Everyone who is anyone, or who would like to be anyone, knows that the apps you have on your iPhone say a lot, well, almost everything, about you.
However, there are a couple of new apps that might truly revolutionize your Christmas and not necessarily in a good way.
The first is called the Background Check App. Not only is it wondrously free, but it also strikes a huge and lasting blow for personal freedom.
You can look around your dinner table this holiday season and, with your usual lithe grace, pull out your iPhone. Using your Background Check app, created by Been Verified, you can discover everything you need to know about the criminal history, property records, and so much more of everyone there.
It could be your neighbors who always seemed too good to be genuinely neighborly. It could be your Aunt Agatha, whose affinity for the schnapps might screen some vital information about her past life and associations.
Background Check was released December 18 and it has already received plaudits from happy iTunes store customers who have previously paid $60 to spy on others.
However, what if you decide to check up on your lover and discover she spent 18 months in an open prison in Connecticut for, um, fraud? How might that affect your experience over the Christmas morning stocking? What if you discover that your parents don't actually own the house in which your gifts are under the Christmas tree? What if you find out your sister regularly bounces checks?
Still, does Background Check have quite the potential to ruin your Christmas enjoyed by Gunman?
Gunman encourages you to enjoy the beauties of augmented reality to participate in "an epic battle with your friends."
Yes, when you hit your opponent, his iPhone will vibrate. You can leap around the rooftops of your neighborhood (please see the embedded Gunman video) before Christmas dinner, shaking your iPhone to reload before you take aim at those closest to you.
But what if, while you attempt to evade a sneaky attack from your cousin Jerome, you slip from the rooftop, fall into the neighbor's garden, bang your head against one of the fishing gnomes and suffer a concussion while Jerome repeatedly zaps you with his iPhone?
What if you suddenly and inexplicably spend the whole of your Christmas dinner revealing your distaste for your half sister, Griselda, by consistently zapping her over the lamb shank? Wouldn't this be augmented reality augmented to the level of dangerous mental instability?
Christmas is supposed to be a time when we embrace the shared values of love, joy, altruism and free food, wine and spirits.
Then along come these two apps, subtly targeted at the "Shared Values of Christmas" market, encouraging you to take physical and emotional risks that might result in anything from paranoia to broken relationships to broken crockery and garden gnomes.
Who on earth would create such things? Perhaps one should Background Check these people.
At heart, are dogs as unpleasant as human beings?
The question pummels at my sinews today because an iPhone app of unusual enlightenment has been brought to my attention.
It's called FidoFactor. And what sets it apart from all those fart-obsessed, teeny-titillating iPhone apps is that, to use a phrase created by the company itself, it's "like Yelp for dogs."
We've all yelped for a dog at some point in our lives, but staring at this concept made me think that this app (and its accompanying site) would be the equivalent of reading reviews from the everyday world written by dogs.
I am sure many people would love to discover which doggy parks have brittle grass and smell like ant excreta. Who wouldn't want to know which street light provides the perfect angle, texture, and general environment for urination?
And just imagine a restaurant review written by a curmudgeonly Pomeranian--"The floor had too many splinters. And the food that dropped from the table reminded me of a garbage can I once inadvertently stumbled into."
However, FidoFactor--currently covering just New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Portland, Ore., falls a little short of every dogged doggy's dreams.
It does keep you informed about dog-friendly locations. Just like many review sites, it offers you various categories by which to judge dog suitability: Dog-friendly tables, leash policy, and--that most vital thing for many pooches--heating.
But that's the point: it offers YOU these things. Everything on Fido Factor is a little too human. Take this restaurant review for the Grove on Fillmore. While giving the Grove five stars, or rather what look like little doggy biscuits, the reviewer writes: "Good food with friendly staff. Owners have rescue pets and have big hearts."
You see, it's all about the humans. Surely, Precious the Pomeranian will want to know about far more basic factors like the lickability of the furniture and the sniffabililty of the floorboards.
Dogs are people, people. They are their own beings with their own feelings. Please let's try and make FidoFactor something that is truly dog-centric. Let's try to elicit what really makes our dogs happy, even if we have to get Cesar Millan to teach us canine language that we then re-interpret into reviews that will be meaningful for dogs.
Only then can Fido Factor truly be a factor in improving a dog's life.
This is one of life's fundamental dilemmas.
You had a couple of beers over dinner. Now you're at the movies, and suddenly you need to go to the restroom.
But you want to know whether the monster with the green eyes, yellow lips, and voice like Charlton Heston will, indeed, eat the heroine before her beau is released by extra-terrestrial terrorists.
Thanks to RunPee.com, your problems are now behind you.
RunPee is dedicated to analyzing movies and working out the precise minute for you to annoy the other 12 people in your row, scuttle off to the restroom, release your lager, and return without missing any significant part of the plot.
You will be relieved to hear that RunPee is now available as an iPhone app, so that you can quietly and surreptitiously be at one with your bladder.
For example, should you be watching "Bruno," the app suggests that the best time to go pee in this rather short movie is 48 minutes in, "just after Baby OJ is taken from Bruno."
However, this app is so useful that it even tells you how long you have before the next interesting moment spurs your excitement. In the Bruno example you have precisely 4 minutes.
Should you be watching "Angels and Demons," RunPee tells you to run to the loo at 1 hour and 10 minutes, because "you won't be missing a thing." Which, for some, might describe the whole movie.
RunPee claims it is already very popular in China, where it gets more visits than the next 10 countries combined.
It is not for me to speculate about the condition of the Chinese bladder. But it is clear that in a world of so many iPhone apps of questionable use, RunPee surely defines indispensibility.
I had just been poured a drink at a bar Saturday night, when the man to my left tapped me on the shoulder.
"That's an 8," he said.
Unsure as to what he was evaluating--my beauty out of 100, perhaps?--I turned toward him very slowly.
"Er, excuse me?" I muttered, squinting at the man's long, straggly hair and rather kind-looking face.
"Your drink is an 8. Normally they pour you a 6," he said.
My silence must have appeared somewhat noisy to him, as Oliver (not his real name) picked up his iPhone and began to explain:
"You see, I'm running an app on my iPhone that tells me how much I can drink before I get into my car. And the lady behind the bar has poured you 8 ounces, not 6."
"So you trust your iPhone to tell you precisely when to stop?" I asked.
"Oh, yeah. I also run a calorie app," said Oliver, a little too enthusiastically.
"What's a calorie app?" I said, dumbly.
"It's an app that tells me exactly how much I should eat every day," he replied. "But it's a bit of a problem to be honest, because when it tells me I'm 300 calories under my limit, I then order a dessert, even though I don't actually feel like eating a dessert."
"So you let these apps tell you what to do and how to live?" I asked, feeling a weird frown forming above my shades. "Don't you realize that half of this techy stuff was designed by people who barely see the light of day, adore only numbers and secretly want you to be a little more like them?"
"Oh, yeah," he said. "I was one of them for 25 years. In fact, I hadn't been anywhere near a computer for a year until I got this iPhone."
(Credit:
CC Yutaka Tsutano/Flickr)
I grabbed at my now 6 ounces of pinot noir a little too hastily as I listened to him explain: "I worked at Apple for 25 years. Huge machines. Back end stuff. Loved working with those machines. Loved being able to tell them what to do."
"So what happened?" I asked, becoming increasingly fascinated by Oliver's openness.
"I just couldn't do it any more. All the things I really wanted to do, I couldn't. Because the machines always took priority. The machines always had to be looked after. Without the back end systems, nothing at Apple could have happened."
"So you were at the mercy of the machines?" I wondered.
"Yeah. I loved them. But I just couldn't take it any more. If I'd stayed another 5 years, I would never have had to work again. But I couldn't do it. So one day I just walked," he said, a curiously guilty joy in his eyes.
"So what are you doing now?" I asked.
"I'm trying to find a life beyond the one I used to have," said Oliver. "I'm traveling, seeing things, having new experiences, learning to play the guitar. I've got a great new business idea, too."
Oliver said he was heading up north because he'd never really been there.
As we said our good-byes I asked Oliver again whether he really needed those iPhone apps to tell him how much to eat and drink.
Still sober, at least according to his iPhone app, he said: "Information is fun, isn't it? But I guess I'm traveling to see what else is fun in this world."
As he thought about it, he told me that he had gone to a music school which, at the end of the course, gets its students to form a band and gets them to play live at a San Francisco venue.
"I love metal," he said. "And so for my song, I chose Sabbath's 'War Pigs'."
"How did it go?" I asked, three ounces in my hand.
"The best feeling I've ever had in my life," he said.
We are all insecure.
Our noses are too big, too small, too pointy from the side. Our hair is too thin, if it exists at all.
And as for our ability to please a member of our target gender in the bedroom, well, admit it, we are all a bit freaked.
So a highly caring and simultaneously enterprising man called Chris Alvares has released an iPhone app that scores us objectively as we strive for sexual Kilimanjaro.
It's called Passion. And its heart is very simple.
In the hard sell at the Apple App Store, Alvares lays it on the line: "Passion works by using all of the iPhone's distinct features such as the microphone, accelerometer and many others to determine an accurate score."
The microphone? The microphone?
"All you have to do," the sweet talk continues, "is to start the application, put your iPhone on the bed, in an arm band, or even in your pocket and have inter*****e, it is as easy as that."
Goodness, that is easy. If a little on the clinical side.
This is the passion fruit flower. I prefer to keep decorum around here.
(Credit: CC Nganguyen/Flickr)While I wouldn't wish to comment on, or even discover, what anyone does while they are having inter*****e, I wonder just how comfortable it might be with an iPhone stuck in your pocket.
Come to think of it, the pocket of your what exactly? Don't most people, other than men in movies, remove their clothes for this activity?
And the "arm band" presumably refers to the sweaty thing you wear in the gym. Lordy, can that really add to the, um, passion of it all?
The words on the app itself are also strangely heartstopping. You know when the app is ready to score when it shows the somewhat schoolteacher-ish words: "You may start having sex."
Then there's the scoring system. You are scored on three basic parameters: duration, orgasm, and activity. And, just like many video games, when you are finished you are asked to submit your score or, um, "try again."
The app itself, which costs $4.99, has not yet been rated at the App Store.
States that are low on funds are steadily inhaling the idea of taxing the sale of a substance that gets you high.
Meanwhile, as if anticipating an uptick in demand, the folks at Apple have approved a new iPhone and iPod Touch app that will allow a little more mobile access to the soothing properties of marijuana.
Called "Cannabis" it is, according to Salem-News.com, an app that allows you to hold between your fingertips everything you need to facilitate your marijuana experience.
Your legal marijuana experience, that is.
Some states--California being in the surprising vanguard--have made the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes legal.
(Credit:
CC R0bz/Flickr)
The Cannabis app's first step, therefore, is helping you find a doctor who can approve your deep medicinal need.
If your medical condition is deemed to be sufficiently pressing, the app then directs you to the nearest medical-marijuana facilities. Yes, it offers precise directions, just in case you aren't feeling at your most alert.
It even offers you the finest and most responsible locations of marijuana coffee shops in, say, Amsterdam, should you happen to have wandered to those parts.
However, it doesn't stop there.
Should you find yourself in some untoward legal kerfuffle in relation to your marijuana use, a quick sideways glance at the Cannabis app will find you the location of the nearest and finest lawyer who specializes in marijuana-related cases.
The app is the creation of AJNAG.com, which describes itself as a "cannabis lifestyle network."
According to Cannabisapps.com, AJNAG.com "will donate 50 cents for every 'Cannabis' purchase to a cannabis nonprofit reform fund, which will be set up once the application reaches 1,000 subscriptions."
There is something to be enjoyed in the language the organization uses: "Our goal is to put the power of cannabis change in your pocket while you enjoy the most sticky and potent iPhone application available!"
Sticky and potent. Yes, exactly the words to describe the finest iPhone apps.
Ten days ago, it was one of the gods of rock. Now it's, well, God.
An iPhone app called "Me So Holy," that allowed you take a face shot and insert it into a portrait of Jesus or some other religious figure, has been rejected by Apple's tasterati.
Apple seems to have rejected the app with the same arguments it used to initially reject the Nine Inch Nails app update (which it subsequently approved).
It is not always easy to judge what is religiously tasteful. And what isn't.
(Credit: CC Simone Hudson/Flickr)Section 3.3.12 in the iPhone agreement states: "Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple's reasonable judgment may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users."
The "Me So Holy" developer, Benjamin Kahle, is wondering just what was so offensive or objectionable.
On his own site, he wrote: "You may be familiar with recent snafus over the baby shaker app and the rejection of the Nine Inch Nails apps. Our question is, is religion really to be placed in the same category as these violent apps? Sex, urine and defecation don't seem to be off-limits, yet a totally non-violent, religion-based app is."
He added: "We feel that Apple is being too sensitive to its perceived user group and are disappointed that this otherwise creative, freethinking company would reject such a positive and fun application. The message to developers is that they should think inside the box, rather than outside it.
Clearly, such apps are suffering the after-effects of the Baby Shaker eruption. Oh, Lordy.
Still somewhere between perplexed and apoplectic after Apple had rejected the new Nine Inch Nails iPhone app update, the band's frontman, Trent Reznor, expressed himself very clearly on NIN's blog forum.
Neatly emphasizing his point with a quite liberal use of the kinds of words that Apple appears to find uncomfortable, Reznor compared Apple's attitude with that of, startlingly, Wal-Mart Stores:
"And while we're at it, I'll voice the same issue I had with Wal-Mart years ago, which is a matter of consistency and hypocrisy. Wal-Mart went on a rampage years ago insisting all music they carry be censored of all profanity and 'clean' versions be made for them to carry."
Seemingly not pausing for breath, he continued: "Bands (including Nirvana) tripped over themselves editing out words, changing album art, etc to meet Wal-Mart's standards of decency--because Wal-Mart sells a lot of records. NIN refused, and you'll notice a pretty empty NIN section at any Wal-Mart."
"My reasoning was this: I can understand if you want the moral posturing of not having any 'indecent' material for sale--but you could literally turn around 180 degrees from where the NIN record would be and purchase the film 'Scarface' completely uncensored, or buy a copy of Grand Theft Auto where you can be rewarded for beating up prostitutes. How does that make sense?"
He ends his message with: "Come on Apple, think your policies through and for f***'s sake get your app approval scenario together."
On his Twitter feed, Reznor also linked to a post from his developer:
"v1.0 is live. v1.0.3 got rejected due to content yet the app has no content in it. this was mainly a stability release to fix the bug that crashes the app for international users. the bug was fixed 24 hours after 1.0 went live and we have been waiting for apple to approve it ever since. meanwhile the app continues to get a growing number of 1 star ratings from international users understandably frustrated by the bug. but looks like our hands are tied."
The developer added: "Apple is not allowing us to make the current app more stable because there is "objectionable" content online (yes on the internet). so we are essentially not allowed to fixed bugs unrelated to the issue."
However, perhaps undercutting Reznor's apparent intransigence, the developer said: "We removed the song 'The Downward Spiral' from the server, hoping to appease apple and get this bug fix through. however i have yet to receive a reply."
I have a feeling a reply will be there shortly.
For a man who has been responsible for some of the more industrial lyrics in the music history, Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor has taken rejection by Apple with a relatively sanguine spirit.
On discovering that Apple has refused to approve NIN's latest iPhone app update, he tweeted: "Apple rejects the NIN iPhone update because it contains objectionable content. The objectionable content referenced is 'The Downward Spiral.'" ("The Downward Spiral" is a 1994 album that laces a touch of earthy nihilism into a musical screwdriver of heavy psychological meltdown.)
Reznor then added in a follow-up tweet: "Not even sure where to start with that one."
Well, he might like to start with the fact that the very same content, with lyrics on the track "Closer" that suggest the author would like to have rather rough, bestial intercourse with his lover, is still happily available for close scrutiny on iTunes. And, according to MG Siegler at TechCrunch, who is in possession of one, on the first version of the already approved NIN iPhone app.
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