Kennedy: Bonding with an iPhone

It’s tragic when smart phones happen to dumb people.

Exhibit A: Me.

A couple of months ago I inherited an iPhone from a newsroom friend. Before that, I had one of those old-fashioned Nokias that snaps together like a castanet.

I was used to seeing people in meetings cradle iPhones in their hands like parents holding their newborn babies. Eyes dancing, thumbs flying, these folks appeared to be in some sort of smart-phone trance — iStoned.

I would scan a meeting room, hoping to make eye contact. Nope. Wasn’t happening.

I began to feel the same isolation I felt back in the 1970s when I decided not to do illegal drugs. I was being sucked back into the ranks of the terminally uncool.

Now that I’ve been living with an iPhone strapped to my belt for two months, the phone and I still haven’t fully bonded.

I can do all the tricks: play Angry Birds, surf the Web, harvest e-mail, take photos. I just don’t seem to have the same iPhone fever as some of my peers.

Money magazine this month reports that there are 200,000 apps available for iPhones. Maybe that’s my problem. It makes my brain hurt to think about 200,000 of anything.

I need an app store where you just tell them what you want and they make it, like those places in the mall that make stuffed bears.

Here’s my first order.

* Don’t Lie to Me! app: Suggested by a co-worker, this app would analyze voice inflections and alert you immediately if someone is fibbing. Meanwhile, while you are still talking, your iPhone would text them this helpful message: “Excuse me. Liar. Liar. Pants on fire :(.”

* Lottery app: This app would automatically enter you each week in all the multistate lotteries and, if you win, it would send a voice message to 12 people of your choosing. The factory-set default message would be “nah-nanna-NAH-NAH.”

* Fever app: I need an app that lets you swipe a kid’s head and get a body temperature reading. Really. (With, this and the Don’t Lie to Me! app, you’d have 90 percent of parenting licked.)

* Rain-alarm app: If an iPhone can plot your GPS coordinates and display a weather radar map, why can’t it combine functions and sound an alarm five minutes before the first raindrop hits your head.

* Breath-analysis app: If you’re inebriated, it will disable your car. If you have bad breath, it will shoot a spearmint-flavored Chiclet into your mouth.

* Growl app. Hold your iPhone to your stomach, and it listens to your gastrointestinal juices and calls in an order for the appropriate carryout.

That’s it. All I need.

Power off.

(If you have an idea for a useful or funny smart-phone app send it to Mark Kennedy a mkennedy@timesfreepress.com for a possible follow-up column. Please include your full name and the community where you live.)

To suggest a human-interest story, e-mail Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com.