• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, September 4, 2009

With the newly announced iPhone swine-flu app, (I'm not making this up) users can track and report outbreaks of swine flu and other infectious diseases in their areas, set alerts to be notified of new outbreaks nearby and even get a heads up if someone with the app who is sick enters their area.

While health officials will defend the app as a great tool to track the spread of viruses, you and I both know it is merely a device to make sure we don't come into contact with some infectious dolt who should have stayed home that day. But let's not stop there. While most developers are coming up with tools to bring us all together, I think just as many need to apply themselves to apps that rip us apart. After all who wants to be in a global village with people who are, well, undesirable!

How about an app that tracks people who talk loudly on their cell phones in public so I can avoid getting on the same train car with them? Or better yet, hit a button and disable their phones for the next hour.

Similarly, how about an app that tracks people who are driving and texting at the same time? I used to be afraid of drunk drivers, but I'm pretty sure that when I am out running the chances are far higher that I will get killed by something reaching for the numbers lock key on their blackberry.

How about an app that alerts us when the person sitting across the dinner table from us has an STD they have neglected to include in the usual mandatory first-date bio work up? I think we could all use an app that tracks the unemployed so we can avoid those awkward, "I am keeping my ear to the ground for you..." conversations.

Personally I'd like an app that when I am about to enter a restaurant, alerts me to its recent health code violations and warnings from other diners that the food stinks or that the joint is serving recessionary portions that will fit in a thimble.

A simple bullshit app alert would help reduce the length of meetings. Sure, it becomes clear after a while that what you are hearing is all bullshit, but wouldn't it be nice to find out in the first three minutes so you can have your assistant call you out for an urgent matter.

My favorite would be an annoying app that would alert me that I am in the proximity of an annoying person at parties, conventions and other venues where social intercourse is all but unavoidable. You could front load the app with all the things that annoy you like people who talk in techo jargon or make vague references to some TV show that only they and 12 other people watch or want to tell you about their vacations at length or recount the exploits of their kid on the playing field or in the classroom. The alert would trigger your phone to ring and you could beg off the conversation by talking this important call.