App Slap

When I purchased my first smartphone earlier this year I looked forward to having an app for this and an app for that. Apple’s commercials made smartphone apps sound like the Swiss army knife of our times. I couldn’t wait to indulge in the whole app experience.

After three months of indulging I’d have to say I’m unimpressed. For one, apps are slow, at least on my Droid they are. I have an app called Barcode Reader which theoretically can read any barcode. While I will say that it works with most barcodes it is also slow and cumbersome. Saturday night, while enjoying a bottle of Woop Woop at CoHo I decided to scan the bottles barcode to see if I could determine the restaurants markup. Eventually I got the information I was looking for but by that time Mama Wordbones had grown tired of me sitting at dinner and playing with my phone.

I also have an app called Where. This is a very popular app that supposedly will point you to things like the cheapest gas prices nearby. Fail, it was off today by $.08 a gallon. I have another app called Yelp that will tell you where the nearest restaurant is. Today, in Town Center it directed me to Bennigans which has been closed long before anyone even heard of an app and it got three stars to boot!

It’s not like these programs haven’t been updated either. It seems like every week I receive notices to update my Where and Yelp. I am no longer certain it is worth the bother.

On the other hand I suppose the Swiss army knife is a fitting comparison. I mean I probably used the magnifying glass on my Swiss army knife about as many times as I‘ll use Yelp.