphasizes the need of better privacy guards against collection, use and release of the list of installed apps.Comment: 10 pages, 9 Figures, Appeared at ACM CCS Workshop on Privacy in Electronic Society (WPES) 201

Challenges to smartphone applications for melanoma detection

This commentary addresses the emerging market for health-related smartphone applications. Specific to dermatology, there has been a significant increase not only in applications that promote skin cancer awareness and education but also in those meant for detection. With evidence showing that 365 dermatology-related applications were available in 2014--up from 230 in 2012--and that 1 in 5 patients under the age of 50 have used a smartphone to help diagnose a skin problem, there is clearly a large subset of patients participating in this growing trend. Therefore, we are obligated to take a closer look into this phenomenon. Studies have shown that applications are inferior to in-person consultations with one study showing that 3 out of 4 applications incorrectly classified 30% or more melanomas as low-risk lesions. Although the FDA gained regulatory oversight over mobile health applications in 2012 and recently released their statement in 2015, their reach only extends to cover a selected portion of these applications, leaving many unregulated as they continue to be marketed toward our patients. Dermatologists should be updated on our current situation in order to properly counsel patients on the risks and benefits of these applications and whether they are acceptable for use. © 2016 by the article author(s)

Comparing the Effects of Perceived Enjoyment and Perceived Risk on Hedonic/Utilitarian Smartphone Applications

Despite the widespread adoption of smartphone applications, empirical research that examines the user acceptance on different application types is still scare. This paper empirically compares the effects of perceived enjoyment and perceived risk on hedonic and utilitarian smartphone applications. Our analyses show that perceived enjoyment is a stronger determinant of intention to use a hedonic smartphone application than a utilitarian application. Perceived risk has a significant negative influence on intention to use utilitarian smartphone applications, while it does not have a significant impact on intention to use hedonic applications. Surprisingly, perceived risk has an insignificant effect on perceived usefulness both in utilitarian and hedonic smartphone applications

A Study on The Use of Smartphone Applications in English Language Learning with Special Reference to Covid-19 Pandemic

Technology and education are essential concepts in the current world. The societies of the world are heading towards technology and education very rapidly. Both the concepts indicate the hasty development taking place everywhere. The progress in the field of technology and education can be taken as a sign of growth in a particular society. The present study aims at explaining the use of smartphone applications to improve English language skills and translation and vocabulary improvement. This paper also seeks to demonstrate the significant role played by smartphone applications amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the present study, it has been demonstrated that smartphone applications aid in improving language skills, translation, and enriching vocabulary. Moreover, smartphone applications have been used virally amid the COVID-19 pandemic. They have a significant role in online teaching and learning. They act as a personal teacher who works 24/7

Android Permissions Remystified: A Field Study on Contextual Integrity

Due to the amount of data that smartphone applications can potentially access, platforms enforce permission systems that allow users to regulate how applications access protected resources. If users are asked to make security decisions too frequently and in benign situations, they may become habituated and approve all future requests without regard for the consequences. If they are asked to make too few security decisions, they may become concerned that the platform is revealing too much sensitive information. To explore this tradeoff, we instrumented the Android platform to collect data regarding how often and under what circumstances smartphone applications are accessing protected resources regulated by permissions. We performed a 36-person field study to explore the notion of "contextual integrity," that is, how often are applications accessing protected resources when users are not expecting it? Based on our collection of 27 million data points and exit interviews with participants, we examine the situations in which users would like the ability to deny applications access to protected resources. We found out that at least 80% of our participants would have preferred to prevent at least one permission request, and overall, they thought that over a third of requests were invasive and desired a mechanism to block them

In Need of a Domain-Specific Language Modeling Notation for Smartphone Applications with Portable Capability

The rapid growth of the smartphone market and its increasing revenue has motivated developers to target multiple platforms. Market leaders, such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft, develop their smartphone applications complying with their platform specifications. The specification of each platform makes a platform-dedicated application incompatible with other platforms due to the diversity of operating systems, programming languages, and design patterns. Conventional development methodologies are applied to smartphone applications, yet they perform less well. Smartphone applications have unique hardware and software requirements. All previous factors push smartphone developers to build less sophisticated and low-quality products when targeting multiple smartphone platforms. Model-driven development have been considered to generate smartphone applications from abstract models to alleviate smartphones platform fragmentation. Reusing these abstract models for other platforms was not considered because they do not fit new platforms requirements. It is possible that defining smartphone applications using a portability-driven modeling notation would facilitate smartphone developers to understand better their applications to be ported to other platforms. We call for a portability-driven modeling notation to be used within a smartphone development process. Our in-process research work will be manifested through the application of a domain-specific language complying with the three software portability principles and three design factors. This paper aims to highlight our research work, methodology and current statue

The Use of Smartphone Applications in Laboratory Activities in Developing Scientific Communication Skills of Students

Smartphone applications have been widely used in everyday life, not least in the world of education. The use of smartphone applications in improving the quality of learning has become a trend and is widely used by educators. The use of smartphones in learning is dominated by the implementation of regular learning and is still lacking in the laboratory's implementation. This study aimed to determine the use of smartphone applications in laboratory activities in developing students' scientific communication skills. The research method used was the quantitative descriptive method. The research sample was a fifth-semester physics education study program student who contracted the school physics laboratory course. The smartphone application used in laboratory activities in this study consists of a physics toolbox and tracker. Physics toolbox is an application whose working principle is based on sensors. Students use the tracker to make graphs from videos that illustrate activities laboratory. The research instrument used was a performance assessment in the form of a scientific communication skill observation sheet. The data analysis technique was done by calculating the percentage of achievement of students' scientific communication skills. The results showed that smartphone applications could develop students' scientific communication skills in a good category. Thus, smartphone applications in laboratory activities can develop one of the skills needed by students in facing the era of industrial revolution 4.0