Does calling an app "the Instapaper" with a definite article suggest a non-technical speaker?

Listening to an episode of a tech podcast with very tech-literate persons talking, I noticed them saying things like "I use the Tweetbot", for the iPhone app "Tweetbot", or "building the Instapaper", for the iPhone app "Instapaper". They don't use the definite article all of the time: they mostly talk about apps without "the".

As a non-native English speaker, this sounds wrong to me. I interpret it as a parody of someone not very familiar with technology, but I'm not sure my intuitions are accurate.

I certainly see how a tech-literate person would say "I used the calendar" for the iPhone app "Calendar", but with a less generic name like "Tweetbot" or "Instapaper", I get the impression they're aiming to be funny. Or that they were at one point aiming to be funny, and now they do it by rote, as with "funny" expressions like "What can I do you for?"

Would you say I have this right, or does "the Instapaper" not suggest a non-technical speaker to you? I'm guessing users of this site are technical enough to tell.

Solution 1:

I think it's contextual. For example:

When I get on the Internet, I often visit the EL&U board.

I think removing the articles in that sentence would make me sound more like a non-native speaker.

Still, you have a point. I probably wouldn't say:

I used the Twitter yesterday, after I logged off of the Facebook.

Solution 2:

I think you're referring to one particular point when, in the podcast, one person said:

"Just for the sake of having some kind of a contrivance, can we act like I don’t know that much stuff about computers?"

But this statement is not connected at all to the fact that they sometimes use Proper Nouns of applications or services together with the definite Article "The." Like you said yourself, most of the time they used the names without "The."

One example about Instapaper also goes something like: "... you're sitting there while waiting for the Instapaper to get made..."

But that most probably just means the Instapaper article.

Finally, I think if they were indeed parodying non-technical people, they would still keep it pretty perceptible that they were doing exactly that.