by Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Monday, July 13, 2009
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The iPhone App Store launched a year ago with 500 applications. Today it has more than 55,000. Some are useful - many are plain stupid. With help from Krapps.com's Alex Miro, we've picked out some of the dumbest.


From: iTunes

1. iNap@Work

Developer: SilentLogic Studios
Price: $0.99

This app promises to generate random office sounds -- mouse clicks, keyboard taps, pencil sharpeners, coughs, and rustling paper -- to give power-nappers some cover. Little sliders are supposed to control your "productivity" level and the frequency of each sound.

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In our tests, however, the noises were a little too random to sound convincing. Besides, which is worse: to get caught napping, or to get caught using a lame iPhone app to pretend that you aren't?

2. Zips

Developer: Jake Landon
Price: $0.99

(Also available in a free version, Zips Lite)

"Zippers," reads the promotional copy. "Sexy, suggestive, and seductive." OK. But what's the point of a virtual zipper that you can drag up and down until the fun -- and the sexiness -- wears off?

To keep things lively the app comes with underwear you can change with a tap of the finger. The $0.99 version includes a camera icon that lets you add your own suggestive pictures.

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3. Hold the Button

Developer: Me Mundo iPhone SL
Price: Free

Here's the deal: The image of a fingerprint appears on the screen, you put your finger on it and hold it there. Keep holding. And holding. Forever. Or until you remember that you have a life.

The game is supposed to be a test of patience or stamina or will power or something. When you finally give in, you can compare your score with slackers all over the world.

4. Sexy Girl Talk - Sexy Alphabet Deluxe

Developer: theM Dev
Price: $0.99

From the creators of such classic apps as Moronizer and Angry Kittens Attack comes the 26 letters of the alphabet spoken by a "professional voice model...in a sexual and sophisticated way." Sexual enough, apparently, for Apple to rate this application 12+ for "Infrequent/Mild Sexual Content or Nudity."

You could have fooled us. What's it good for? The developer -- for whom English is apparently a second language -- offers several suggestions: "Listen to some Sexy Alphabet. Listen to some nice pronunciation. Fun for all the guys."

5. Taxi Hold'em

Developer: iSignz
Price: Free

Designed for tourists who fear that big-city cabbies will ignore their waves and whistles and drive on by, this app does the whistling for you. And when you tilt your iPhone horizontally, it flashes the word "TAXI" colorfully and rapidly enough to require a disclaimer. (It can trigger seizures when used near epileptics.)

One reviewer suggested that if you are going to wave it around the streets of New York, it should really be flashing "STEAL ME."

6. FatBurner2k

Developer: Daily Burn
Price: $0.99

It's a good thing Apple put this app in the "Entertainment" category. Otherwise one might be tempted to take seriously the claim that it can "help your body consume fat molecules using disharmonic, molecule to molecule, physical oscillations."

Translation: It vibrates on your tummy. It will not, however, have the same effect -- as the developer implies -- as "moving and shaking...at some expensive members-only gym where people just stand around drinking coffee trying to look hot all day."

7. Hair Clinic: For Man and Woman

Developer: Sociag Project
Price: $3.99

If you believe an iPhone can make your love handles disappear, you'll probably buy this, too: an app that promises to give you "healthy and abundant" hair by generating "various types of inaudible high and low frequencies to promote blood circulation around hair roots and under the head skin."

A helpful disclaimer adds that the Hair Clinic app is not a cure for alopecia and can, in fact, cause headaches if the iPhone's built-in speaker is held too close to the ears.

8. Cow Toss

Developer: Digital Thought Software
Price: $0.99

Another publication rated Cow Toss the 4th stupidest app ever written for the iPhone, but that doesn't do justice to all the other dumb apps.

The rules are simple: You flick the image of a cow with your finger to send it flying through space -- mooing and bouncing all the way -- and score points according to a system that is never fully explained. The developers say they hoped with the latest update to be rated "most stupid." They're not even close.

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