I’m still deep in the “add 5 cool apps, delete 4 after trying each one once, immediately add 5 more” phase of my iPod Touch love affair. My little mini-desktops are constantly spinning with apps that zoom in just long enough to wiggle the others aside before I bore of them and consign them to iTunes hell.
And yet, even with the amazing time-wasting bonanza available to me through the iTunes store — and that’s not even counting the new world open to me if I ever hold my breath and jail-break the thing — there are still whole categories of applications I can’t find. So, with a hopeful hint to restless programmers who just need a direction, here are the apps I want.
RealTip
I want to enter the total of my dinner and get the amount of the tip. But, and this is important, only after I check off boxes to describe my waitperson’s performance, which would then positively or adversely affect the amount of the gratuity. Did she smile and remember everything, but spill ketchup on my wife’s head? Was the food present, warmer than room temperature, and more or less on the plate? Were we treated to unwanted dinner theater involving our waiter and his ex-girlfriend-who-still-lives-with-him? Were we left waiting less than the time it would have taken to hunt, kill, and prepare the food ourselves? RealTip should take it all into account and give me a total I can live with.
GeoPerv
Not sure about your new neighbor? Shivering whenever you walk by your new babysitter? Wondering why your date seems so creepy? Snap a surreptitious pic of him and GeoPerv will instantly compare it to the local sexual offenders database (determined by geolocation) and “To Catch a Predator” reruns.
Burning Ear
Automatically IMs you (through Twitter or txt message) whenever anyone in your contact list is talking or typing about you through their iPhone. You can add optional alarm levels triggered by specific user-chosen keywords such as “hot,” “skanky,” “best friend I ever had,” or “I’m willing to turn state’s evidence.”
RefreshCards
A random photo slideshow that can pop up photos of your family and friends, along with names and pertinent information, whenever you’ve been using your iTouch long enough to have forgotten all about them. Example: “Teresa. Your wife. Mother of your children. You love her. She’s probably sitting right next to you.”
Dudeware
This handy app can be set to selectively hide, with a stroke, any media on your iPhone that you don’t want your friends to know you like such as musical soundtracks, flower wallpapers or your rented download of “27 Dresses.”
HolyGround
When you’re being chased by angry vampires, you don’t have time to dash about, hoping to stumble onto a temple or a church graveyard. This Google Maps mashup will quickly determine where you are and display every chunk of consecrated ground within running distance, with optional icons for caches of holy water and communal wafers.
Gang Signs
How do I signify my approval of an exceptionally vicious banger? What gesture will get me beaten up, and which one will cause the gang leader to loan me his girlfriend? What do I do to get through downtown LA at 3 in the morning? Gang Signs helps you learn the motions, hand gestures, and arm contortions for every major gang in the U.S. (with regional variations) and even uses motion detection to tell you if you’re doing it wrong before the Bloods get their hands on you. Coming soon: add-ons for international gangs, mafioso, rappers and ASL.
BillWaiter
Once you create your profile by selecting your creditors from the provided list — power, phone, cable, credit cards, mortgage, etc — BillWaiter will create a personalized bill payment schedule for you that takes into account which bills can safely be stalled and for exactly how long, to the day, compiled from other users who are so far still out of jail. Includes lists of which companies can be fooled with the “sending an empty envelope” trick and which ones cannot.
Spoiler Alert
This handy app analyzes and blocks any and all Web sites, blog entries and Twitter feeds that might inadvertantly tell you more of your selected TV shows, books and movies than you really want to hear. “Spoiler Alert” is free; “Spoiler Alert Pro” can detect conversations around you and emit a piercing, 120db horn blast to allow you safe and oblivious escape.
APPrehend
Immediately cuts off your access to iTunes whenever you fiddle with your apps too much. Add one more app over the preset level and your menu will be replaced with a flashing “knock it off, already” message and a picture of an exhausted iPhone.
What do you want to see on the iPhone? What do you wish you had never seen?