The Top 10 Useless iPhone Apps

By Kevin Sugarman

Recently, many of the folks here at EPR, including myself, jumped onto the iPhone bandwagon.  We love the phone and its many capabilities - email, social networking, iTunes, maps, calendar, etc.  Overall, we all agree it is a great tool for both work and play.

But, there is a dark and seedy underside of the iPhone that we have all encountered as well.  The entire team has been amazed by how many utterly useless and ridiculous apps are available for download for the handset.  So, in the interested of wasting even more time with these useless apps, EPR has decided to put together a collection of the top 10 most useless we have come across while fiddling with our iPhones.

A few notes:

• These are all free apps
• The information included below is taken directly from the Apple iPhone app website. No embellishment was necessary.
• Addendum to the second bullet - On second thought, we couldn’t resist and added comments to each app (in italics).
• These are all real. We are not making this up.

1. Hold On - Compete to see how long you can hold the button! The timer shows your progress down to the millisecond and stores your personal all-time record. Develop your perseverance and improve your concentration skills to make you more productive! We told you this was the most useless app.  One question for the guy or gal with the best score for this “game”  - uh why?
2. BeerCounter -  With this program you can keep an overview of your consumed beverages. If you need an app to keep count of your beer intake, do us a favor and put the beer down, reach into your pocket and hand your buddy your car keys.  Now go ahead and pick the beer back up and enjoy.
3. SimStapler- The first true office equipment simulator, SimStapler© brings all of the thrill and excitement of a “real” stapler right to the palm of your hand. We work in an office. We have multiple staplers. They have yet to thrill us (once, in the second grade, there was a stapler incident but hey I was  young and had not yet fully developed my hand-eye coordination).
4. picocalc free- picocalc is a tiny number memo which can be added and subtracted.This would be great, if the iPhone didn’t already come fully equipped with a calculator - one that even multiplies and divides.
5. Knock on Wood -This is a genuine picture of wood not a computer generated imitation. Knock on Wood will give you a chance to avoid tempting fate or to bring good luck. Whether you believe that good spirits live in trees or that by touching wood you won’t get tagged, knock here for a bit of superstitious fun. We are a superstitious lot and have been known to hop around the pavement in order to not step on a crack and break our mother’s back. But this takes it too far.
6. Rubber Duck - The rubber duck squeaks when you press him. There are a handful of things that can just never be simulated. Rubber ducks are one of those things.
7. iSmoke - See realistic looking smoke billow out of the pipe when you breathe onto the end of your phone. Swish the smoke around with your finger and watch it swirl and dissipate. We don’t advocate smoking, but if the urge to swirl smoke around with your finger is so strong that you feel the need to download this app, go ahead and light up the real thing because this is just sad.
8. FatBurner2K- FatBurner2K can help your body consume fat molecules using disharmonic, molecule to molecule,physical oscillations, which is a sciencey way of saying that FatBurner2K shakes the fat in your body until it gives up. We are actually rooting for this one to take off. We can’t wait to see folks in gym shorts, sweatbands and tennis shoes with a vibrating iPhone attached to their waistband.
9. SoS Torch - Simple white light for finding your way around in the dark. Almost useful, if it worked. We tried  this one out. It was like trying to find your way in the dark by holding out a single firefly by its wings.
10. Touch Train - Touch Train is a simple application that helps you get used to the touch screen of your device. Using the touch screen can be frustrating for some first time users. Touch Train gives you a target to aim for and will show you exactly where your touch occurred. Touch Train will quickly bring a novice user up to speed on the use of the touch screen. The iPhone is an extraordinary piece of modern technology. But if you need to train in order to master using the touch screen, it may not be the device for you.

So, that is our top 10 list of the most useless iPhone apps.  Please let us know if you think we missed an app that deserves to be included in this group.