The Pros & Cons of using Apps

Apps are short forms of applications, and they are installed in mobile devices and tablets or can be accessed from the web as well. They are simple programs that run-in phones that help in assisting the users in making their work simpler in their daily life. Apps can be classified based on the platforms they run on, such as Android and IOS.

In the world of technology, where apps are countless, as a Test Engineer, here’s my attempt to understand the prospects and consequences of some of the apps that I use in my daily life. I am hopeful that you may find this useful too.

1. Swiggy

Swiggy is India’s largest food delivery app. This app was started in 2014 in Bangalore by Shriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy and Rahul Jaimini. The idea to start Swiggy was due to a halt of Bundl an app for e-commerce. The overall rating for Swiggy on PlayStore is 4.1. The overall users who rated the app are over 18 lakhs and the orders are way beyond 1.4 million. The downloads are like over 50 million and there are 1 million reviews as of September 2020.

The losses incurred due to the dissatisfaction of customer in timely delivery are up to ₹397 crores and revenue are up to ₹422 crores as of 2018. As there are competitors in all fields, Swiggy’s competitors are Zomato, Food Panda and UberEATS to name a few.

Pros:

It’s a boon for working women and for bachelors as it saves time in cooking. Varieties of food can be tasted, food is delivered in quick time, it allows for easy cancellation is possible, the food can be tracked live, the best part being, Swiggy’s own wallet option allows users to pay directly.

Cons:

As our choice of food is available with a click of a button, we don’t realise how quickly we overshoot our budget and gain weight. While consumers love the fact that we can order in food if we don’t feel like cooking, it could lead to a decline in preparing food at home, which is healthy and fresh. Also, owing to the current scenario, the app does not have a hygiene/ cleanliness parameter, whereas a consumer I am assured of the level of hygiene/ sanitation/ health of the staff maintained in the premises.

2. GooglePay

GooglePay is an app for making payments. It was started by its parent company Google by unifying the old Android pay and Google wallet. It was started on January 8, 2018 in its headquarters in the USA. The overall rating for the app on PlayStore is 4.3 and overall users who rated the app are of over five million. Google has been the top app for transactions with a margin of 25% profit. As a Test Engineer, my perspective is that lots of competitors are also found in this space, for instance PhonePay and Paytm, but GooglePay has managed to be the best user-friendly app so far.

Pros:

Transactions are made simple due to UPI and QR codes. We no longer have to wait for hours in long queues as we can now easily make payment for bills is online. What’s more, we get rewarded for the payments we make through GooglePay. What makes this payment app unique, is that users can link multiple bank accounts allowing us to make self-transfers done easily. As a user, you have the option to select an account that you would like to make as the primary account for payments; and guess what? Google pay is supported in many countries, such as Japan, Malaysia and Singapore. So the next time you’re travelling to these countries, this will be of great help!

Cons:

Cash transactions list cannot be maintained while checking expenses like a physical list of budgeting cannot be done. As all transactions are done through our mobile phones and if we land up misplacing our handset, we also might lose all data. However, we would then have to remember our password to login from a new handset.

3. Whatsapp

WhatsApp has been the largest social networking app in the world. It was initially developed by Brian Acton and Jan Koum on February 24,2009 in Mountain View, California, United States. Eventually, Facebook acquired it in February 2014. This app has over 2 billion users worldwide as of February 2020 and has been the most preferred app by many due to its easy user features. Its competitors are Facebook messenger and WeChat amongst other communication apps.

Pros:

Since Whatsapp is a more personal app, the user can express their feelings through emojis, and group chats allows people to stay connected with families, friends and school or college alumni Friends and families from far countries can see and talk through a video call. Chat backup is a great option to preserve our important messages. Since all messages are encrypted, it means, you need not worry about privacy. Unwanted numbers can be blocked to avoid disturbances. With WhatsApp Web version available; it is easy to share the documents as well.

Cons:

While the pros are very useful, Whatsapp has become too intrusive into our personal space; hence the chances of getting addicted to WhatsApp usage has shot up.

For instance, what I have seen in my daily life, people never concentrate on their work and task at hand, instead keep checking their phone. One of the major challenges as a user we face is that we are unable to identify the authenticity of any video or message to be true or a rumour. We may not realise it, but we do land up wasting a lot of time due to long hours of chatting on Whatsapp.

We must remember, the future of these apps depends entirely on our usage. We cannot escape this as technology has seeped into every corner of our lives. In future, the number of downloads, reviews and ratings might increase or decrease but it’s up to us as a user to be aware of the pros and cons and use any apps wisely.

Contributor: Sruthi Ravinarayanan

About our Writing Program Student
Sruthi is working as Test Engineer in Mindtree Bangalore. She is interested in writing blogs and learning new languages. Currently, she speaks six languages – English, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. When she’s not learning something new, she loves dancing, singing and spending time with her pets.

References

• Swiggy eyes 100 mn customers using the app over 15 times a month in 10-15 years
• Swiggy, Wikipedia
• Mobile Apps, Wikipedia
• GooglePay, Wikipedia
• Google Pay leads in UPI transactions by value
• Whatsapp, Wikipedia

Please Note: The above apps have been referred/ mentioned purely from an independent research/ study perspective. This is not a sponsored post.