North Adams Transcript
I understand that people like to waste their time, and in this era of gadgetry, opportunities for doing so are not only more frequent than a decade ago but also easier -- a mere tap of your finger away, actually.
One of the big selling points of the iPhone and iPod Touch is the App Store, an online store that allows users to download tiny and inexpensive computer applications to their gadgets. In marketing terms, the App Store has been the No. 1 difference in making Apple products more desirable to consumers than other cell phones, or even Blackberries, because it has created a useful and easy mobile computing experience.
Even though it was originally marketed as a mobile music and video player, I've only ever really used my iPod Touch for practical purposes -- calendar, address book, a PDF reader, several newspapers and, most importantly, a really good word processing application. I do look at the App Store to see what else is available, and I've noticed over time that the useful applications get fewer and fewer, while the big wastes of time have started forcing their girth into my personal computing space more and more.
"Bootylicious Valuable Assets," anyone?
Just as the Internet was first utilized a million different ways to deliver porn, one of the prime movers in the App Store has been purveyors of cheesecake. We have come to a point in history when this wonderful leap in science and technology is used to peep at
I wish I could say that teeny-tiny pin-ups were as silly as it got, but that would be ignoring a small contingent of bowel-movement-related applications that are available. There is "Poop the World," which seems to be a social network built around going to the bathroom, including reviews and ratings of each said activity -- just like GoodReads serves the same purpose for books.
There is also Soft Serve Poop Machine, a visual activity -- using the word "game" makes it seem more complicated that it is -- which allows the user to manipulate a virtual machine that does exactly what the title promises.
You can be grateful that the App Store experience also offers a way to translate these activities into real-life conversation, thanks to the Poop And Fart Jokes application -- just read them off
and insert them when appropriate or inappropriate, as it were.
Bowel movement applications don't stop with those -- there are plenty more. Some are guides to your movements as a health indicator -- one offers the checklist in a nifty slot machine layout -- while others can guide visitors to public bathrooms in any given city.
One predicts what kind of stool you will release next -- I suppose you could just run that information through the health indicator guide and predict your health. Who says technology hasn't entered the realm of magic?
There's an application that animates what happens when a person doesn't have a city toilet guide application and, therefore, can't find a rest room in time -- really, that's its only purpose. There are also multiple tiny computer games built around the activity.
And I thought Twitter was a massive waste of time!
Whatever people want to do with their little chunks of amazing technology is their own business. There are certainly plenty of ways to waste your good time on the gadgets without involving the bathroom backdrop -- but, really, is this what it all comes down to?
If technology is supposed to amp up efficiency and create more productive time for the normal person, isn't there a better way to spend this new leisure time than on iMobilepedia's Poop application learning everything there is to know about the ugly little pastime that links us with the lower forms?
It certainly makes me feel a bit dull when I look at what's on my own iPod Touch. A tip calculator? A measuring unit converter? A dictionary? A currency converter? Admittedly boring, but actually useful. Maybe this is one instance when I don't mind being a little mundane.
John Mitchell is the Transcript's arts and entertainment editor.
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