What Are the Potential Uses of the iPhone?

What Are the Potential Uses of the iPhone?
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Strange Days

The iPhone is known for being a vessel for applications and games that really push forward the market of mobile technology. So what are the potential uses of the iPhone? People expect things like common mobile videogames, organizational applications, social networking tools, items for further communication, music and video content, and a host of other things. Since the iPhone really functions more like a limited mobile computer you actually find that, through independent iPhone app developers, there are many applications that reach far outside the standard uses for the iPhone. You will find some very strange uses for the iPhone as decided by different software developers. Here is a look at the top five unusual uses for the iPhone.

Mirror

It seems like one of the most unusual uses for an iPhone is to try and transform it into a mirror, but the Mirror iPhone application promises just that. This would make sense in a certain way for iPhone 4, which will have a reversible camera that you would be able to turn back toward your mug. This would allow an iPhone mirror application to actually show you a general image of yourself, though it would still be strange to think of your iPhone as the newest incarnation of the pocket mirror. Instead Mirror, which costs $0.99 at the iTunes’ App Store, simply depends on the reflectivity of your iPhone touchscreen. Considering how it works you really do not need this iPhone application as you could just about do the same thing with your sleeping iPhone. Either way this is not really what the iPhone was intended for, but if this seems to make sense to you then go ahead. At least it comes in a snazzy frame.

Nothing

Since the iPhone has been touted as the miracle device that can do next to anything, it seems like an unusual use for the iPhone to simply do

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nothing. True to form, there’s an app for that. The Nothing application for the iPhone costs $0.99 and does nothing. Is this just an absentee iPhone application? No, that would be something, this is nothing. Nothing simply gives you a text box that says Nothing in it, which is intended to be some kind of profound nihilistic statement of techno-culture and appeals to an irony soaked generation of self-important pre-yuppies that will buy it just to laugh silently. The text box itself could be philosophically sound enough to bring up at the next table reading of No Exit, but you really have to ask yourself whether the strange look on people’s faces is going to be worth the buck you shell out. I guess the price is not too dramatic. But seriously. It’s nothing.

Fake Phone Calls

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The [iPhone prank](/tools/iPhone prank) phenomenon is a strange development in the world of iPhone applications, but those that actually fake phone calls are definitely one of the top five unusual uses for the iPhone. Since the basic function of the iPhone is to make phone calls it seems incredibly peculiar that there would be a flurry of applications that simply mock this idea. There are several fake phone call applications out there for the iPhone, but Fake Conversation still stands out as one of the best. Here you can set the type of phone call that you are receiving, who you will be talking to, the type of ringtone that will come in, what will be displayed on your iPhone touchscreen, and more. When the phone call comes in you can actually get voice feedback and it really sounds as though you are talking to a person on the other side. Who would have thought?

Imaginary Vice

It could be the fake cigar in iSmoke or the imaginary beer of iPint: the iPhone has become a place where you can enjoy the less healthy things

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in life without the consequences. It seems a little strange that a fake pint of beer that actually moves in accordance with the iPhone’s motion sensors and pours when you tip it down your throat would become so popular, but that goes to show you that the practicality of the iPhone’s touchscreen still tends to escape most users. Try not to spend too much money on these as there is usually a free iPhone application version available.

Barely Adult Applications

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Apple, through its tight hold on the App Store, has restricted truly adult and pornographic content from the iPhone. Though this makes reasonable sense, it has prompted iPhone application developers to flood the market with apps that sound vaguely dirty. Here you will get dozens of applications with sexy word games, lists of sexual positions that are so vague they are hard to decode, and edited pictures of bikini models that are about as risque as what you would find on a sixth grader’s locker. This may be one of the most unusual uses for the iPhone as it seems strange that someone would want sexually exploitative content on their iPhone, and it is even stranger to think that these PG versions would satisfy them.

So it seems many of the potential uses of the iPhone are essentially different ways to waste time and get a laugh. Got any other suggestions for strange iPhone uses? Post a comment.