The Midlife's Guide to the Appstore

A while ago my father stocked my mother with half of Apple's i-arsenal. As of now she's spending most free moments seated with either an iPhone or an iPad clutched in her hands, playing a game. I've noticed it's solitaire most of the time, I've never fully understood the need to count from A to K with alternating colors, but never mind that. I figured, now my mom spends so much time in the i-World she's becoming a pretty damn big expert on the goings on about the Appstore and the entire culture that surrounds it. So, I thought, as a service to her fellow i-Users I'd very much like to take the opportunity to present a guide with the highlights of the i-World, according to my mom. I asked her which apps are absolute must-haves and why. So now I present you with 'The Midlife's Guide to the Appstore' (not including the wide variety of solitaires i-World has to offer).

iShower
"Ah, this is such a nifty little app. It very much does what it's name suggests, actually. It enables the 'shower' function on your iPad, so now you don't need a shower anymore! ... a shower head at least, you need to hook your iPad up to a watter supply, of course. You'll need this special connector," she shows me a little white piece of plastic, reading 'designed for iPad', it's apparently been approved of by Apple, "it's available in the Apple Store for a couple of bucks. But it's really worth the trouble, now I can read the paper while taking showers. Or play solitaire."

Real Marriage
"This probably sounds like one of those Russian dating services that you see advertised all around the net, doesn't it? Don't worry, it isn't. Actually it's a lot more noble, depending on your gender and sexual preference it emulates a substitute partner for you. It's not a replacement or anything, it's just in case you miss your husband or wife. Whenever I'm on a conference trip and thus unable to spend the night being held awaken by your father's snores, I just enable the 'bed' function. This is quite brilliant, my iPad or iPhone is able to detect the moment when I'm about to fall asleep, and then it produces a loud snore, fart or moan. Just like the real thing."

iRon
"I realize the Appstore is pretty stocked with apps such as iHarry, iHermione and iDumbledore, allowing you to step into the shoes of a Hogwards character, but iRon is something completely different. In fact, it hasn't got anything to do with Harry Potter at all. When you launch it, it presents you with a terribly wrinkled shirt and a small iron that you can control with the touchscreen. I thought it was pretty nice, because, you see, after you moved out to go to college the production of wrinkled shirts in this house halved! Your brothers hardly wear any wrinkable shirts, and if they do, they wear them for a couple of weeks in a row, so that's negligible to what you supplied me with! As it turns out I quite like to iron my family's shirts! So now I can iron all I want, iron in the train, iron in the car, with the help of iShower I can even iron under the shower. They also have a paid version, I believe it's available for $7.99 or something, anyway, it contains different iron designs and irons with a steam function."

YOE
"I'm not quite sure how this landed on my devices, but YOE is short for Your Own Edward and it pretty much does what it says. It provides you with your own Edward," I must've been looking a bit confused, because she directly explained herself, "Edward Cullen, of course. Your own Edward Cullen. You know, from that lengthy estrogenic novel with an apple on the cover. But anyway, this app allows you to find out what your life would be like if you were spending it with a vampire. Here look at this," she shows me the application on her iPad, taps a few buttons, and then explains, "I'm going to hit the 'get into trouble' button, so now there are mobsters on my screen trying to do me harm. Perhaps I can enable the sound if I can find the switch, ah here it is, listen, they're really bothering me. Okay, now look at that street corner, wait a second... a little longer... there he is! You see that Volvo approaching? That's him!"

Upon composing this guide I started to question the usability of the apps listed. In fact, I have reason to believe most of them are mere substitutes for something that's available outside the i-World, and thus aren't that useful after all. But who am I to judge? I don't even own an iPhone or iPad, and my iPod is filled with music only... though I think I might be going to give Your Own Edward a spin.