It used to be that you needed a room full of gadgets to perform a variety of tasks. Wanted to watch your favourite show? Then you could only do so on a television set. Needed to book a room for your family vacation? Then you had to get on a telephone and call the hotel for a reservation. Wanted to watch the newest Hollywood blockbuster released on video? You could only do so if you had a video player. Wanted to go for a jog and listen to some music while running? You had to have a cassette player or walkman. We could list all the gadgets you had to have but we'd be writing for days.

To make a long story short you now no longer need to have a bunch of gadgets that perform separate functions each and only one at a time. You can do all that and much, much more on one device - the smartphone. Smartphones such as the BlackBerry, iPhone and Android phones come with a bunch of pre-installed apps that let you do so many different things. Smartphones aren't made to only make phone calls, yet they can still do that. Though most people prefer to text.

Your smartphone opens up a whole new world of possibilities with all the various apps that are available. Want to watch the latest season of your favourite TV show? Just download the YouTube or Vimeo app onto your smartphone and you can start watching episodes of that web series right on your phone. Don't have time to load your iPod with songs or podcasts? Just listen to them on your smartphone. You no longer have to be sitting in front of the television set or laptop to watch TV. You can catch the news on your smartphone while riding the bus.

Smartphone apps are plentiful and cover a whole lot of bases. There are video player apps, game apps, day planners, sports news and score update apps, apps that provide you with the day's top local, national and international news stories, fitness and health apps that take your heart rate or monitor your blood pressure, and apps that tell you what movies are playing at what theaters, just to name a few.

Some of the most popular apps or uses for apps include:

Puzzle games like 247 Mahjong
Music apps for identifying music and creating playlists, like Shazam
Social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter

Not all the apps are about having fun or being social. There are also some truly powerful business apps. File sharing or storage programs like Google Drive and Dropbox can make collaboration among any group of people much easier, whether they're located in the same building or across the world. Many companies even create their own apps to facilitate doing business. Some companies offer a free app that allow their customers to design projects and products. The contents on this page were funded by Ferreira and Sons Construction and Renovations