As we already know, some apps are intended to do just one thing. For example, the app Mistletoe is just supposed to show you a picture of a sprig of mistletoe, so you can get some holiday action.
Ho ho holly.
Of course, this is a big fail, because that’s not what mistletoe looks like. In fact, that’s holly.
Mistletoe: rounded leaves, white berries. Get a clue.
Not to worry. Lots of people make this mistake. Even CNN.
Merry Xmas.
Rudolph the Who? Sorry, doesn't sound familiar.
Shazam is good at identifying Top 40 tunes. In other words, it identifies songs EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS. That’s like an encyclopedia that only has entries on how water tastes or what warmth is.
Insult, meet injury. I think you should be homies.
If all the indie and classical and jazz labels got together and made their own alternative to Shazam, I would buy it. For $0.99, anyway. Because that is what I need identified. Not Muse. Not Lady Gaga. Not Taylor Swift.
Are you kidding me?
An app to die for -- probably via a heart attack from those clogged arteries.
If you remember the Internet when it first became available for public and commercial use around 1995, you probably remember weird online games that were not really games at all, but which appeared on websites that were for totally unrelated products. For example, I once played some ridiculous flash game where you had to maneuver animated keys into the mouth of an animated clown or something, which was on the website for the 1997 film The Game. This flash game had nothing whatsoever to do with the movie.
It was clear back then that these corporations knew they had to get involved with the Internet, but somehow did not know or comprehend what that meant, so they took their best guess and ended up with silly games. Flash forward to the iPhone.
What makes Pizza Hut’s iPhone app so insidious is that it is kind of fun. I mean, pizza is always fun, but this app takes it to a whole new level. Instead of just clicking on the name of the item you want to order, and the variety (sauce, topping, etc.) you get to use the iPhone’s touch screen to manipulate the product you want. Resize the pizza, pour the sauce on the hot wings, and soon enough, you’re forgetting that a medium-sized pepperoni pizza has 2080 calories, 96 grams of fat, and 4720 milligrams of sodium.
Pizza Hut app: Accurately simulating the act of preparing wings in hell since 2009.
But while this is fun, it’s not as fun as it could be. Apparently. Because you can also race your delivery truck through a street filled with car-sized hot wings and pizza boxes as big as a baseball diamond. No, I am not kidding.
Seems straightforward.
Hey iPhone user. You paid $200 for your handheld mobile device and $50 a month for your data plan. What’s that going to cost you per year?
You don’t know? Is that because you can’t perform simple addition? Is it because you were hit on the head with a softball? Either way, here’s the app for you. It helps you learn to count. Which is an overrated skill, to be sure, but you like having skills, don’t you?
What if I don't like strawberries?
I’m a little concerned that the press release for this app declares it is for ages “3+.” Can we do something about that “plus” in there? Maybe an upper bound, like ages 3-9? The plus makes it seem like this app is just as appropriate for a 5-year-old as it is for a 55-year-old. And I know we’re all getting dumber, but I hope we’re not that dumb.
More importantly, how many 3-year-olds do you know with an iPhone? I haven’t asked around, but I think most kids that age can’t really afford it. The average salary for a toddler in the United States is $1, and that’s only because those actor babies are skewing the median. Maybe there’s some age discrimination at work in the job market or something.
