Hipsta-what?

The iPhone.

As a phone, it sucks (with a dropped call here, and a dropped call there, here a dropped, there a dropped...everywhere a dropped drop).

As a camera, it sucks even more...it takes crappy pictures, 'nuff said.

As an application provider, it is average in my eyes. There are so many pointless apps out there, it makes you wonder who came up with some of them. Just to hit this point home, here are a few examples.

Gotta Go - it will place a fake phonecall to you upon request to get out of an uncomfortable situation...don't people who buy this thing have a friend who can stand in as the made-up excuse to get out of a bad date?

Help Me! - A speed dial for calling local emergency services. Great in theory, I suppose, but really, how hard is it to dial 911? And case in point, CR steals my phone all the time and texts and calls random people in my contact list. How do you explain to the emergency operator that your three-year-old used your iPhone, and accidentally hit the button for the most idiotic and highly liable iPhone application? I think these response operators have bigger fish to fry than listening to my son banter about using the potty to anyone who answers at the other end of the phone...

Flashlight - pretty self-explanatory...you be the judge...

Cry Translator - this app claims to be able to differentiate between a baby's five distinct cries for hunger, stress, boredom, annoyance, or sleepiness. Hmm. Let me get this straight. The application can tell me if Baby C is bored from lying on her back in her bassinet, but somehow the creators were unable to figure out a language formula for her most common discomforts - having a dirty diaper or having to burp. From what I can tell, her life is not that stressful, and while her brother has a knack for annoying me, she does not really have enough face-time for him to really get under her skin...they charge $9.99 for this app. I imagine their market is desperate first-time parents looking for any way to deal with their collicky, wailing infant - heck, take a peek in our basement bookshelves and you will see all of the useless books we bought pre-iPhone when we first had CR...if it was available, I am sure we would have performed a search to see if they had an app for that...

Onto my useless app purchase...Hipstamatic. It literally makes the photos taken with your iPhone look even worse. The description or their "selling point" is that Hipstaprints have that "casual and seemingly accidental snapshot feel." I don't know about you, but when I depress the "take picture" button on my phone or with a camera, I pretty much know that I want to capture my subject on film...it is most often not by accident...

I decided to try the app out for the first time tonight, and here is the result...B on the couch, watching the Celtics get their pants ripped by LA (so far, anyway)...

I am sure I will play around with the glorious app features and you will see more shots using the "casual" technology in the future. Just let it be known that I was not aware of its useless nature until this evening...