Appily Ever After? The Smartphone as Shrink

As the world became more complicated and full of anxieties, many of us traded our Magic 8 Balls for therapists and self-help gurus. (“Will I find true love?” Answer: “First, you need to learn to love yourself.”)

But now a proliferation of psychology smartphone apps — with names like BreakkUp, iStress and myinstantCOACH — purports to help us live happier, less anxious lives. As Mark McGonigle, a therapist in Kansas City, Mo., who invented the app Fix a Fight, puts it: “Electronic devices don’t have to drive us apart. They can bring us together.” Which sounds so good. A few bucks and a lot of squinting into my phone: that certainly beats a $300-an-hour psychiatrist, right?

But can an algorithm iron out the kinks in our existence? Will I be able to get my kids to do their homework, or calm down, or simply get my husband to stop nagging, all by following the protocol of these apps? I decided to test them against the stressors of my own less-than-peaceful life: work, cranky husband, twin 11-year-old boys.

Over the course of two weeks, I did a lot of screen tapping — just as I used to spend hours shaking that Magic 8 Ball — and discovered the pleasures, and frustrations, of making my smartphone my shrink.

Fix a Fight

“Communication: it’s the sine qua non of a good marriage,” says Fix a Fight’s Mr. McGonigle and, you know, everyone else.

My problem: It is tax season, so my husband and I are barely speaking. He is the kind of person who likes his receipts carbon-dated. I am not the best record keeper. Let me rephrase that: I am not a record keeper. We’ve been having the same panicky discussions for years, usually right before we go to sleep. They go like this.

John: “Did you see that you are getting Comcast dividend checks? I thought you sold that.”

Judith: “I’ll find out tomorrow.”

John: “Oh, and do we have enough money in the checking account?”

Judith: “For God’s sake, shut up. I can’t take it anymore. You know that when I’m tired I don’t want to think about money.”

The process: My reaction is not, strictly speaking, what Fix a Fight would advise. The app instead shows how a fight is really a “golden opportunity for intimacy” if you process the emotions correctly. This involves: naming your feelings, identifying with your partner’s story, taking responsibility for your actions and describing how the fight will be different next time.

So, John and I identify our feelings (anxiety is big on his list, exasperation on mine) and are instructed to explain our positions to each other.

John: “Why are you typing this discussion into your phone?”

Judith: “Never mind, just talk.”

John’s feelings: “It’s all your fault, because it would be the simplest thing to hold on to your pay stubs.”

Judith’s feelings: “I want a divorce.”

Unfortunately, John and I never made it to the next steps because by that time we were already sleeping in separate rooms.

Conclusion: My failure is not the fault of the app. It seems a sound approach, if you have two people willing to concede some ground. This was not going to happen.

MoodKit

My problem: On the moodiness scale, I wouldn’t say I’m Sybil, but I wouldn’t say I’m June Cleaver, either.

The process: MoodKit, devised by two psychologists, is one of those whiz-bang apps that has so many things going on, you think you need a tutor just to learn how to use it. That puts me in a bad mood — which I can then track in my daily mood tracker. Other things I can do: read the 150-plus mood-lifting activities like “create something,” “choose your friends wisely” (Who has time for friends? I’ve got moods to track), “identify and write down three things you appreciate today.” And so forth.

Microsoft Profit Falls as PC Sales Shrink

The software company, based in Redmond, Wash., said net income for its fiscal first quarter which ended Sept. 30, dropped 22 percent to $4.47 billion, or 53 cents a share, compared to $5.74 billion, or 68 cents a share, for the year-earlier period.

Revenue was $16 billion, down 8 percent from $17.37 billion a year before. Microsoft deferred the recognition of $1.36 billion in revenue in the quarter because of software upgrade offers and the sale of copies of Windows 8 before its official release. But even if that had been included in the quarter, Microsoft’s revenue would have been flat.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected Microsoft to report earnings of 56 cents a share and revenue of $16.42 billion. Microsoft’s shares fell more than 1 percent in after-hours trading.

The results reflected the grim market for personal computers, the technology from which Microsoft still derives much of its sales and profit in one way or another. Smartphones, tablets and other devices have been taking in more and more money that might have once been spent on PCs. The soft economy has not helped PC sales either.

Signs of the personal computer slump are everywhere. The research firm IDC recently reported that PC shipments declined 8.6 percent globally in the last quarter, much worse than it had expected. Intel, the primary maker of chips that power PCs, said this week that its sales and profit fell because of weakness in the market.

Microsoft expects Windows 8 to help bolster the overall PC market, though Peter Klein, Microsoft’s chief financial officer, declined in an interview Thursday to say how significant it would be. The earliest adopters of new versions of Microsoft’s operating systems tend to be consumers rather than businesses, a pattern Mr. Klein said he expected to continue with Windows 8.

Microsoft said revenue from its core Windows operating system declined 33 percent to $3.24 billion,though it declined 9 percent if Microsoft had not deferred revenue related to Windows 8. Even the Microsoft division that includes its Office applications, which also tends to benefit from sales of new PCs, had a decline in revenue — 2 percent in the quarter to $5.5 billion.

Mr. Klein also said Microsoft had strong sales to corporate customers, many of whom tend to buy software through big multiyear contracts. But Mr. Klein said the company’s results suffered because of “challenges in the PC environment,” especially the consumer market. During the first two months of the quarter, he said, retailers cleared out PCs running older versions of Windows in anticipation of new Windows 8 machines, which they began ordering late in the quarter.

One reason Microsoft has suffered is that it has had trouble capitalizing on the growth in mobile devices. Its Windows Phone operating system has made little progress in halting the momentum of Apple’s iPhone and devices running Google’s Android software.

The huge success of the iPad has started to eat into sales of low-end laptops, though no one in the industry is sure by precisely how much. The planned release of Windows 8 on Oct. 26 will be Microsoft’s most serious effort yet to take part in the surge in interest among consumers and businesses in tablet computers.

Microsoft has radically changed the operating system to take better advantage of touch-screen devices, though it is also aimed at more conventional PCs operated with a keyboard and mouse. With Windows 8, Microsoft is also preparing to release a tablet of its own design, called Surface, that will go on sale for a starting price of $500 on Oct. 26. (Surface will use a variation of the Windows 8 operating system called Windows RT.)

Some analysts say that they believe fears about Microsoft’s deteriorating future are overblown, and that the PC market is still very large. “People want to make it like the last PC was shipped,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners. “Yes, it’s in decline, but it’s not dead.”

Most of Microsoft’s other divisions experienced declines or little growth in the quarter.

The revenue of the company’s entertainment and devices division, which includes one of the company’s biggest consumer hits, the Xbox 360, fell 1 percent to $1.95 billion, as the console showed further signs of age.