Paging Dr. iPhone

This is the app that started it all. When I saw this, I said to myself, I should write a blog.

Pretty flashy icon there.

This is the app that, for a mere $39.99, is going to train you to be a doctor. You know how on Grey’s Anatomy they say, “I need a consult” to mean, “Come here and tell me how to do this thing”? Well, now you don’t have to yell at Dr. McStreamy any more. Because you have him in your iPhone.

With this app, invasive procedures are as easy as 1-2-3! Or, A-B-C.

Thoracentesis, for the record, is when the doctor sticks a long needle into your back to withdraw fluids that are collecting around your lung and making it difficult to breathe. (Thanks, WebMD!) It’s generally considered a safe procedure, though there is a risk of puncturing the lung, and other complications.

Now I want you to imagine something. You are having difficulty breathing. You go to the hospital and eventually you are in an office with a young doctor explaining this procedure to you. You take your shirt off and lean over the table so the doctor can begin. But nothing happens. You turn around, and there is the doctor, checking her iPhone.

“What are you doing?” you ask.

“Oh, just looking to see how this procedure is done,” she says.

Convince me that you would stay after witnessing this. Go ahead. I’m waiting.

Did someone say Cat Lady App? Apple Tablet edition

Cat ladies. iPhones. Tablets. Boo-yah.

Keeping track of your cats while searching for Apple Tablet rumors on your iPhone has never been easier.

One thing I’ve found about people who like lots of cats is that they are the kind of person who says their animals are like their children. So what this app is essentially saying is that it’s intended to help you keep track of your children. So, do you really need an app for that?

The entry for Mr. Grumps also includes this footnote: "Killed Mrs. Grumps in a Fancy Feast-related dispute."

I’m not sure this is what I had in mind when I went to the iPhone App Store and typed “tablet” into the search field. I meant, like, a tablet.

I am hypnotized by the futuristic imagery and lack of USB ports, multitasking, and e-paper display.

Or like this.

It looks vaguely familiar, but I just can't place it.

Nonetheless, I think there is a way the Cat Lady tablet app and the Apple iPad can work together, based on the content of their character. Yes, I have a dream …

MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW ooh, new Ke$ha single!

Special iPad edition apps that suck

Damn! The Japanese are always ahead of us on inventing new technology.

Let’s avoid the obvious jokes about the name and get right to the point here: the iPad is crazy.

How do I know this app is Japanese? Oh, just a hunch.

Ooh, him card read good.

I never liked range choice and movement anyway.

I was with you until this gibberish. You had me at "These 1,000 App sold."

I don’t know why people are complaining about the iPad and whether it runs Flash or multitasks or doesn’t have an e-paper display. I’m more concerned that when I stand a little and make a finger a tendency to use it, it is easy to come to fill it out. Am I right, folks?

Coming Monday: More tablet apps that suck!

Chase banking app: paranoia, incompetence

I apologize if you are tired of the “overprotective parents” theme on this blog of late. Perhaps I am retroactively lashing out at my own parents for preventing me from spending hundreds of their hard-earned dollars on G.I. Joe’s Mobile Command Unit. Who can say? All I know is, helicopter parents are the most obnoxious kind of all.

Your federal bailout money at work.

You may have heard a commercial on the radio for Chase, a corporate conglomerate once called Chase Manhattan Bank, which is in turn a large part of the worldwide behemoth known as JP Morgan Chase. JP Morgan Chase does not like taxes, but its turn-ons include federal stimulus money ($25 billion) and foreclosing on your house.

They are also a big fan of your business, which is why they market Chase Account Alerts, which allow you to be notified whenever a charge bigger than a set amount appears on your Visa or whatever. In the radio ad, a father sets up an alert so that he will be notified every time his daughter spends more than $20. Yes, you heard that right.

I would argue that it's my right to go through another grown-up's belongings.

Some might suggest that a teen who is given the responsibility of having her own debit card should be given the freedom to use that card, and then learn from her mistakes if she overspends. Others, however, seem to believe that if a teen is given a debit card, she should therefore be surveiled by her parents, like a sex offender or an al Qaida recruit captured at LaGuardia. Obviously, Chase comes down on the latter side.

What’s most disturbing about this radio ad is that, like most advertisements, it is less about extolling the virtues of a specific product or service, and more about establishing a bond between consumer and corporation. The way that is done is by cozying up to the consumer, by convincing them that the person in the commercial is just like you and does things you do and shares your values. Values like subjecting your own children to a Stalinesque surveillance apparatus that hinders their psychological development. That is why this advertisement is so sinister. It implies and insists that this behavior is normal, that it is what all parents do and should do.

Maybe this app was made by the folks from Shazam.

I realize that while this is about Chase and its advertising, it really has nothing to do with the Chase app. Unfortunately, I was not able to use the Chase app (see above) so therefore I cannot explain to you how it sucks. But don’t worry — I’m pretty sure that it does.