There’s An App For That!

Car commercials used to rule television land, but lately it seems that most advertising is about cell phones and apps. Now at first I thought app was probably just a misspelling. What they were trying to say was, “any ape can use this phone.” I got an ape for that. But I was wrong. Apps is slang for applications. For those of you, like me, who don’t have a special expensive phone with the ability to download these life changing programs, you probably don’t know to what extent these techie people have gone in their endeavor to invent literally everything you could ever need or think you need.

A recent news story reported that there is now an app for Illegal Immigration. Apparently it’s not easy enough to get in. A group calling themselves, Electronic Civil Disobedience, made an app to assist illegal aliens in crossing the border between Mexico and the United States. It gives them GPS coordinates for the best route on that particular day so they can avoid those pesky border guards, where to find water hidden by helpful people that also want to aid in the illegal process, and apparently where they can get their shoes resoled after their desert wanderings.

Students have multiple apps to choose from. If you are in the medical field you can use the Anatomy Textbook app. Colorful, vibrant pictures of muscles, bones, vessels, viscera, and joints are just a download away. To get a closer look, you just pinch the screen. Awesome. There are also apps for learning languages. Learn Spanish and you can help write how-to apps for illegal aliens. How-to get a fake I.D. How-to get paid in cash so you don’t have to pay tax. How-to get free health care. How-to avoid Immigration Officials.

For those of you who don’t often get a night out with your spouse or date, there are apps for that. Tend to lose your car whenever you leave it in a parking garage? There’s an app to find it. Need to find a restaurant but can’t think of one? There’s an app for that. Have nothing to talk about once you’re sitting in a restaurant and hear a song on the radio that you just can’t remember the name of? There’s an app to help you Name that Tune. Definitely a conversation starter.

If you are unable to get a babysitter and desperate to get away and the baby is sleeping anyway… There’s an app for that. Yes, Baby Monitor App. You thought I was kidding, didn’t you? Nope. You just enter your phone number, leave your phone next to the sleeping baby, and when the phone hears your baby waking up, it will call you. I’m not sure how the phone calls you when you left your phone to call you, but that’s what the app said.

If you don’t feel comfortable leaving your sleeping baby alone with a phone—download apps for the babies and take them with you. Peekaboo Barn Animals will keep your children entertained for minutes with real barnyard sounds. The Counting app teaches your children to count. They can count the peas on their plate, how many times they spill their drink, how many people get up and leave the restaurant because they don’t want to listen to barnyard animals and your kids counting. My favorite app for children is the Virtual Puppy. If only I’d thought of that before purchasing a real dog. No expensive veterinarian bills, no stinky dog food bowl, no poop cleanup.

Of course there are lots of game apps, but why would anyone want to play games on their phone when they can download the Bird Watcher app? Identify birds by sight and sound. Or the Grocery list app. Because of course scratch paper is so scarce in America that we can’t scribble our list by hand. The Surf Report app is a necessary program if you want to know where the best surfing is all over the world. You can also get an app for purchasing books. I thought everyone just bought them on Amazon—but whatever.

My personal favorites are the Oven Timer app—in case you are out of hearing range of the actual oven timer (no more burnt cookies), and the Ocarina app, which gives you the ability to play a flute like instrument by blowing into your phone mic and holding down different key formations. I can just see the looks from people as I sit on a bench at the Mall of America and play my Ocarina. Where else would you play it?