📕 Part 1: Mobile apps

This episode's vocabulary

Utility (noun) - the usefulness of something, especially in a practical way.

To inflict (verb) - to force someone to experience something very unpleasant.

In a nutshell (idiom) - very briefly, giving only the main points.

Get hold of someone (idiom) - to communicate with someone, esp. by telephone.

Queue up (phrasal verb) - put something in order, in a line.

Come in handy (idiom) - to be useful.

Out and about (idiom) - active; doing the things you usually do.

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Questions and Answers

M: Rory, do you like using apps?

R: Um, it's not so much a question of liking it or no, I have to use them to live in the world these days, whether it's staying in touch with family or, well, using messaging apps to communicating with fans on social media. I like the utility but I resent the distractions they inflict.

M: What apps do you usually use?

R: Well, usually ones for messaging and social media. I'm sort of led by my friends and colleagues in this respect. And take my cues from them on what's the best thing to use. I think the ones I've picked for myself were banking apps, and I have a transport app for the metro and for finding my way around. And I have one language learning app that I use because I need to, well, for all of these, like for the banking app I need to organize my finances. And for the map, when I need to get from A to B. And for the language learning app, I need to learn Russian somehow. And of course, these decisions weren't entirely independent either, were they?

M: How often do you use apps?

R: In a nutshell, probably too often. But if we expand on that a little, then maybe every hour, I'm awake, since people are always trying to get hold of me on social media, or I'm queuing up videos to watch or listen to. So that's a very noisy experience, isn't it?

M: Do you use your smartphone more now than in the past?

R: Oh, absolutely. Much more now. Especially since I installed all of the social media apps, the increase in connectedness to the world has definitely resulted in greater use. Not that this is necessarily a good thing.

M: Are smartphones annoying?

R: Well, that's very context-specific, isn't it? They tend to come in handy when you need to find your way around. But if you're trying to teach and they're going off all the time, and distracting students, then it's really frustrating. Sometimes I wish we could just, I don't know, flip a kill switch in certain places and have silence, even just for a few minutes.

M: What kind of smartphone will you use in the future?

R: Probably the one I have now, it does the job quite well. I don't think I really need much from it. Despite all the apps that I talked about having. It helps me interact with other people get access to media and run my finances and then get out and about when I need to. People often want something that is faster processing speeds. But how fast do you really need these kinds of things to be?

M: Supersonic fast, faster than the light. This fast.

R: Okay.

M: We just had a staring moment. A staring moment is just when Rory just stares at me, I stare back at him.

R: And we expect something to happen.

M: Yeah. And we're just like what, what?

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Discussion

M: Apps. So apps or applications. But nobody says application. Like what application do you use? Usually, we say apps. Yep.

R: Yes.

M: Yep. And apps...

R: Can't really paraphrase much with apps, I'm afraid.

M: No, no, no, we don't paraphrase.

R: It's just like I have a thing on my phone.

M: This "thingy" on my phone, if you know what I mean. So we say that, what do we say?

R: We say that we have to use them.

M: Yes. And I really enjoyed how you emphasized have with your intonation. For example like, I have to use them. You know...

R: There's no choice.

M: Yeah, usually we don't put a stress on have like, I have to use them. I have to use them, you see. So this is an effective way of using our intonation to stress the keyword like that I have to do it. You know... I have to do it. I have to do it. Have to. Right. I'm staying in touch with my family on messaging apps.

R: Stay in touch with, keep in touch with, be in touch with.

M: And the kinds of apps they are called messaging apps, or what else do we call them?

R: Messeging services. Messengers.

M: Messengers. Yeah, there we go. Messengers.

R: You could name the specific ones but they're not paying us to advertise them on the podcast.

M: We don't advertise. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp.

R: What's up Telegram? Give us your money.

M: Yeah. I like the utility, the utility of messaging apps.

R: The utility is just how useful something is.

M: But I resent the distractions that can inflict.

R: So if you resent something it just means you don't like it. I resent the fact that Vanya has got better hair than me.

M: No, he doesn't. He's just 24.

R: And then distractions are just something that can stop you from focusing on what you're supposed to be, Maria.

M: Right. Yes.

R: Focus on the vocabulary.

M: Focus, okay. For band 6 you can say I don't like how distracting apps could be. For band nine you say I resent the distractions apps can inflict. Do you see the difference? Yeah? Wow, band nine difference. I use apps for messaging.

R: Probably important to point that you can inflict the distraction, but most likely you create one. Create a distraction. Sorry, that was distracting, wasn't it? Okay. Continue with what you raised.

M: So how do we usually use apps? We use apps for messaging. And we can say that we choose apps or we pick apps. So for example, Rory picked banking apps.

R: They were picked for me.

M: Yeah. So I picked for myself, right. So the apps that I picked for myself, that's a nice one. You said in a nutshell, isn't it a bit cliched, Rory?

R: I haven't said it in a while.

M: Mm-hmm. Is it okay to say in a nutshell?

R: Well, I said it and it was okay.

M: It was okay. It was quite natural. Yeah. People always...

R: However, it's a good launch point for saying the phrase, if we expand on this a little bit if we elaborate on this a little bit. So it's not just like, in a nutshell, yes. You have to like follow up with something. So it's part of a pattern of speaking.

M: Yeah, don't do just like this. In a nutshell. Look at the examiner, like you see, I've used the word.

R: I've used the idiomatic expression. Give me my band nine score.

M: Yeah. No, don't do that. People are always trying to get hold of Rory on social media. To get hold o...

R: If you get hold of someone, it means you're trying to contact them.

M: Yeah. And we say on social media. What about what preposition should I use, when I say like inside my app? On WhatsApp, on Instagram, or in WhatsApp?

R: On. It's like on the internet.

M: Yeah. What about in the WhatsApp chat or on the chat?

R: I think it doesn't matter. I've heard both and it doesn't make a difference.

M: Yeah, yeah. True.

R: I say it's in the chat. But some people say oh, it's on the chat group. Okay.

M: Yeah. Because on the internet, on the social media. Rory is queuing up his videos to watch.

R: Yeah. But that just means if you queue something up, it just means that you create a list of things.

M: Smartphones come in handy.

R: Yes, if something comes in handy then it's useful.

M: Yeah.

R: Smartphones come in handy. Vanya comes in handy.

M: Vanya comes in really, really handy.

R: To be honest, it's more than just coming in handy at this stage.

M: It's survival.

R: Yes.

M: Now, Rory, for the purposes of this episode you should name 10 most popular apps in 2021. Go, now. Number one.

R: So it's gonna be something like Instagram, Telegram, Tik-Tok, Facebook, Facebook Messenger. Did I say What's up?

M: Seven.

R: Probably banking apps in general. Like there must be a specific banking app that's the most popular. Some kind of email app that I don't know. But you know, we all have an email app.

M: Nine. Come on.

R: That's actually only eight but never mind

M: Two more, two more.

R: Maybe like gaming apps in general. Someone's probably got a gaming app on their phone.

M: Last one. Last one.

R: There'd be something Google. Oh, dating apps. Yeah. Some kind of dating app.

M: Mmm, interesting, dear listener. So you can just take a note of Rory's list. Now according to netsolutions.com, the most popular apps in 2021 are Uber. Uber, cab service. And now I'm going to give you some natural, high level words about apps. So it's the world's leading on-demand cab service app. Okay.

R: How much are Uber paying to you to advertise them?

M: Number two - Instagram. Yes, Rory was on the ball here. So easy to connect way the network inside. Alright. Yeah. The app presents a spectrum of social media opportunities. Wow. Okay. Ads and tools blah, blah, blah, blah. Tik-Tok. Yes, I think Rory named Tik-Tok, is a popular app. That's it. The most popular genres. Right. So... Nothing much, you know like, no really like some, no good vocabulary. We need band nine vocabulary.

R: What do you expect? It's Tik-Tok

M: Airbnb is an accommodation booking app.

R: Who's going on holiday these days? Apart from everybody in Russia.

M: Yeah. Netflix is a subscription-based video on-demand app. Okay? A subscription-based app. So you subscribe, and you watch Netflix inside your phone.

R: You watch Netflix on your phone.

M: On your phone.

R: You said inside your phone.

M: Really?

R: Yes.

M: I meant you have an application inside your phone and you watch it on your phone. This is what I mean.

R: Well, be more specific or you won't get your band nine score.

M: So Amazon is one of the biggest multinational tech giants that offers digital streaming. E-commerce, artificial intelligence. Wow. So Amazon. Okay. So the app is light, as well as fast to use. You see. So we can say like, oh, it's a light app, fast use.

R: What does that mean?

M: Light? I think it's easy to use. It's user-friendly maybe? They say the app is light. It's not heavy, you know?

R: Well, they're all not heavy. They're all made of electrons.

M: So you just download Amazon and you buy stuff. It's light. You know, it's light on your budget. Just like, go and spend your money. YouTube, alright, is considered the world's most favorite video platform for people. YouTube mobile app lets users subscribe to videos and updates.

R: I hate the YouTube mobile app.

M: Really?

R: Yeah, because there's always adverts on it. And you can't skip them fast.

M: You should pay for a premium version to avoid all the ads.

R: Yeah, I'm not doing that. Instead, I'm going to tell people how to do this. So if you want to avoid YouTube adverts then just watch it on your web browser. And then when the advert comes up, you can very quickly reload the page and the advert disappears and your content starts playing. Or you just use Adblock. But can you use that on your phone?

V: Well, yes.

R: Can you?

M: We're gonna start a new podcast how to use Adblock on your phone. No, it's a joke. Dropbox.

R: Can you use Adblock on your phone? Wow. It's a whole new world out there.

M: Rory has learned something today. Dropbox is another popular app in 2021. If you don't know Dropbox is a reliable and well-designed cloud storage app. You see. A reliable app, well-designed app. You see, this is all like natural adjectives. They are all that function admirably on multiple gadgets. Yeah. So if, for example, I want to send some videos to Rory. So I can use Dropbox. I upload videos to Dropbox, and then Rory from his phone opens Dropbox and downloads the videos.

R: You can also do that on Google Drive.

M: Or Google Drive. It's the same, the same. Yeah. But if your Google Drive is full, you can download Dropbox. If your Dropbox is full...

R: Who has a full Google Drive? Why?

M: Because I have stuff.

R: Oh, that's a very band nine word.

M: Stuff. Yeah. Spotify is one of the most popular apps in the music space.

R: Can you listen to our podcast on Spotify?

M: You can.

R: There we go.

M: So there are different features. So you can also talk about features on your app. WhatsApp, yeah. Rory, you have mentioned What's up. One of the top apps. So top apps. This is one of the top apps. So yeah, adjectives that you can use. Popular messenger app.

R: That means it's popular.

M: It's end-to-end encrypted.

R: Nobody knows what that means. But it sounds cool.

M: It sounds cool. Yeah, that's all. Yeah, these are 10 apps.

R: Maria can now collect $10,000 for advertising.

M: Yes. Thank you very much, everybody. Yep. Yeah, if you want to help Maria's life, you can always make donations. So I can buy shoes, I can buy makeup for my aging body, I can buy mascara. Roy doesn't give me any money, you see. So you can go to our Patreon. Yeah, the link is in the description. So if you want to, if you want to buy me new shoes, dear listener, so you can just chip in. So if everybody gives me $1 I can buy new shoes.

R: Of course, the Patreon budget actually goes to helping us finance the studios and everything like this. So if you want to help us improve the podcast, Maria, then please feel free to drop some spare change into our Patreon. We are going off on a huge tangent. Let's apply our self-restraint while talking about applications and end our show here.

M: Thank you very much for listening! And we'll see you in the next episode. Bye-bye!

R: Bye!

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