If you can make everything in your life from food delivery to rides to dates happen by tapping on your smartphone, why can’t you play legal state lotteries on your phone? There are mobile apps on the market that claim to be 100% compliant with state lottery laws, offering the equivalent of sending a friend down to the gas station to pick up a Powerball ticket for you. Are they really cool with the authorities? [More]
there’s an app for that
Facebook Wants You Able To Live-Stream Whatever You’re Doing To Everyone You Know… Eventually
By 12.3.15
You can already use Facebook to sign in to locations, tell everyone what you think about them, post pictures of what you did there, leave reviews of how it went, and host video of all your shenanigans. So why not use it as a platform to live-stream your escapades too? [More]
NASA Creates App Aimed At Shortening Commercial Flights, Saving Fuel
By 9.23.15
There’s an app for just about everything. And that now includes one created by NASA and aimed at helping commercial airlines shorten flight times and conserve fuel. [More]
FCC Android App Lets You Test Wireless Broadband Speeds
By 11.14.13
In an effort to include more wireless data in its periodic reports on the state of broadband in America, the Federal Communications Commission has released an Android app that lets consumers test the speed and quality of their wireless provider (and of course shares that data with the FCC). [More]
Clever Fox Steals Smartphone, Sends Mysterious Text Messages
By 7.30.13
If you download an animal-sounds smartphone app to attract a fox, there is a chance that the fox might run off with your phone. When a wild animal runs off with your phone, your friends might receive strange texts that say things like “I FRY o a0ab 34348tu åaugjoi zølbmosdji jsøg ijio sjiw.” We’re not sure what the consumer lesson here should be other than “protect your phone from wild animals.”[LiveLeak] [More]
Fight Discriminatory TSA Profiling With Your Smartphone
By 5.1.12
It’s hard to find any travelers with nice things to say about the Transportation Safety Administration, but members of the Sikh faith really have a grievance. They claim that they’re singled out for secondary screening at airport security to an extent that’s discriminatory, and frequently ordered to allow inspections or removal of their turbans. So they’re fighting back in 21st century fashion: with a smartphone app. [More]
FBI Releases App That Helps Parents Find Missing Kids
By 8.9.11
Parents can use a new iPhone app from the FBI to store photos and important information about their children and alert the authorities in case they go missing. [More]
Use The Free Consumerist Tipster App To Send Us Photos Straight From Your iPhone
By 6.27.11
A few of you have already noticed that we recently released an early version of our new Consumerist Tipster app for iPhone. So, even though it’s still a work in progress, we figured it was time to let everyone know about it. [More]
Video Game Emulators Vanish From Android Market
By 5.30.11
A number of hot-selling paid apps that let gamers play modified versions of old-school video games were yanked from the Android Marketplace. The vanished apps, which were presumably pulled due to intellectual property violations, allowed gamers to turn their phones into sketchy conduits to relive the magic of the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis and other ancient consoles. [More]
Apps Help You Save On Gas
By 5.21.11
If you spend a lot of time driving around a large city, you pass countless gas stations and probably find it’s tough to be certain that you’re stopping at the right one. It helps to have a smartphone app that keeps tabs of the ever-changing pump prices. [More]
iPhone App Lets Catholics Practice Confessing On The Go
By 2.9.11
A $2 iPhone app walks users through a simulation of the Catholic sacrament of confession, offering sinners the opportunity to admit their misdeeds via their phones. [More]
Microsoft To Apple: You Can't Trademark "App Store"
By 1.12.11
It’s been over two years since Apple first submitted an application to trademark the phrase “App Store,” but that hasn’t stopped Microsoft from attempting to stymie the iPhone maker’s request. [More]
Cool Tricks You Can Do With That New Android Phone Or iPad
By 12.28.10
Maybe you unwrapped a new iPad, only to leave it in the box because you aren’t quite ready to take it on. Or perhaps you forced a Droid X on your kindly grandmother, hoping to spread bliss, only to see her cower in fear. [More]
Free iPad Apps To Ease Your Travels
By 12.6.10
When you’re on the road in unfamiliar surroundings, wouldn’t it be nice to have a little travel elf at your side to point you in the right direction and help you get the most out of your sojourn? If you’ve got an iPad, you own the next best thing to a travel elf, and it won’t even object when you shove it into your suitcase. [More]
App Helps Harassment Victims Spread Info About Creeps
By 11.8.10
Imagine the opposite of Foursquare — an app you can use to steer clear of particular individuals rather than meet up with them — and you grasp the idea behind the Hollaback iPhone app. [More]
How To Tame The iPad
By 10.16.10
I’m waiting until next year’s inevitable next-generation improvement to take the iPad plunge, giving those who already own the device a year or so to learn how to break the wild beast and teach me to use it. [More]
Budget-Boosting iPhone Apps
By 8.10.10
Money Highway paved a road to savings by rounding up 75 money-saving iPhone apps. [More]
Pitcher Diagnoses Own Appendicitis Via iPhone
By 5.13.10
San Diego Padres pitcher Tim Stauffer added a twist to the belief that Apples are good for your health, using his iPhone in his hotel room to look up his symptoms on a medical site and correctly deducing he had appendicitis, ESPN reports. [More]
