07.23.12

Trivial help and spying passed off as innovation

Posted in Culture of Lickspittle at 9:31 am by George Smith

The Cult of Apple, and everyone else who emulates it, banks on trivial applications and spying — or the power to tell everyone where you are all the time.

From the wire, recommendations on smartphone apps for use after an auto accident. Now I don’t know about you but in the immediate aftermath of an auto-accident, having an iPhone waived in my face by the collaborator in the affair would be less than optimal.

In fact, walking north on Lake yesterday afternoon I spied to younger people exchanging their insurance information the old fashioned way. Both cars were drivable but one was so badly bashed you could tell the insurance company would declare it totaled. It looked like a tense situation.

Excerpted, on today’s hot trivial innovations:

We took a look at two of the more popular ones available: Help I Crashed My Car for Android users and Car Accident Report for the iPhone.

What we like: Both apps allow you to pre-load emergency contact info, personal data, and vehicle information including make, model, and insurance information so it is at the ready when you need it. Both also track your location using GPS and include complete checklists of what to do and in what order after a crash. They include an accident report screen you can fill out with details, with fields for information about other vehicles and drivers.

One cool feature with Car Accident Report is integration with your iPhone camera, which allows you to take photos of the scene and send them along with notes, diagrams, and recorded audio interviews via email. Help I Crashed My Car (pictured right) includes useful links to rental car companies and area auto body shops.

Just another reason, among many, to keep silent, wait for a traffic report cop to show up and merely exchange paper with the person you’ve danced with.

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