iPhone App Reviews

pour1out

Michael (Admin) | Aug 15, 2008 Entertainment

User rating: (2 votes, average: 1.00 out of 5)

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Another entry from the Totally Useless file… pour1out! This poorly executed (and poorly disguised) ploy to sell 40 oz. “cozies” to dress up your bottle of St. Ides is pretty funny in a bad, stereotypically ghetto way.

Pour1out lures you in with the promise of being able to pour a virtual 40 oz. bottle by tilting your iPhone to and fro. This concept has been done several times by several different apps but the thing that sets this one apart is that it’s incredibly bad at pouring.

Tilt your iPhone and watch the bottle of foamy yellow liquid tip slightly, ‘relieve itself’ of a pitifully small amount of its contents, and then suddenly fly out of frame only to appear again for an encore. Wow! So not worth the download.

If the sight of a clear bottle that looks like it’s just been used as a urinal is distasteful to you (elitist!), tap the info button and you can cover it with a themed cozy that looks like a bandana, a designer knockoff pattern, or the always-classy tuxedo tshirt. And, if you super-love that cozy, of course there’s a link to 40cozy’s website where they’ll gladly help you pimp out a real-life bottle in exchange for a few dollars and all of your self-respect.

Your last, and best, option is to just tell the app to find you a place (via iPhone’s GPS map) to get some real booze so you can get hammered and try to forget about the three minutes of your life you just flushed down the toilet by installing pour1out.

Tags: free, funny, mature, useless

Boleas

Michael (Admin) | Aug 14, 2008 Games

User rating: (2 votes, average: 1.00 out of 5)

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I’ve reviewed some pretty bad applications but I’ve never said what I’m about to say about this “game” by JRP App AZ:

BOLEAS IS REEEEEETAAAAAAARDED

You’ve been warned. Install at your own risk.

Tap. Bounce. Tap. Bounce. Snore.

Tags: free, simple, useless

SpeedType

Michael (Admin) | Aug 14, 2008 Utilities

User rating: (No Ratings Yet)

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SpeedType is supposed to test your iPhone typing speed. Sounds good in theory… everyone wants to know how fast they can tap out messages on the iPhone, right? Well everyone’s just gonna have to keep waiting because SpeedType is a complete waste of space.

There are so many things wrong with this app that I’m not even sure where to begin…

SpeedType has only one sentence for “testing” your typing speed
Yes, ONE sentence. And after you’ve typed it once, your chances of scoring better the next time you type it (if you even bother) automatically improve just by virtue of learning from repetition.

SpeedType doesn’t employ the built-in keyboard assists that iPhone users are used to
Automatic capitalization of the first letter, auto-insert of a period at the end of a sentence, auto-insert of apostrophes, predictive spellcheck… with these typing refinements even my dog could probably manage 30 wpm. This pointless app makes the assumption that the keyboard is way dumber than it is, and that makes the test completely inaccurate.

SpeedType doesn’t tally your mistakes, it treats them as roadblocks
If you don’t type a character correctly, you don’t type anything at all. The app will simply refuse to let you type anymore until you put in the correct character. Any decent typing test would let you make mistakes so that you can learn from them.

SpeedType doesn’t give you a score until you insert a space after the period at the end of its lone sentence
I finished my “typing test” and was like “ok now wtf do I do”. After tapping around for some clues, I accidentally hit the space bar and was presented with my score.

SpeedType measures your score in “CPM”: characters per minute
Wow, that’s so incredibly valuable. And not what I wanted to know in the first place.

With a few notable exceptions, I generally try to be at least a little sympathetic to free apps for just that reason… because they’re free and beggars usually shouldn’t be choosers. But developers don’t build free apps for the good of humanity - if nothing else, they’re looking to gain credibility and get their name out there as a legitimate contender in the App Store. Even if this is one of those so-called “practice apps” for getting used to the development process it’s just bad bad bad. Sorry DC & Co., but releasing SpeedType in this form was a mistake.

If the itch to test your typing still needs to be scratched, give iphonetypingtest.com a try. It’s not perfect, but it’s miles ahead of SpeedType.

Tags: free, useless

National Threat Advisory

Michael (Admin) | Aug 12, 2008 News

User rating: (1 votes, average: 2.00 out of 5)

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And now, for Funniest Unintentional Joke in the App Store… the award goes to… ThroughPut Inc.’s NATIONAL THREAT ADVISORY!  (cue roaring laughter)

National Threat Advisory, or Threat Level for short according to the icon, claims to be querying the Department of Homeland Security for the current threat level in George Bush and Tom Ridge’s genius paint-by-numbers warning system. Whether or not it’s actually doing that is immaterial since pretty much everyone I’ve shown this to has either busted out laughing or chastised me for being a dumbass.

According to Threat Level’s description in the App Store, the National Threat Advisory system’s purpose for existing is “so that protective measures can be implemented to reduce the likelihood or impact of an attack.” Well that sounds like a job for iPhone users!

Attention all Americans, you must install this app on your iPhones immediately. Those not in compliance will be reported to the House Un-American Activities Committee which is still operating out of an underground bunker buried deep beneath Mount Rushmore.

Tags: free, funny, useless

I Am Rich Update

Michael (Admin) | Aug 6, 2008 Updates

User rating: (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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I went back to the App Store to see when Armin Heinrich added I Am Rich, and whaddya know… it’s gone! Score one for internet outrage. If it weren’t for all the people bashing it on message boards, within iTunes, through social media outlets, and on blogs like this one, it would probably still be there.

I’ll bet there are thousands of app-developer-wannabes who have already started crafting their very own little $999.99 scams and they’re all gonna be very disappointed to find out that Apple apparently won’t be letting I Am Rich set a very bad precedent. In fact, I have to wonder if the sudden shutdown of Armin’s little experiment was precipitated by a flood of copycats? Regardless of why it’s gone, I’m just glad it is.

I can already hear iPhone and iTouch users letting out a collective sigh of relief. I Am Rich was dangerously close to steering the App Store into some very dark territory.

Tags: scam, useless

I Am Rich

Michael (Admin) | Aug 6, 2008 Lifestyle

User rating: (7 votes, average: 1.71 out of 5)

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I’m not rich… I’m poor! And something tells me Armin Heinrich isn’t rich either, otherwise he wouldn’t be panhandling in the App Store.

Without a doubt the most expensive “application” (cough) out there, I Am Rich is the first, and probably last, app I will ever attempt to review without actually buying and using it first. Here’s his sales pitch (verbatim, typos and all):

Art & Livestyle – Not for everyone

Yes, “livestyle”. And he’s right, it’s not for everyone unless everyone happens to be high on crack.

The red icon on your iPhone or iPod touch always reminds you (and others when you show it to them) that you were able to afford this.

It will also remind you (and others) that you’re a dumbass.

It’s a work of art with no hidden function at all.

Translation: This so-called “application” is designed to be 100% useless.

After pressing the (i) on the main page, a secret mantra will be shown. This may help you to to stay rich, healthy and successful.

My guess is the secret mantra goes something like this: THANKS FOR THE MONEY, SUCKER. Somehow I doubt that’s going to do anything for your finances, health, or lifetime achievements.

If it’s expensive for you – check out my other apps – they are all much cheaper.

The only other app under Armin Heinrich is the hideous Calc Pro for $4.99. Whatever it calculates, you can bet your ass it doesn’t do enough to justify that price tag (plenty of other calculator apps are free or $.99 and are made by professionals). But at least Calc does something.

Armin’s not-so-clever plea for cash isn’t just bordering on scam territory, it’s also sending a very bad message to the rest of the development community: Apple approves crap, so go ahead and try to get some easy money any way you can. Meanwhile, the immensely useful (and free) BoxOffice remains in App Store Purgatory. What’s wrong with this picture?

If you don’t want the App Store to be overrun by “I Am Rich” copycats, maybe you should take a minute to tell Apple what you think of I Am Rich via this form on Apple.com. They force you to put your inquiry into a category, so I recommend Purchase(s) problem > This item sounds or looks bad. It may be out of context but it’s actually very accurate.

If enough people speak up they just might pull it and make the necessary changes to their approval process.

Tags: scam, useless

iRepublican

Michael (Admin) | Aug 4, 2008 Lifestyle

User rating: (2 votes, average: 1.00 out of 5)

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Exactly the same and every bit as useless as iDemocrat (it’s not an actual app, just a static image). Here, point your iPhone browser to this pic and save yourself the trouble of installing this sad excuse for an “application”:

Tags: free, useless

iDemocrat

Michael (Admin) | Aug 4, 2008 Lifestyle

User rating: (2 votes, average: 1.00 out of 5)

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From iDemocrat’s description in the iPhone App Store:

“UPDATE: We have decided to make this available for free”

Wow. I feel really bad for the suckers who paid for this “application” which basically amounts to the static image below. Seriously, that’s all there is - it’s an image. Shekhar Yadav claims he is “working on integrating twitter kind of interface behind this” but even so… do we really need another Twitter app? Ummm, I’m pretty sure Twitterific, Twittelator, Twittervision, GPSTwit, ShoZu, CellSpin, Twinkle, Jott, and AirMe have that area covered.

Shekhar, if you were President I’d impeach you on behalf of everyone who installed your “app” for wasting our time!

(Looking for iRepublican?)

Skip the install, just point your iPhone to this image's URL and you get the exact same effect

 http://www.iphoneappreviews.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/idemocrat.jpg

Tags: free, useless

LOLCats

Michael (Admin) | Aug 1, 2008 Entertainment

User rating: (2 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)

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If you’ve never seen the inexplicably popular website “I Can Has Cheezburger?” this is what you’re missing:

Hilarious... if you're 90

So now that you’ve seen what Cheezburger is all about you never have to go there, right? Yes, exactly. And even if you think that kind of thing is sooooooo incredibly cute that you can’t get enough, all you have to do is download LOLCats and you’ve got an awesome copycat (pun totally intended) right in the palm of your hand!

LOLCats “searches Flickr for images tagged LOLCAT or LOLCATS and shows them”. Indeed, it shows them well. It shows them all day. I flicked my way through 63 different images which, apparently, is living proof that people on Flickr are Cat Crazy. Some are even Panda Crazy, but they obviously crave the kind of attention you can only get from LOLCats. Check the screenshots to see what I mean.

Downside? I mean, aside from having to endure an endless gallery of poor, misunderstood kitties? It seems that every time you exit LOLCats and then relaunch it, you start from the beginning. I don’t know… and I don’t have the patience to find out… if the starting point changes over time as Flickr’s database probably changes, but you’ve been warned. Once you dive into LOLCats you better keep diving unless you want to relive the entire parade of (mostly) feline idiocy.

Tags: free, funny, useless

Esteem Aid

Michael (Admin) | Aug 1, 2008 Entertainment

User rating: (1 votes, average: 1.00 out of 5)

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OMG here we go again! Didn’t I just say in my previous post that utter uselessness is now trendy in the iPhone App Store?

Esteem Aid serves one purpose which is to heap praise on you. Launch the app and your iPhone serves up a very sincere compliment that could be anything from “You are a good person” to “You’re my hero” to “I wish I could be like you”. You can fish for more compliments by giving the iPhone a good shake.

I know it’s a joke, but I do have one legitimate complaint… the way compliments dissolve into each other doesn’t match the shaking motion. This is the sequence of events when you’re feeling down and need digital affirmation:

You are so sexy!

(shake iPhone)

(slow dissolve)

Your Cat wishes she could be like you.

Doesn’t that seem anticlimactic? Shouldn’t the next compliment in line come swooping in from nowhere, or at least fall into place with a good thump? Eh. Oh well. Maybe I’m just an idiot.

You are really smart.

Thanks Esteem Aid!

Tags: free, funny, useless