26Shazam
Before the smartphone app, Shazam was a call service that let users dial 2580 to send 30 seconds of a song over the phone, and receive the name of the song via text message. The number still works today.
27. In 2014, researchers in the UK developed an app called, "Spider in da house", which helped identify house spiders. They discovered the peak month of spiders moving indoors is September and most are males seeking mates.
28. Instagram started as a Whiskey meetup app. After analyzing how people used it, they relaunched it as Instagram and sold it for $1 billion two years later.
29. Snapchat was originally marketed as an app to send nude pictures called Picaboo.
30. Facebook acquired Onavo VPN to track user's full online activity and app usage details. With this, they could tell Instagram's Stories crippled Snapchat Stories even before Snapchat made it public.
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31Virgin Hotels App
The Virgin Hotel in Chicago has no check-in desk. It uses a smartphone system in which you scan a QR code and retrieve your room key from a vending machine. The personal comfort assistant app named Lucy can order more pillows, control room temperature, and coordinate messages with hotel staff.
32. Rio residents rely on an app called "Fogo cruzado" (Crossfire) to keep track of all gun battles happening in the city on any given day in order to avoid them.
33. A featureless app called "I am rich" was released on the app store for $999.99. 8 people purchased it before apple removed it the next day.
34. Take This Lollipop was a 2011 interactive horror short film/Facebook app that requested access to your Facebook account, then used information from that account to fill in details of the film. Its goal was to underscore the dangers inherent in posting too much personal information about oneself online.
35. A study led by University of Pennsylvania psychologists found that “brain training” apps such as Elevate, Luminosity, and Peak have no influence on neural activity or choices during decision making or effects of cognitive training on measures of delay discounting or risk sensitivity.
