Oct 6, 2008 04:20 PM
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Inspired by the fantasies of SF writers, we've made a shortlist of applications that developers need to build for the iPhone right now — and all of them will make your phone more powerful than a light saber. In fact, the whole iPhone-light saber conversion process is completely retro. In the brave new iPhone future, iPhone apps allow you to control everything.
iPhone Eyeball Defense We're tired of remembering multiple passwords and having to download a password manager that can be accessed by junior level hackers. It's time to enter the future of self-indication - iris scanners. Thankfully, OKI has harnessed this technology for mobile phones. This is a positive development: we want to live in the a world where you cut out people's eyeballs out before stealing their iPhone, like in Steven Spielberg's Minority Report.
iPhone Caste Identifier 'I Am Rich', the $999 application that placed a one-of-a-kind digital red gem on your iPhone was recently removed from the App Store. It opened a hole in the luxury iPhone market, and it has grown a little bit each day. And yet such class-based markings could provide important information to police officers, as in Logan's Run.
In the film, Michael York's red crystal signals the end of his lifeclock. iPhone users can be classified slightly differently: according to their devotion to Steve Jobs. Or perhaps according to how many apps they've downloaded. Or even just how much money is in their checking accounts. Don't let your iPhone be your status symbol. Let it be a broadcasting device that lets people know about all your other status symbols too.
iPhone Gecko Bonder The iPhone needs to use nanotechnology to communicate with other objects. Paul Di Fillipo's short story "...And The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon" describes amalgamations of household objects as dangerous composite objects called blebs:
Most devices nowadays were made with MEMS skins. Their surfaces were interactive, practically alive, formed of zillions of individual actuators...Like the paws of geckos, there MEMS surfaces could bind to dumb materials and to other MEMS skins via the Van der Waals force, just as a gecko could skitter across the ceiling.
Objects possessed by the Volition Bug would writhe, slither, and crawl to join together, forming strange new assemblages, independent entities with unfathomable cybernetic goals of their own.
By connecting with your toaster, the iPhone can let the device know exactly how long to toast your bread. Or merge with your DVR so you can mess with all your iTunes content via your TV.
iPhone Spouse Trainer We want phones packed with sentient computer intelligences that you can address with your vocal cords instead of your index finger. A little "human" interaction would improve our lives in every way. Even our love lives. After all, Futurama's Bender fell in love with his ship's computer, which is something we have wanted to do with an Apple ever since we watched Scotty try to communicate directly with a Mac in Star Trek IV.
A voice-activated AI programmed with the intelligence of your actual partners could potentially save a marriage. You could even rehearse fights before having them at home. Your partner won't have to remind you to take out the trash 1,000 times - now your iPhone can do it for them, in that same kindly tone of voice.
iPhone Scramble Suit There's no reason you need to carry an iPhone and a can of mace when you're walking in a dangerous area. The lightsaber app won't help when the robber tosses your cash aside and announces how much he loves the new 3G. But Apple's firm hold over distribution in the App Store slowed down developers even after they abolished non-disclosure agreements, and of course Apple will never want the liability involved in turning the iPhone into a weapon. That means it'll be more effective to have an app that disguises your iPhone, making it look like a ham sandwich, or a Blackberry. What we want is the iPhone Scramble Suit, the clothing from A Scanner Darkly that camouflages people by making them look like other people.
iPhone Surveillance NanoBot Swarm Want to find out what your professor is typing into her computer as she creates tomorrow's test? Or maybe you just need to know what's happening behind a certain closed door. That's why we want the iPhone nanobot swarm surveillance app, inspired by the surveillance swarms in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. Just activate this app and your iPhone releases a small swarm of surveillance bots that feed information back to your phone via something faster than wifi — this is the future, remember. We're just not sure if iPhone apps lead to an apocalyptic future, or something nicer.
For historical reference: Top 10 iPhone Applications [Lifehacker]
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