In the last decade, smartphones have become an indispensable part of our lives. The rapid technological development has allowed manufacturers to incorporate advanced sensor technologies into smartphones and other wearable technologies that can measure and track various aspects of our everyday life. The spread of sensor technologies has given people the ability to self-track their activities as well as to share their data and experiences with other people, which has evolved into the quantified self movement. The evolution of sensor technologies has also increased the development of functionalities offered by devices, and consequently, their usability. The aim of this thesis was to conduct a systematic and comparative analysis of the functionalities of five mobile self-tracking applications developed by smartphone manufacturers. The analysis is based on an expert review of mobile applications, which includes identification, description and comparison of their functionalities. The results show that supported functionalities in applications require sensor technologies that are already widespread today and are in practice supported by every smartphone device. Functionalities that are most frequently not included require external devices to operate or are related to a wider context of self-tracking. Although manufacturers are not limited in integrating functionalities into their applications, the utilization of the latter is conditional on the availability of external sensor technologies.
|