Every travel website, blogger and magazine is constantly telling you what “must have” travel apps you should be using. Some of them have value but a lot are very limited, such as ones to help you find a taxi in Tierra del Fuego.
Driven by market need we are developing our own “must have” travel apps that we are confident will be useful for the majority of discerning travelers.
As illustrated above our first travel app to market is the Selfish Groomer (SG) app. It has been designed for use on the person (OK, woman, let’s admit it) who goes into the bathroom 45 minutes before touchdown. She is carrying a full make-up kit, hair styling implements and possibly a change of clothing. She closes the bathroom door and doesn’t reemerge.
A line of people with increasingly anxious faces and who need to use the bathroom for comfort, not beauty, forms. And for a while they wait. Finally one (or more) knock on the door.
The person in the bathroom ignores knocks on the door, even comments such as one overheard on a recent flight “Come out, it’s not a spa in there!” The pilot announces everyone has to take their seats. The anxious bladder-bursting passengers return to their seats. The SG emerges looking triumphant, freshly made-up and reeking of perfume.
Hate fills economy class (to be fair there’s already a fair bit of hate there due to people reclining seats, babies crying and it being economy class).
Our new free SG travel app will detect motion in front of the bathroom mirror. After 2 minutes of motion our SG app can be used by any waiting passenger to pop the bathroom door open and eject the SG. The SG will develop instant and severe acne if she attempts to reenter the bathroom.
The paid version of the the app will cause the SG’s mascara to run and her lipstick will smear onto her teeth without her knowledge.
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As this is our website and we can be as politically incorrect as we want we are debuting the much coveted, but rarely spoken of, “Russian Tourist Detector” travel app. The free version allows you to enter the name of a country you are thinking of visiting and you will be shown the percentage of tourists in that country who are from Russia. If the percentage is greater than .01% you can decide to travel to another country.
The paid version sounds a discreet alarm when a Russian in a bathing suit is approaching you. By merely tapping your phone screen the Russian will suddenly decide to turn and go back to his/her room for a nap that lasts past sundown.
We have a request form on the app for users to tell us what additional nationalities they would like to avoid. Our next release will be for Chinese tourists. However, it may not work well as they seem to be unavoidable.
If you’re ever been on a group tour you know there is always one person or couple who never returns to the bus on time.
Never.
Ever.
They’re buying ice cream cones, they’re having strangers take their pictures posing in front of fountains or they’re having a cigarette break.
Our new Laggard Zapper travel app contains an iterative learning algorithm. The first time a bus unloads it will secretly code each passenger. Upon reloading it will identify the last person to return.
At the next stop it will strike the prior late returner(s) with non-fatal but attention-getting lightning 5 minutes before the scheduled departure time and create a force field bringing them back to the bus.
As the laggards repeat their behavior (because they will) the lightning will come sooner and be accompanied by hail. The force field will now slam them into the bus’s side with increasing vigor. The fourth incident will result in the bus leaving the laggards behind.
This app is totally free as we view it as a public service that will benefit all of travelkind.
We have several other travel apps in imaginary development. If you have not already subscribed to our blog you should do so now so you can be among the first to know about our next app release!