The technological advances we have witnessed since the first mobile applications that were built into the first smartphones and that today seem like little more than an experimental excitement have evolved into complex ecosystems that have become an integral part of daily life in parallel with increasing user expectations.
Before talking about the concept of mobile applications, it is important to talk about the introduction of small programs into our lives that are quite small in size compared to those used on computers, are produced to work on smaller screens and remain compact in structure.
IBM's Simon Personal Computer, which was released in 1992, came with about 10 applications such as a built-in calendar, address book and calculator, and after this product, a phone was no longer a tool used only for voice communication and the concept of mobile software was started. This is considered the forerunner of the mobile application world.
These monolithic applications, which were pre-installed on the device by the manufacturer and lacked the flexibility offered by application stores compared to today, were the basis of innovations that would rise first in the mobile phone and then in the tablet categories in the future.
The emergence of smart devices and the rise of app stores
It has been almost 15 years since the release of IBM's device, and as the calendar shows 2007, no one knew that it would be an important year that would include some milestones in the development of mobile technology.
A device that was developed under the leadership of Steve Jobs and looked quite unusual when compared to the design of traditional mobile phone models up until that day, had a large touch screen, and could also play music, videos, browse the internet and host different applications for doing different tasks, completely changed people's expectations from mobile phones.
The rival to the Apple brand was Google, which had been providing services as a search engine until then. The Android operating system, first released under the Apache 2.0 license and as open source, was acquired by Google, allowing the company to gain a place for itself and strengthen its hand in the emerging mobile device sector.
Another major player who foresaw the rise of mobile technologies and wanted to do business in this area was Nokia, which we know well with its mobile phones, and started to offer an infrastructure called Symbian Os in its phones.
This software, which was based on the EPOC32 operating system developed by Psion when mobile phones started to rise in the 1990s, was re-institutionalized under the name Symbian in 1998 with the joint venture of Psion Software, Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia, and Symbian OS came to the fore especially in Nokia's S60 platform phones, and dominated the smartphone market that started to spread in the early 2000s.
Supporting touchscreen mobile phones: App stores
This new product launched under the Apple brand has made Apple the most valuable brand in the world today, and with this hardware we have met a new concept: App markets.
Initially an online platform that included around 500 special software / application that could be used with the iPhone, it democratized software development and paved the way for anyone who wanted to be an independent developer to develop and distribute software on this software platform and earn money, first through in-app purchases and later through a subscription model.
When this store called the App Store started operating in 2008, few people realized that Apple's mobile phones - and later tablets - were not just hardware, but also integrated tools with digital content. The App Store has grown very quickly and is now a platform where millions of applications can be downloaded worldwide.
Its competitor, Android Market, which was launched in the same year as Appstore, was positioned opposite AppStore as the official store of the Android operating system. While Android Market initially only allowed downloading applications to Android phones, it eventually became a provider of services offered by Google and its name changed to Google Play Store.
Google Play, as we know it today, operates as the central digital distribution platform of the Android-based ecosystem, hosting millions of applications and digital content.
Here I would like to return very briefly to the Symbian operating system that is synonymous with Nokia.
Developing applications on Symbian was quite complex and more difficult than its new competitors. In particular, the emergence of Apple's iOS and Google's Android operating systems left Symbian in the lurch in terms of compatibility, application ecosystem and user experience.
In order to cope with this, Nokia tried to acquire all of Symbian in 2008 and turn it into an open source platform, but it was not agile enough, and in the age of touchscreens, Symbian's interface fell behind the more intuitive and modern user experience offered by its competitors and became outdated.
Mobile app permissions and collecting data through apps
When I talk about mobile app permissions, it is the permission that an app you download from an app store receives from the user to access certain data or hardware features on the hardware in your possession.
On the Android side, app permissions are classified into different types; permissions that are automatically granted during installation, runtime permissions that are approved by the user while the app is actively used, and permissions specifically defined by the system are the most common among them. Each requested permission limits the scope of data that the app can access and the operations it can perform on the hardware.
The main reason for requesting app permissions is to ensure that the app has access to the data it needs to perform the job it wants to do. For example, it would be absurd to expect an app that takes photos to work without camera permissions to take the photo and storage permissions to store the photo it takes; or a map - navigation app is blind without access to location information.
The main reason for requiring permissions to be approved by users is to protect the privacy of those using the hardware and the application, and to prevent applications whose purpose is not to provide a solution but rather to access users' sensitive data without permission.
Thus it has become important for users to be at least literate about the permissions requested by applications and to manage application permissions consciously.
When you install an application and grant the necessary permissions, the application opens a data-based gateway. In this way, the application can use, process or upload the data it accesses to a server for different purposes.
Knowing why application permissions are requested and how to use them becomes important at this stage. Nowadays, regardless of the operating system they use, people using mobile devices mostly accept permissions to use the applications they install with full functionality, but they do not have enough awareness of what these are really requested for.
Using data obtained from mobile hardware in marketing
It is important to know that the concept and action of marketing are no longer progressing in one dimension these days. Those who are engaged in marketing are trying to know as much as possible about consumers, and every piece of information obtained from them is very valuable.
Parameters such as the hardware's unique identification number, data collected while using the application, location information, and hardware features are frequently used in marketing strategies.
Among these, location data is particularly important in mobile marketing. The user's geographic location enables location-based ads and campaigns to be personalized.
In addition, hardware and software information of mobile devices is also a guide in another aspect of marketing. Technical features of the hardware, such as the processor, RAM, and screen resolution, which are relatively not directly relevant to the user, are used to optimize the compatibility of applications and ads to be displayed in the application with the device and their performance while running on the device.
The most accurate, efficient and easy way to obtain this data is now to instantly pull it from its source. The simplest way to do this seems to be to place an application on the user's mobile device.
When you install a mobile application on your phone or tablet today, you need to be open-minded about the fact that it is no longer just a functional requirement that you want to access another area of your hardware.
Will anyone be able to use and transfer the data obtained through applications in any way they want?
The fact that personal data has become more valuable than previously thought has led consumers to ask application developers why they want this data and how they will use it, and states have begun to approach this issue with regulations at the level of law.
It is understood from user behavior that the scope of access permissions granted to a mobile application to use it remains unclear for most users, and users do not have sufficient information about what data the application collects and how it will use it when they give permission to an application.
Why would an application that only turns on the phone's flashlight and uses it as a flashlight want to access the contacts, call logs, location, and even the gallery?
First of all, transparency was expected from application developers about why they want the application permissions that users request while using their applications, for what purpose they collect them, and how they will use them.
The most important point that should be noted here is that the owners of the application are not clear about how they will use this big data they obtain.
There is no federal law yet in the United States on how mobile data will be collected and processed, but there are significant regulations at the state and private sector level.
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act - COPPA requires parental consent for the collection of personal information from children under the age of 13, and the California Consumer Privacy Act - CCPA grants California residents remarkable rights such as accessing, deleting, and opting out of processing their personal data whenever they wish.
The proposed American Privacy Bill of Rights in the US aims to introduce rights such as data minimization, the right to opt out of targeted advertising, and access, correction, export, or deletion of personal data.
The European Union has more comprehensive and strict regulations than the US regarding the fate of mobile data. The EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has entered into force and aims to ensure that explicit consent is obtained from the person concerned before personal data is processed, that data owners have access to their data, the opportunity to correct their data, have their data deleted when requested, and the right to transfer data to another location.
The responsibilities that fall on all of us are transparency while working, respect for ethical values and making the digital future more secure
Mobile technologies and application ecosystems are developing at a dizzying pace and it is clear that they make our daily lives easier. It would be wrong to say that this development has only increased functionality; we also have new responsibilities in terms of data security, privacy and ethical use.
It is no longer enough to focus only on the functions and services that applications offer us as end users. While providing the services promised by the application, it is also necessary to carefully consider the fate of personal data processed, stored and sometimes shared with third parties in the background.
Mobile applications are at the center of digital transformation and when managed with the right principles, they create significant opportunities on both an individual and a societal scale. However, the creation of a safe, sustainable and fair digital future for everyone is directly related to the care to be shown for data privacy.
At this point, it is important for those who use applications and develop them to act responsibly. While users naturally have the right to know with whom and how their personal data, which is considered a part of them, is shared; Developers should also adopt transparency and honesty as a basic principle in this information process.
Especially on the developer side, the scope of the permissions obtained from the user should be clearly explained. It should be clearly stated which access permissions are really necessary for an application to work and which are requested only for additional features or data collection.
The understanding that responsibility ends as long as permission is granted is not very compatible with the ethical behavior of the digital age. On the contrary, the developer should be responsible for ensuring the continuity of trust by adopting a sensitive, reasoned and limited access policy to user data.
Whether on the user side or the developer, all these processes and the legal regulations that will control these processes should be constantly updated to keep up with the speed of technology.
Although they may seem like boring and long texts when viewed from the outside, these legal regulations protect the digital rights of users while also clarifying the ethical and legal framework that developers and platform providers must comply with.
As a result, in order to fully benefit from the opportunities offered by mobile applications, it is necessary to invest not only in technology, but also in the awareness level of the individuals who use and manage that technology. An application culture shaped by the principles of transparency, responsibility and trust will make the digital future safer, more ethical and sustainable for everyone…
Character images are created by Imagen 3.
