Coding matters: Weird apps

Carttoon of a young person and a dog looking at an old fat man standing no his head.

I came across a silly extension for the Chrome browser. It’s called Button Stealer. Its purpose? It “steals” a button from every website you open. According to its own description, it is “fun, useless, and free!”

Developers sometimes spend time writing silly things. I’ve written about this previously in “Stave off boredom with cows”.

Maybe the developer was bored. Maybe it started out as a private attempt at something else. I don’t know. But it held my attention for a few minutes, so perhaps it does have some value.

Weird apps

That got me looking for other weird apps. I suspect the list is endless, but here are a few really stupid apps:

Heat your hands

Are your hands cold? There’s an app (more than one) to turn your phone into a hand warmer. That might sound cozy, until your battery goes flat. One of these apps apparently put the iPhone into overdrive and using up 100% of its battery, so Apple made them remove this feature.

The moral of the story? Gloves are a lot cheaper than a new cell phone battery.

Kiss analyzer (or: how to have a sticky screen)

Again, there’s actually more than one app like this.

The idea is that you kiss the screen of your phone. The app will rate you on how good your kissing technique is. All I can say is … Ew! I hope you have a good screen cleaner.

Pop stuff

That shredded paper packaging is more eco-friendly than bubble wrap. But it is a bit disappointing. There is a weird human urge that drives most of us to pop a few bubbles in the bubble wrap. I don’t know why. But that might be why someone created a similar app.

In the spirit of true research, I decided to try this one. The screen looks like bubbles. You press your finger on a bubble – or actually anywhere – and there is a pop sound. It is boring and unsatisfying.

There are similar apps that try to simulate popping a pimple. Once again … Ew!

Bodily functions

There is an app called "Pee in the dark". I did not test this one. The instructions read as follows:

  1. Audio is required
  2. Hold the phone waist height
  3. Aim your stream by tilting the phone and turning your body
  4. Close your eyes
  5. Don’t make a mess

I have no words. This is beyond ew. If you do try it out, please don’t tell me about it.

Weird window shopping

And then there’s AI. Here’s an example that is less gross, but still weird. This one came up in Hackernews a while ago. I would have been speechless, except that I wasn’t talking.

The developer (James Steinberg) wrote code to drops hats from his window onto the people walking on the street below.

He describes it as a new version of window shopping. His idea is that a busy New Yorker can book a 5 minute shopping slot. Pay for a hat, stand in a spot under the window for 3 seconds, and have the hat put on your head.

According to his site, “My dream is for all the city windows to be constantly dropping things on us all the time.”

I’m not sure this will catch on. Delivery via drones makes sense to me. Delivery via drop, not so much. Imagine if you need to buy eggs…

What weird app have you come across recently? Please share your story.

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