Screen-based thinking: Let's make an app!

Somewhere, at some point in time, we fell in love.

I really don’t know when. Like all relationships, it seemed to happen in the blink of an eye — from the blur of whatever we were doing before, to a passionate, unquestioning love for the modern, handsome, beautiful interface of the moment: apps.

Maybe it was these gently whispered sweet nothings from all the way back in 2009:

"What’s great about the iPhone is that if you want to check snow conditions on the mountain, there’s an app for that."

Forget that the National Ski & Snowboard Retailers Association reported that only 2.6 percent of Americans actually downhill ski — or that they did so only about eight days a year when these nothings were first whispered. When we heard that siren song, nothing else mattered. Love and reason? Well, they’re like oil and vinegar.

The commercial continued. Our pulses quickened. "And if you want to check where exactly you parked the car..."

Don’t tease me. We all know how to end that phrase. Six beautiful trademarked words that may have unintentionally fenced in this generation’s limitations on technological creativity.

There's an app for that.TM

Shallow, skin-deep apps

Forget that 780 million people in the world, give or take, don't have access to clean drinking water, or that more than half a million people are homeless in the wealthy United States. We moved way past "mundane" social issues and collectively propelled the technology field — where disruption and innovation have a proven track record of changing everyday lives — to giving the world what it really needs: more mobile apps.

But not ideal, meaningful, invisible apps running quietly and efficiently on your smartphone, smartwatch, or tablet. Instead, shallow, skin-deep apps that seductively offer the life-affirming, itch-scratching swipes and two-finger pinches that the world needs, wants, and craves.

Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is 99 cents to download.

Name a news source. Odds are they have a recent article, column, or perhaps an entire section devoted to swooning over the latest apps. It may be because reporters want to showcase that they’re hip — yeah, we know apps — but it’s probably because they’re also love drunk with touchscreen oxytocin.

An app, just by being an app, doesn’t guarantee that it produces anything of merit to anyone anywhere, but please — shh! — we must defend our loved one’s honor. An app’s creation is told as a gospel of wonder and miracle: we’re blessed that someone wrote working code that somehow illuminated the dark, mythical path to Apple or Google’s app catalog.

Love Drunk with Touchscreen oxytocin

The New York Times featured an "App of the Week," and had a recurring "App Smart Extra" column with heart-throbbing titles like "A Weather App That Works." It works!? What glorious times with our love.

And during the financial crisis, The New York Times featured a Bloomberg app as "App of the Week" because it revealed "basic stock market data." What? Extraordinary!

Perhaps you, too, poured a glass of Chablis and cued up Norah Jones to set the mood as you reread the touching USA Today piece, "5 New Apps That Will Change Your Life." My heart melts at that opening line: "Apps, apps, and more apps . . . truly life changing."

Or maybe you’re thinking, "Oh, I’ll just turn on talking head CNN and forget about my app muse." Think again, my friend. Here are real CNN headlines.

Stuck in snow? There's an app for that.

Moody? There's an app for that.

Staying safe in danger zones? There's an app for that.

Remote sex? There's an app for that.

No TP? There's an app for that.

Need to pray? There's an app for that.

Whether you’re out of toilet paper, trying to stalk someone, or are actually dead, well, "There’s an app for that."™ Justin Bieber. One Direction. God. According to Google Trends, none has been as popular a search term as "app."

Not surprisingly, almost every major automotive company has been working on apps for smartphones. Who wouldn’t want in on the love affair? And an industry that has been working on the same four-wheeled concept for over 120 years could always use some refreshing. Some of the apps touted in press releases and blogs have the ability to unlock your car doors.

"My BMW remote app unlocks car doors, starts the AC, and more!"

This begs the question: How do you make a better car key? Most of these automotive door-opening apps work similarly, so for the sake of demonstration, let’s see how amazing it was to actually use the BMW app on an iPhone when a recent version of Apple’s mobile operating system was launched. In Apple’s words, this is "the world’s most advanced mobile OS. In its most advanced form."