From an app that translates your baby’s cry, to an app that does all the work while you nap on your desk, the little icons on our smartphones are slowly taking over humanity. We’re so good at letting them do it we’ve decided to create an app that counts for us, an app that decides for us, and an app that blows out candles for us (because we’re too cool to blow out our own birthday candles and it’s just plain filthy, amirite?).
The following apps are either, useful, borderline genius, or almost human — you decide.
10. iNap@Work
From the creators of SixBillionSecrets, an app that lets you anonymously share your hopes, dreams, and even fears to a community of supportive people, and Mutant Turtles Vs Killer Seaweed, an endless game that promises to bring out the frustration in you, app developer SilentLogic Studios gives you iNap@Work. It’s an app that allows you, literally, to nap at work. It mimics sounds like your mouse clicking, keyboard typing, and even a casual clearing of the throat, so you can nap without worrying so much about unimportant things. Like, you know, work.
This app was either genius or silly, and was reviewed by popular tech sites like VentureBeat and cNet. To give the developers some credit, they made iNap@Work to increase productivity by letting you restore creative juices through what experts call a “power nap,” or as we call it, “a casual, long blink.” It’s been almost a decade since this app was released, but you can still download for your own perusal.
9. Cry Translator
Parents have often wished there was a magical app that could translate frustrating, and often vexing, baby cries into simple statements like ‘hungry’, ‘needs diaper change’, or ‘just plain bored’. That would really save parents a lot of sleepless nights. If only there was such thing. Oh wait, there actually is an app like that. Biloop Technologic, S.L. created an award winning app (as per their iTunes description) they called Cry Translator.
The app is currently downloadable for $6.99 and a certain mom, Patty said, “It makes parenting easier” and “Peace has returned to our home.” If that didn’t convince you, we don’t know what will. Who are you to argue with Patty? Clinical research and testing were done in a pediatric hospital somewhere in Spain, and results show a staggering 96% of babies stopped crying with the help of the Cry Translator.
8. Clicker Counter
Counting — that thing you learned as a toddler. We all know how to do it (and if you don’t, bless your soul, child) but what makes counting annoying is keeping track. With a human’s average attention span of eight seconds, we can’t seem to finish counting our fingers without getting distracted. Fear not! Clicker counter does exactly what you can’t — stay undistracted.
Since it’s built from bunch of codes and commands, it keeps track of whatever you’re counting, be it the number of selfies you took or number of beers you chugged. We wonder if you can also use this to count sheep at bedtime. We’re very curious, so please let us know. This free version of Clicker Counter provides you with only one tally counter. But the plus version that sells for $0.99 gives you the ability to create several tally counters, so you can keep track of how many selfies you took while chugging all of those beers. Remarkable!
7. Blower
In Australia, kids are banned from blowing out their own birthday candles, on their birthday cakes, on their friggin’ birthdays. This is part of their rules on hygiene for child care. Of course children can still blow out their candles, but it should be on their own cupcake to avoid spreading germs via the communal cake. A total bummer, we know. And if things ultimately go full Mad Max down there, we’re assuming this’ll be one of the reasons.
Fortunately, we have Blower to solve that very dilemma. It unlocks a secret feature on your device so powerful, Apple hid it from us. Ellen DeGeneres even tested it on her show. This app uses your iDevice’s speaker frequency to create sound waves and produce air out of it. And the crazy part is, it actually works! For your amusement: there’s an Android app that does the same thing. It’s called Phone Speaker Blower, but there’s another similar app that’s called Yet another Air BLOwer: YABLO. These are real apps in the Google Play Store — no kidding.
6. Decider
Yes, or no? Should I quit school? Should I buy a car? Should I ask her to marry me? Should I get fries with that? So. Many. Questions. Do you ever get exhausted answering life’s endless questions to you? You just want focus your energy elsewhere, but you have to think about these things. That’s where Decider enters the picture. It doesn’t decide for you blindly, of course. This is not the Magic 8-Ball, folks. You have to elaborate more on your dilemma so Decider can do its “calculations.”
Input pros and cons for every decision with their corresponding importance and Decider will sort of give you the bigger picture for each. However, there’s a friendly caution from the creators on the description. “Please do keep a life besides it.” It’s not free, unfortunately. You have to buy it for $4.99. A fair price for an app that will decide the course of your life.
5. Push For Pizza
When you thought ordering pizza over the phone was easy, online ordering made it easier. But the easiest of all is what couch potatoes call Push For Pizza. Who has time to pick up the phone, dial the number, order, receive, and pay? Who has time to open up the pizzeria’s site, click, pay, and receive? And on top of that you have to deal with the tip. Ugh. The struggle is indeed real.
Push For Pizza is a free app that bypasses all that for you. You get your pizza with just a single click of a button. How? It uses a state-of-the-art (as per the description) technology – as well as your address and credit card information – to make ordering pizza as easy as liking a cat photo.
4. Water Your Body
We sometimes forget things like keys, wallets, birthdays, and deadlines. But there’s this one thing that is so important you’ll die without it in three days, and no, we’re not talking about Facebook. You won’t last a day without that, anyway. We’re actually talking about drinking water. Apparently, thirst is not a good indicator of how much our water intake should be. A reminder from Water Your Body, on the other hand, is.
Voted as the #1 water app on iTunes (because…there’s more than one, apparently?), Water Your Body is designed to help you drink more agua every day. The apps costs $1.39 and if you don’t want to spend that money for an app that reminds you to drink water, just call your mom. She’ll be happy to remind you for free.
3. Yo
Sometimes you just want to know what your friends are up to, but you’re also too lazy to spend any time finding out. Don’t jeopardize your social life – get Yo! It’s free on iTunes and the Play Store, and the app is pretty straightforward. You select people from your contacts and Yo sends the word “Yo” to this list in one click.
It saves you time and your friends will stop thinking you’re a heartless, cold person who doesn’t care. Now, they’ll think you’re a good friend with a limited vocabulary. Just be careful not to send it to your boss.
2. BroApp
The best wingman you could possibly have. A smart and loyal companion that lets you spend more time with your bros. Gentlemen, listen up. Ladies, listen closely. The BroApp has one purpose, and that is to keep bros in and girlfriends out happy. Men’s Health described it as “outsourcing your relationship.” This clever app schedules automated messages to your girlfriend.
It’s so loyal that if you’re girlfriend tries to access the app, it will hide your dirty little secret by showing up a fake list of gifts you plan to buy her instead. It was released originally with a price, but it’s free to download now, so the only cost is your dignity and any semblance of class you may have previously had.
1. Instacart
A task commoners have to endure is maneuvering a cart and staring at hundreds of products, also known as ‘taking a trip to the supermarket.’ But not anymore. With Instacart, someone will do that drudgery for you. With a price tag, of course. It’s a grocery delivery app that connects lazy busy customers to on-call Instacart shoppers. You’ll get your groceries in as little as one hour.
Plus, you don’t have to find parking, stand in lines, carry bags, or interact with – ugh – people. Your first delivery is free, then succeeding deliveries start at $5.99. It’s also available for Android users.
Jane is a writer by day and ninja mom by night. You can connect with her on Twitter and Google+.