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Mobile & Wireless: Kill Time with 15 Totally Useless iPhone Apps


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Apple recently announced that more than 2 billion applications for the iPhone and the iPod Touch had been downloaded from its App Store, which now catalogs over 85,000 free and paid apps. Many of those apps have demonstrable use for both business users and consumers; however, for every one that ports some vital functionality onto your iPhone, the App Store boasts another dozen that have absolutely no use whatsoever, except maybe to amuse those very easily amused. The following 15 apps fall into the category of especially useless.
 
  • Kill Time with 15 Totally Useless iPhone Apps
    by Nicholas Kolakowski
  • Name: iBug
    Price: $2.99
    "From the wacky creators of iBeer," boasts the App Store description for this app, which sets a virtual ladybug and cockroach scurrying over your device's screen. Users can feed, tickle and even shake the little vermin.
  • Name: iBeer
    Price: $0.99
    One of the more well-known "useless" apps, iBeer turns the iPhone or iPod Touch screen into a full pint of beer, which can then be "sipped" by tilting the device. Shaking the iPhone will make the beer "foam."
  • Name: Lightsaber Unleashed
    Price: Free
    "Star Wars" fans out there might get a kick out of this app, which lets you customize and then draw and swing around (with appropriate sound effects) a lightsaber. Except you can't actually duel with other iPhone owners, which somewhat limits the experience.
  • Name: Paranormal Recorder
    Price: $2.99
    The usefulness of this App is directly proportional not just to how much you believe in the spirit world, but to whether you believe that the spirit world and its "electromagnetic radiation fluctuations" can be picked up using an iPhone 3G S—the only model that ghosts are apparently willing to communicate with.
  • Name: BubbleWrap
    Price: Free
    Many bubble-wrap-popping apps exist in the App Store, but this one claims to be the original. Your goal, should you be really, really, really bored, is to pop bubble wrap by tapping the screen.
  • Name: More Cowbell!
    Price: $0.99
    Never mind that the whole Christopher Walken-inspired "More cowbell" meme is older than dirt—a number of apps will let you ring a cowbell by tapping the screen repeatedly, sometimes in conjunction with a power song from your music library. Guaranteed to irritate anyone within a 10-yard radius.
  • Name: Knock on Wood
    Price: Free
    The superstitious iPhone or iPod Touch owner now has a virtual slab of wood to tap on. Except it's not actually, well, wood ...
  • Name: Cow Toss
    Price: $0.99
    The painful convergence between the iPhone and apps with the word "cow" in their titles continues with "Cow Toss," which lets the user flick his or her finger and send a virtual cow flying into space. There's also a scoring system that nobody can seem to figure out.
  • Name: Hold the Button
    Price: Free
    This app displays a fingerprint on your screen, which you're expected to press until, well, you feel bored. "Think [you're] patient?" the App Store description reads. "Think you have willpower?" Think you don't have enough to do?
  • Name: Taxi Hold'em
    Price: Free
    As if a raised hand weren't enough, this iPhone app flashes "TAXI" in black and yellow, supposedly attracting hacks to your location like moths to flame. It also features a whistle, activated by tapping the screen.
  • Name: National Threat Advisory
    Price: Free
    If you're the type who walks around wondering whether the day's official terrorist threat level is yellow, orange or red, then this is the app for you.
  • Name: I Am Poor
    Price: $0.99
    A variant on the near-notorious "I Am Rich" App, which cost a lot of money and the only function of which was to display a large jewel, this app displays a single penny.
  • Name: Rubber Duck
    Price: Free
    Press the rubber duck and watch it squeak. Repeat until you decide to do something productive.
  • Name: Moo
    Price: Free
    The cow's reign of terror in the App Store continues with this app, which makes a "moo" sound when you flip the phone upside down. "It may amuse your 3-year-old for several minutes," says the description. Truth in advertising right there.
  • Name: Snow
    Price: Free
    If you ever wanted your iPhone or iPod Touch screen to snow, now's your chance.
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