1. Novelty sound effect generators
Back when I was young, putting an “electronic siren” on your Raleigh Chopper to make a noise that sounded like a big truck was not cool. Now, thirty years or so later, it's still not cool. The problem is that rather than having the sound effects on a bike, they're now in every smartphone store. No matter what “hilarious” sound you want your phone to make, there's an app for that, right down to multifarious and embarrassing bodily noises. Unfortunately. Strangely enough, I thought we would have a lot more than half a dozen vuvuzela applications by this point in the World Cup... perhaps the developers who churn these out aren't football fans? Ugh.
2. Fake applications that don't actually work
By this we don't mean bug filled applications that crash, but the silly applications that seem to promise the earth and then deliver, well, a few faked screens. Is there a place in the modern world for a fingerprint reader? Yes. Is there a place for a fake one? No. Neither is there space for smell scanners, earthquake detectors, x-ray your hand animations, and so on. Smartphones are already wonderful devices, they don't need gimmicks to thrive.
3. Anti Virus apps
My (Steve's) antipathy to purveyors of 'Symbian security' software is well known. The fact is that Symbian OS (along with iOS, Android, Windows Mobile and others) simply doesn't need such software. The OS has a built-in firewall, there's extremely limited scope for applications to spread and as a result there simply aren't any 'worms' or 'viruses' for Symbian. So why the heck do we need umpteen security products from brand name security companies in our app stores, all promising immunity in exchange for a purchase? I'll tell you why - because these companies have programmers sitting around who need paying, so new revenue streams have to be sought - even where none are actually needed.
The only security issue you'll ever face on a Symbian smartphone is when installing software from dodgy sources (warez sites) - and even then a 'trojan' (which does something nasty in addition to a more innocuous function) has a real struggle to do any damage or make its way onto others' phones.
In short I refuse to give these utilities the time of day. They're a waste of electrons and simply drain your phone's precious resources.
4. Bejewelled style games
Look we get it, every developer has finally worked out that the (alleged) Russian Mafia ownership of the rights to Tetris mean you can't program any clones of this falling blocks game... but there needs to be a standard puzzle game that everyone codes a version of. Maybe add a different graphic and call it Zombie Game, or Vampire Game, perhaps make up a little pun in the name as well. The current target is Bejewelled, where you swap two adjacent icons around and if three or more line up, they vanish, with gravity filling in the gaps. There are countless versions in every app store on the planet – Enough! Please come up with another game idea!
5. Pointless super guides to trivia
The fascination of gaining useless knowledge is everywhere in the world (and even more noticeable in any bookstore around Christmas time), so it might seem the obvious thing to do to wrap them up in a little java application that you can search. Err, no. Because those books at Christmas are carefully curated, have been through countless editors, focus groups and peer reviews. Your java app that lists 100 'cut 'n pasted' funny things about Happy days just doesn't compare. Besides, we have a search box in the smartphone browser that can be set to search Wikipedia. Game over.
6. RSS based applications
It's the same with the million RSS applications (yes we're partly looking at the Ovi App Wizard here). While they might be a good idea from the marketing department or individual concerned, it just clutters up the Symbian menu screen with icons. Moreover, you need to spend time opening each application to see the latest news, then exit it and open the next one, rinse and repeat. For an on the move device, that's pretty cumbersome. Which is why it's far easier to add the RSS feeds and bookmarks into the web browser (or Google Reader) and have it all in one place. I'll take fast information over slow and (slightly) prettier any day...
7. Another cute theme featuring Miley Cyrus
Because what everyone in the world needs is the ability to choose between Miley looking to the left and being a bit coy, looking to the left and about to sing, or looking to the left and ready to burst into tears because you're about to decapitate her pony using a specially sharpened CD of Achy Breaky Heart.
This of course applies to pretty much any celebrity apparently flooding the store with narcissistic personalisations. Given that the Ovi Store counts “items” rather than “applications” to get the big number, the volume of themes and wallpapers helps the PR but just clutters up everything. And I still can't believe people will pay hard-earned cash to get a resized jpeg.
8. Torches that err... aren't
If you want to program a torch application, then go and write one - don't cheat and call it a torch because you have put one colour on the screen. Don't call it a muti-coloured torch because you can do a “fill with green” command. There's an LED on the back of the phone that illuminates a room – figure out how to use that and then you have a torch application. Until then, what you have is a colour swatch viewer.
9. Miscellaneous World Cup Rubbish
It's our understanding that there is a big football competition on just now – and we get that people might want to know what's going on, but that's called news. We might even argue that one good application pulling in the latest scores and the league tables in the knock-out phase might be a good idea, but there are just so many of these “pay a few pounds so we can present the information to you slightly differently to the BBC” all getting their information from the same approved press sources in South Africa - well you're paying for a different layout. And that's not special enough.
10. Black (or white) themes
"It's black," "No it's blacker than black." Not always a quote from Hitchhiker's or from a Marty Di Bergi documentary, but a reference here to the current craze for commercial black (or white) themes. Yes, we get that a pure black (or pure white) theme is perfect for saving power (or for readability) and both often look gorgeous, but there are already half a dozen such themes available for free. Why would anyone want to buy, at the typical utter rip-off price of $8, "Pure Black" or "Jet Black" or "Midnight black" or "Black PRO" - etc.? Black is black, right?
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PS. And if you'd like to start talking about the various “manage a pet football player like a Tamagotchi” applications then be warned, Steve and Ewan can rant on about those for hours... or at least till Germany win on penalties.
-- Ewan Spence and Steve Litchfield, June 2010.