Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2010/01/18/verity_stob_app_store/

Verity Stob's App Store

Immature Content

By Verity Stob

Posted in Columnists, 18th January 2010 11:32 GMT

Stob You have had your Sweet iJesus NexPreDroidBerry smart-like-hell-when-you-get-the-statement-phone for a month or so now. Perhaps the novelty has worn off a device that's much more difficult to use than its primitive predecessor, and which eats its battery charge faster than a New Year's resolution breaker munching an economy-sized bar of fruit-and-nut.

But we're here to help. Pep up the pride of your pocket with something fresh from the great software producers of the world. At Laboratoires Stob, we've been testing the newest, phoniest apps, and have compiled this list.

Fartings' Finest Fifty ♥♥♥♥♥ Compilation package of the top 50 farting apps that you really must use before you die, as opposed to the 20,000 or so lower quality farting applications you might choose to put to one side until after that particular trauma. Includes Bubble Bath Hilarity, Elevator Surprise IV and the best-selling FartSMS, voted #1 fart texting app of 2009 by Birmingham's under-19s. Previously released as That's What I Call Farting 42.

Quickie Sickie ♥♥♥♥♥ Phone professionals, such as double-glazing salesmen and the bogus lottery win robot, always sound bright and cheerful, and don't we all enjoy the refreshment of the soul that their voices bring? But there are certain telephone calls that one makes from time to time when it pays to come across at rather less than 100%. I refer to those 'difficult' calls that one makes to force a manual correction to an out-of-whack work/life balance. For these, there is Quickie Sickie. 

As well as lowering the register of your voice by a minor third, and converting terminal consonants to 'b' ('Sorry Mister Jarvib bub I really dobe feel bery well'), the registered version decorates each pause with those delicate squelching noises associated with excess, poorly-controlled snot. As recommended by the X, where you should substitute 'X' according to your experience and prejudices: for example with the builder who is supposedly doing your new kitchen, or the train driver on the 18:20 to Newcastle.

Small Animal Vet ♥♥♥♥♥ He may be the family's best friend, but when your dog gets ill, things can get pricey quickly. Although nowadays anybody can learn to be an expert vet in about five minutes, thanks to Wikipedia, it can be hard to get good results without the 'real' veterinary surgeon's fancy equipment. But we say endoscope-schmendoscope! Simply train the patient to swallow your phone - actually easily accomplished even without Wikspertise in our experience - and the software will transmit via 802.11n live camera pictures to your laptop for speedy diagnosis. (Many thanks to everybody for helping me get through that distasteful item without using the elementary/alimentary pun that seemed inevitable around sentence two.)

Greengrocer's' Zodiac ♥♥♥♥♥ Predict the fate of fresh fruit consumables by examining the star sign of their sell-by dates. Simply photograph each item in your fruit bowl, and this item will apply its top horoscopology algorithm to find out what Auntie Fate has in store for them. Sample: 'You will lie down with a tall, yellow stranger and wake up with a shrivelled black stranger'. Requires EAN-13 barcoded fruit.

Pocket Climate Change Sceptic ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ This app uses GPS to establish your current location to within about 3m, then 'mashes up' this data with the Met Office's RSS pages, to determine the Met Office Weather Warnings appropriate to your location. Then it simply redisplays the text of these, appending the words 'So much for so-called global warming, then' to each one. Don't forget to click the link to check out the Met Office's long-range barbeque winter kit.

Daytime Delighter ♥♠♣♥♦ Say goodbye to missed world daytime TV misery with this handy downloading utility. From France, home of the world's greatest cuisine, comes 'How to eke out your Christmas horse into the third week of February'. From volcanic Iceland, former home of your county council's money, comes a That's Life tribute item: a selection of the most amusingly-shaped pumice stones of the week. From England, we have Jeremy Kyle. Hmm.

The Morning After ♥♥♥♥♥ Did you make a bit of a night of it last night? Can't keep your coffee in its cup? Put your DTs to work by downloading The Morning After. TMA uses your phone's accelerometer to monitor your fumbling and trembling, and plots a 3D representation of the damage you have done to your liver.

Palm Pre Time Drift Patch ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ This welcome-but-fictional patch patches WebOS 1.3.5 so that your, or rather my, Palm Pre's clock doesn't drift about 90 seconds per day into the future, despite being set to auto-synchronise with network time. In actual fact, the damn thing only synchronises on reboot, which I have to do daily. (Did you detect a grossly unprofessional, abusive-of-position and rather bitter and pathetic attempt to encourage Palm to fix its rotten software, instead of just meekly standing in line at the bug tracking counter with everybody else? You did? Jolly well spotted.)

Traveller's Companion ♥♥♥♥♥ Rather innocent and old-fashioned amusement for regular railway commuters: this app uses Bluetooth and GPS to query the ring tones on all the phones in the same carriage as you, establishing which is the most obnoxious. Then it calls that phone. An upgraded version for theatre-goers remotely overrides the 'Silent' setting too.

Teenage Tamer ♥♥♥♥♥ We all love our young people, and admire and respect their fantastic academic record, but it can be no laughing matter to find oneself in a crowd of them, being threatened by their aggressive trousers-falling-down dress sense and their admiration for Christopher Moyles. Now science has come up with the answer. It turns out that certain sound frequencies are irritating and off-putting to those younger than 20, but are inaudible or actually quite pleasant and harmonious to the more mature. By broadcasting sound on these frequencies, Teenage Tamer makes it possible to walk through shopping malls and even sit down on park benches without being molested. Requires Classic FM internet feed. ®