Technology can also be more consistent in its instruction and less emotional than a human.By Katie HumphreyIt used to be that Mom harped “Sit up straight!” when you slouched. Now there’s a smartphone app with a belt that gives you a buzz if your posture slips.Other apps send reminders — by e-mail, text message or pop-up, on-screen alerts — to take medications, go for a run, get an oil change or clean out the refrigerator.As technology aims to help us solve all sorts of mundane problems, smartphones have morphed into digital nags. Repeated “suggestions” from a spouse can grate on the nerves, but users say it’s easier — and less abrasive — to let a device issue the orders.“I’ve set up an alert for my husband for garbage day,” said Sara Swenson, of Cannon Falls, Minnesota, who uses the app Cozi to help keep her family on track. “It’s about trying to get away from the nagging and make it be more of an electronic reminder that it’s garbage day every Tuesday.”Such digital reminders are catching on. Evernote, an organisation app that claims more than 50mn users worldwide, added pop-up reminders in May, saying they were one of the most requested features.Yet it’s unclear whether digital nagging is any more effective than the face-to-face kind. While devices may help us remember the little things, and be less likely to prompt eye rolls, the electronic alerts themselves can become overwhelming.Greg Osterdyk gets five to 10 alerts on his smartphone each day, some from his calendar app, others from a task management app called Remember the Milk.As mayor of Carver, Minnesota, and a business owner, he’s got a lot to remember. “It’s what enables me to handle more projects,” he said. “I can’t keep track of them in my head on my own.”He enters to-dos into the apps, and when the tasks are due, he gets an alert. “I had one today that was telling me there was an advertisement due to the newspaper,” he said recently. “A couple others were calls I need to make, people I need to contact.”For such real-time reminders, a little digital nagging is probably helpful, said Dr Sheila Jowsey, a psychiatrist at the Mayo Clinic. She’s a particular fan of alerts sent by some airline apps that note updated flight information and gate changes.But it is unclear whether nudges from a smartphone alone can alter more important behaviours, such as establishing a fitness routine or quitting smoking, she said.“If you are significantly ambivalent and not quite ready to make that change, after a few reminders you’ll deactivate it,” Jowsey said. “It has to be something where you’ve come to the point in your own mind where you say, ‘Ok, I’m ready for this.’”Then there’s the annoyance factor.Being constantly interrupted, even by reminders that you programmed, can derail productivity, said Audrey Thomas, owner of Organized Audrey. “If I’m focusing on something else and my phone is going off, then I lose focus on what I was working on,” she said.She recommends using technology for communication and organisation, but turning off the alerts, especially for incoming e-mails, which she likens to needy toddlers. “Toddlers come up to you and pull on your pant leg and they never stop until you give them your full attention,” she said. “Put the nagging toddler in the playpen.”Fans of digital alerts say that ability to turn them off is a key difference from human nagging.“The nice thing about these reminders is that we, as individuals, can control them,” said Mark Henderson, division chair for information technology at Mayo, who has been involved in developing its mobile app for patients, which includes a reminder features for upcoming appointments.Technology can also be more consistent in its instruction and less emotional than a human.Everybody has dealt with (and dished out) unrequested reminders, especially with family members. Researchers have found that repeated nagging can cause stress among couples, and even contribute to divorce.“The digital delivery of something just cuts through all those innuendos, hidden meanings that sometimes are included in the spoken word but not in the pop-up text message that you get,” Henderson said.People interested in getting fit are often drawn to apps because the digital nudges offer accountability without any shame or blame, said Shannon Fable, director of exercise programming for Anytime Fitness. The Hastings, a chain of fitness centres offers apps and online tools for tracking workouts, including a feature that lets you schedule specific workouts in advance, and then send an e-mail reminder that day.Other fitness apps, like MapMyRun, will send an alert if it’s been awhile since the last jog. There are even wearable fitness gadgets like FitBit Flex and Jawbone Up that will buzz to remind people to get up and move at set intervals.“Where a device is better than a person, it can be anonymous,” Fable said. “It’s not judging me. It might nag me, but I can turn it off if I hate it.”Indeed, Monisha Perkash, CEO and co-founder of posture app LumoBack, said some people turn to the buzzing belt and related app because the verbal reminders in their lives are getting to be too much.“There are a lot of customers we have who do want their mothers or wives to stop nagging them,” Perkash said. “This is a more gentle way.” — Star Tribune/MCTApple unveils iPhone 5S, 5CBy Dan Nakaso & Troy WolvertonConfirming weeks of rumours, Apple Inc executives unveiled a new, gold-coloured iPhone 5S and a cheaper iPhone 5C designed to appeal to overseas markets.The iPhone 5C borrows a page from Apple’s iPods and will come in multiple colours. Prices start at $99 for a 16GB model and $199 for a 32GB model — both with two-year contracts in the US. The 5C features a case made of plastic, which Apple’s design guru, Jony Ive, described as “beautifully, unapologetically polycarbonate.”Apple marketing head Phil Schiller called the 5C’s higher-end brother, the iPhone 5S, the “most forward-thinking phone ever” that’s been designed to run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications and will include an upgraded camera and a new fingerprint sensor to provide convenient security.Several analysts embraced Apple’s upgraded 5S. “You can’t underestimate how important security has become for consumers,” said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies. “The camera clearly delivers a new set of features, larger pixels, a wide space for images and all these filters. It’s just absolutely stunning. It’ll make the iPhone 5S one of the best smartphone cameras available.”Investors and advertisers also may be impressed by the new phone’s 64-bit upgrade, which Bajarin called the “kind of new processing power that will allow software developers to create even more interesting and powerful applications, not just games. It’ll provide a more intense experience and increase the speed of video and the quality.”The iPhone 5S will cost $199 for a 16GB model, $299 for a 32GB version and $399 for a 64GB model — all for two-year contracts. An “unlocked and contract-free” version carried by T-Mobile will be available for $549 for the 16GB version and $649 for a 32GB model. The iPhone 5S will come in silver, gold and “space grey”.Pre-orders for the iPhone 5C will begin today, and the phones will be available for sale later this month. Apple also will keep its 8GB iPhone 4S, which will be available for free on a two-year contract.“There were no surprises at all,” said Bob O’Donnell, an analyst at technology research firm IDC. “Some people are going to be disappointed.”The iPhone 5C is not a “cheap” version of the iPhone, noted Avi Greengart, an analyst with market research firm Current Analysis. “It’s an iPhone 5, just made out of different material,” Greengart said.Apple’s announcements came as the company arguably needs another hit product. As a company, Apple’s sales growth has slowed to a crawl and its profits have slumped. Meanwhile, its stock price, despite recovering recently, is still down more than 30% from the highs it set last year.While Apple’s iPhone sales have held up better than its tablet and computer sales, they still have been hit by the slowdown in the company’s business. And thanks to that slowing growth, Apple’s market share in smartphones has slumped. In the second quarter, Apple held about 14% of the worldwide smartphone market, compared with about 19% a year earlier, according to Gartner.One of the attention-grabbing aspects of the iPhone 5S is its new level of security aimed at preventing anyone else from accessing the phone. Apple’s fingerprint recognition “Touch ID” sensor, built into the phone’s home button, is designed to scan through the sub-epidermal layer of skin.Fingerprint information will be encrypted and stored inside the A7 chip and will not be backed up to the iCloud or to Apple’s servers, according to an Apple video.The Touch ID technology also can be used to make purchases at any of Apple’s iPhone stores — to buy books, music, movies and apps — without entering a password.Forrester analyst Frank Gillett called the new fingerprint security system “jaw-droppingly easy” and “the first painless biometric I’ve seen.”Tony Cripps, principal device analyst at Ovum, said, “Apple is certainly offering meaningful innovation here. Moving to a 64-bit architecture means Apple can genuinely claim to have brought something new to the smartphone party. It should certainly help the company further cement its lead as a mobile gaming platform and will give the Android fraternity something to think about in a space whose significance is sometimes downplayed beyond the gaming world.”Apple executives began their presentation by announcing that the iOS 7 operating system will be available for download next Wednesday for iPhone 4 models and above and for iPad 2 models and above. — San Jose Mercury News/MCT