Stray Dogs: Dog Whistler Review
Put it Down
It does appear as though the iPhone can do just about any task. You can use it to find the cheapest gas, find any recipe in the recorded lexicon of western thought, and even create three-dimensional women that will moan seductively when you hit them in the face. Yes, it seems as though Apple wants to position the iPhone as the answer to every problem elicited by modern society. Unfortunately, there are some tasks for which the iPhone really just ends up being useless, even though it tries really hard. Dog Whistler falls into this category, but it might just be the thought that counts.
But Why?
The Dog Whistler is a not so clever pun based on the TV show where a mysterious gentleman appears out of the fog and Karate-chops your Labradoodle. Dog Whistler itself attempts to recreate the classic dog whistle, which uses high pitches not usually heard by humans but always annoy your dog. When it opens, you get a few graphical markers that are set as its control. Against a yawn-inducing grassy background is an image of one of these whistles. Below that is a bar where you set the frequency for the tone you want to emit. Once you have set the correct frequency you then push down on the whistle image and it emits this tone. Below that are four numbered images of dog bones where you can put pre-sets for frequency because apparently setting it on the bar in correct positioning is just too difficult. Beyond this, the preset function is ridiculously hard and it is not clear what kind of person would put in that much work just to be lazy later.
Train
How many people in the world still know how to train their dog to respond to high pitches emitted from this whistle? More than this, how much harder is it to just blow a whistle than it is to grab your iPhone, open the Dog Whistler, and let it emit its version of nails on a chalkboard? Yes, Dog Whistler does what it promised, but who cares? What the application ends up being is a great place to accidentally hit the ad support bar so that your Safari Mobile will open. Four out of ten stars.
