Color was a photo-sharing app that automatically sent pictures you took on your phone to various strangers around you.
It failed miserably, despite attracting millions of dollars of investment from around Silicon Valley.
I love bringing up Color at dinner parties and in my column, because it demonstrates that there are as many idiotic ideas in San Francisco as anywhere else.
There are plenty more digital Pet Rocks coming out now. Here are three of my favourite useless technologies:
Uber Car Service
Uber is a San Francisco-based car service that operates via a mobile phone app. It just landed in Toronto last month. Uber joins HireWinston, a locally made option that performs the same function.
You can make arrangements on your phone to be picked up from the airport at a specific time in a “clean sedan” by “polite drivers.”
Essentially, you avoid a phone call, or a whistle, wave or whatever gesture you use to hail a cab, along with any apparently grubby cab drivers that come with that.
Fine, but two insurmountable problems.
One, Toronto has more taxis than Tim Hortons, and it’s rarely that difficult to get one.
And two, taxis are already exorbitantly priced. These app-friendly rides are even pricier.
During peak hours, which Uber calls “surge pricing,” the cost is offensive. When the supply of cars gets low, costs “surge” as much as six times the already expensive amount. One Uber user in San Francisco complained about a $63 bill for travelling just a bit further than a kilometre. Technology for 1 per cent of the population, if you catch my drift.
QR Codes
For the energy it takes to open a scan app, press it against a Rorschach-like image called a “QR code” and take a picture that (hopefully) directs you to a web page, you could probably just search what you were looking for.
I’m not sure what problem QR codes solve, besides deeper behaviour tracking.
And when will advertisers realize QR codes don’t work in places without an internet connection, like the subway?
Square
Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and whiz kid of Twitter, has developed a mobile payments system called Square. You can pay or accept money using your phone. To make payments, you start tabs at local businesses, which go onto your credit card. To accept payments, all you need is a piece of hardware that you swipe a credit card through.
The idea is cool in theory: no more plastic cards and PIN numbers.
But it’s not like you can leave your wallet at home. It has your ID, health insurance, receipts, brand loyalty cards, pictures of your five-month-old kitten and, yes, credit cards. Plus, Square is just another vehicle for user fees (2.75 per cent on every credit card transaction).
Part of the genius of the iPhone is that it eliminates the need to carry around a phone and an MP3 player, because it’s both devices in one. Since you still have to carry a physical wallet, Square fails in this regard, spreading the payment system over two devices – the phone and the cards in your wallet. Why bother?
Is there a technology you find particularly useless?
joshuae@nowtoronto.com | twitter.com/joshuaerrett
