Are Green Mobile Apps Even Helpful?

Updated 10:45 AM CST, Fri, Aug 21, 2009

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We're hearing about lots of "green" mobile apps these days that claim to help consumers become more eco-friendly. (There's even a new phone, the Samsung Reclaim, that comes with a few preloaded--stay tuned for a full review.)

That doesn't mean they're effective, as TreeHugger points out. The blog then went on to interview Ron Williams, the president of 3rdWhale, a green app developer. He points out that a green app shouldn't just be another way of saying a Web site--mainly due to the GPS chip. "When you add the location element into the mix, handheld computing has the potential of being far more compelling for the user," Williams said.

Williams went on to say that the most useful green apps are comprehensive resources like GoodGuide, which indexes 70,000 ratings of food, household items, and other products, and location-based services that can help people make the right choices in the right locations. The biggest obstacle for developers? Getting noticed in the App Store, which fields 65,000 apps and usually only shows the very top in popularity for each category--making it difficult for users to find anything that isn't already extremely popular.

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First Published: Aug 18, 2009 11:03 AM CST

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