Besides making life easier with mobile banking, GPS navigation and video calling on the go, mobile app designers are exploring less trodden realms to bring us a host of weird and wonderful apps. Forget music identification, photo editing and other practical, but boring apps. Here is a selection of apps that celebrate the fun and quirky side of life.
Hands Heater
It’s the middle of winter and you can barely feel your hands. Caught without gloves or hand warmers, you’re desperate for a way to bring sensation back to your hands and perhaps feel a little less defeated by the cold.
This scenario calls for this nifty Hand Heater app. Available on Androids as Heater, this iPhone app works to warm your hands by putting your smartphone on overdrive, using 100% of its processing power. It deliberately tells your components to overheat, which in turn provides warmth to your hands.
Technically your phone IS overheating, but at least it’s not from any malfunction!
Unfortunately the pitfall of this app is that it will drain your battery life, which leaves you with another dilemma: warm hands or a dead phone?
iBlackout
Designed for Blackberry phones, the iBlackout app is particularly useful for your next drunken night out. Blackberry has your back, as you’ll never wake up confused about what you did the night before with this app.
It works to track your location over the course of the night and even provides a Damage Report to show where you were, how far you travelled and who you called and texted. It even features a Blood Alcohol Content calculator that requires you to click a button every time you take a drink, to keep count. This may not be as effective if you’re out on a bender though, as you’re bound to forget by your fourth pint.
Blower
If you’re having trouble blowing out the candles on your birthday cake, don’t despair! The clever people at Apple have designed a handy iPhone app called Blower to – you’ve guessed it – blow air. It does so by using the speaker opening at the bottom of your phone as a makeshift fan. This may seem like a completely useless app, but at least it scores points for novelty.
Annoy-A-Teen
Are your teenagers driving you crazy? Take revenge with this excellent app designed for both iPhone and Android phones. It creates a high pitched sound that most adults cannot hear. Choose from pulsing sounds, a constant tone, randomly changing tones and gritty, piercing sounds that will put them at your mercy. It even provides a remote control option so that you can turn it on from a distance. Unfortunately, many of us can still hear well into the same range as a teenager might, so use this app with caution.
Guitar Toolkit
Highly rated in the app store, the Guitar Toolkit provides all the essential guitar tools—tuner, metronome, chords, scales and arpeggios to keep your musical instrument in top shape. Loved for its accuracy and compatibility to suit 6-, 7- and 12-string guitars, 4-, 5- and 6-string basses, banjos, mandolins, and ukuleles, this app is considered one of the more expensive apps in store, but its functionality makes it worth every dollar.
Baby Monitor
Baby Monitor is another excellent iPhone app, making life for new parents just a little bit easier. Designed by Codegoo, the Baby Monitor will detect noise from a sleeping baby and place a phone call to the number of your choice. You can then listen in for activity from your baby to determine if your presence is required. It is particularly handy for parents on the go or if they’re traveling, and when used with FaceTime, it allows you to see the child when he/she wakes up.
Puzzle Alarm Clock
Never oversleep again with this nifty Android app for keen sleepers! The Puzzle Alarm Clock wreaks havoc by checking if you’re awake enough before you’re allowed to turn the alarms off. Its lovely features include solving up to 5 puzzles in a row (math equation, memory cards, patterns etc.) with every alarm buzz before you can turn it off, ascending alarm volume and loud explosion sounds. Your mornings might be filled with rage with this app, but at least you’ll never be late to work again!
Have a crazy idea?
These ideas all took innovation and outside-the-box thinking to another level. If you have an idea that really pushes the boundaries, contact us at Appz – we’d love to make it happen!