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This Is the Worst App Ever: Text While Walking With 'Road SMS'
Road SMS' is an Android app from the Samsung App Store, and we hate hate HATE it. It ingeniously encourages the silly, rude and sometimes lethal practice of texting-while-walking. 'Road SMS' purports to be some kind of safe alternative because it uses your phone's camera as a video background while you're tapping away at that text that is so damn important that you can't stop walking. Oh, look, 'Road SMS' says your path is clear, and you can text away. Doh, your stupid phone, with its cursed lack of peripheral vision, didn't see that 18-wheeler truck that just crushed your skull.
Also, 'Road SMS' could -- strike that, will -- be used by drivers who think they're savvy enough to text on the highway. Once again, there's that tricky business of periphery, which we humans developed as a precaution against saber-tooth tigers and such. Can 'Road SMS' see danger coming from either side? Probably not, and the developers behind this app should give themselves a swift and righteous kick in the nethers, as an apology to Switched and to the Samsung/Android users they've endangered by hopping on the augmented reality trend before thinking about the implications of their design. [From: Likecool]
Also, 'Road SMS' could -- strike that, will -- be used by drivers who think they're savvy enough to text on the highway. Once again, there's that tricky business of periphery, which we humans developed as a precaution against saber-tooth tigers and such. Can 'Road SMS' see danger coming from either side? Probably not, and the developers behind this app should give themselves a swift and righteous kick in the nethers, as an apology to Switched and to the Samsung/Android users they've endangered by hopping on the augmented reality trend before thinking about the implications of their design. [From: Likecool]
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Comments
26
Subscribe to commentsnikkorino19Jul 15th 2010 3:59AM
guess ya gotta have a pretty consentraited mind, for these things...
LitaJul 15th 2010 5:25AM
I nearly hit a sow the other day. She crossed against the light, stepping from behind a vehicle. I came within a foot of hitting her. I honked the horn and, at first, she didn't respond. She eventually looked up with a stupid look on her face and, not breaking her stride, continued to cross against the traffic. I would love to have seen her nailed by oncoming traffic. I resent that our auto insurance pays these morons. The financial burden should be on the criminally stupid. This is Portland, Oregon, where stupidity reigns supreme when it comes to pedestrians and bicyclists who see traffic control marks and lights as suggestions that they don't really have to follow. Driving through this town makes me think about what it might have been in the days of cattle drives through towns; these cretins seem to have the same mental capacity as their bovine brothers and sisters.
Rock FossilJul 15th 2010 5:57AM
Have all of you idiots had your tongues cut out? Try talking on the phone! I know for most of you born yesterday, that feature doesn't compute! Here's a clue, Phone= phonics=sound=mouth=ear.
" Youth is wasted on the young"......George Bernard Shaw.
DavidJul 15th 2010 9:59AM
Wow Switched, I don't recall you claiming that this very similar app for the iphone was the worst ever?
http://www.switched.com/2009/05/14/iphones-email-n-walk-lets-you-e-mail-and-walk-at-the-same-ti/
Matthew ZurasJul 15th 2010 10:21AM
@David
Alas, I was not at Switched at the time that post was written. Good catch, though.
Terrence and I may disagree on whether walking and texting is good idea -- we may have to kick each other in the nethers to come to a consensus. (Still, Terrence did point out, "Of course, this will only show you what's directly in front of the camera, so you'll still have to be careful of low hanging tree branches and telephone poles.") But I stand by my assertion that, regardless of platform, this app and any of its kind are bad. BAD.
xfroschJul 15th 2010 4:35PM
Where is it even legal to text while driving any more? They've even banned that here in Alabama.