Wish there was an app for that.

One of the more interesting, okay the only interesting thing I overheard at an industry party the other day was a conversation regarding iPhone apps. There are currently over eighty-five thousand apps for the iPhone. That's a lot of apps, and to be honest I don't get the appeal. I mean what does iFart really do for you other than channel your inner Beavis and Butthead.

"Wouldn't it be great", said the twenty something South African to his colleague, "if there an app that allowed you to test the purity of your blow." The gist of his musing was that you would place your cocaine on the iPhone and the app would breakdown the ingredients, i.e. the ratio of rat poison to actual processed cocoa. Now, I know nothing about the Narco Science and Technology involved in such an endeavor, but leaving aside the obvious legal issues you have to admit its feasibility would have more practical value than iFart.

Anyway, this got me thinking about other apps with "exotic" practical value. For instance, you meet a nice young lady at a bar. You take her home and one thing leads to another. Pretty soon you're fumbling all over her and that's when you discover much to your horror that the dick in your hands isn't your own. Don't you just hate that. Well how about an app that instantly confirms the gender of the person you meet. How would this work exactly? Perhaps some kind of heat imaging sensor that would expose the dreaded third leg.

Or get this ad people, how about an app that instantly let's you know if the genius idea you've just come up with has in fact been done before. Something tells me such an app won't be too popular.

And now this app craze begins to make sense to me. Perhaps it's not so much about the current apps we play with that holds our imagination, but rather the wild possibilities of apps to come in the future. Dream on.