Robin Hafitz

Open Mind Strategy

http://www.OpenMindStrategy.com

I am constantly impressed by apps’ ability to mimic both the appearance and behavior of all sorts of analog things. Mainly I’m talking about the free apps that I’m continually downloading on my 3G iPhone, which is still a marvel to me, even though the performance of my friends’ newer, faster versions of gadgets can make me feel as though I’m chiseling into a stone slab.

If such an app existed – a chisel and stone slab app, “Stoneworker” – its animation and graphics would perfectly reproduce the empirical realities of classic mechanics, down to the subtle grit and resistance of every type of material in its actions upon, and reactions to, other physical objects.

Uncanny App Mimicry

Such uncanny mimicry can be experienced with my Sshuffleboard app, which is based on a tabletop game called Rebound that I played with my dad approximately a thousand times in the 7’70s. The app version, like the real one, consists of steel balls encased in little blue or red plastic girdles, which the player shoves up a plastic field to meet two elastic bands which rebound the puck down a parallel plastic field into the scoring section. If the puck is pushed too hard, it lands in a pit for no score, and the turn moves to the next player.

The app version, which I often play at odd moments duringof public transportation with my 11-year old daughter, does not send pucks skittering impossibly beyond the natural-seeming paths of their own momentuminertia, but minutely illustrates the subtle movements of real masses colliding,  and rebounding and careening, each collision demonstrating a projectile transferring its kinetic energy to another object, which now takes onup a life of its own, momentarily scooting forward before its own burdensomely real weight slows it to an eerily premature dead stop on a cheesy plastic game surface.

Whatever you want, an app can do it. Apps are board games, video games, books, sports, maps, bicycles and cars and satellites, storm radars, stereos, puppies and kittens, tomatoes and geraniums, all amazingly believable and real; and at this point there’s no reason why apps shouldn’t also be people, including the ones you know personally.

App People vs. Non-App People

Some people are apps…or should be. Now that I think about it, there are exactly two kinds of people in the world: apps and non-apps.

I myself am a non-app, along with anyone or anything else too amorphous, undecided or unrealized to warrant a faithful imitation. However, Micky the Boxing Trainer is absolutely an app. My friend introduced me to Micky over a year ago: A sharply idiosyncratic Irishman with a thick brogue, Olympic credentials and a dependably brutal workout. To this day, my friend continues to train with him, whereas I’ve let it slide, though I thoroughly admire and adore the guy.

He says, “BOOM” (and he texts it, too, in all caps.) He says it after you’ve completed your 20th rep with a medicine ball, or whenever he believes a noteworthy moment calls for a bit of extra punctuation, acknowledgement or motivation. He also texts things like, “What time suits ya?” and “Ther u go mano.” I once texted him asking if he thought Pacquiao would win tonight, and he wrote back, “TO THE SWISS BANK KIRK. HAVE A GOOD TIME ON THE ROAD SEE YA SOON BOOM.” The language gets more colorful at times (as when there’s a schedule mix up at the gym), but you get the idea.

A Little Extra…

We could all use a little extra punctuation, acknowledgement and motivation from time to time in a charmingly staccato brogue, and why not in an app version of Micky The Boxing Trainer? The gloves, medicine ball, dumbbells and heavy bag are all reproducible down their finest particulars, as is Micky’s own manner of expression, and his sprightly, sinewy physique and craggy, ruddy features.

A critic may protest that I haven’t sufficiently accounted for the necessary further development of artificial intelligence (AI), but I would reply with the observation that in most of what we call daily life, “intelligence” is just an artifice. It is in mine, anyway. This is what explains my daughter being late to her all-important first day of middle school. Even with all the plans and precautions and getting-ready, I somehow set the alarm on my miraculous iPhone to 5:45PM instead of AM.

The people who would make best apps are the ones who really enjoy your company, or they would if you met them. While I’m admittedly sorry to see his approval numbers so low (and whose wouldn’t be in these times?), I don’t think Obama is an app. His personality is just too…incremental. FDR, on the other hand, with his legendary fireside chats, would make for a coherent and heartening app indeed, even if it only sugarcoated the hard facts. As would the quirky Ellen DeGeneris. I mean the person, not just the show. (“Hey. Buddy! I’m over here. Yeah, in the smart phone. Have you procrastinated yet today? Just checking.”)

“Keef” App, Yes!

And I would download a Keith Richards app the moment it became available, along with anyone else who represents a way of life I’d like to visit, but I wouldn’t necessarily want to live there. “Keef” would be just the guy I’d need whenever our friend Mandy visits town. She’s the one who somehow manages to keep my girlfriend and me (and anyone else) awake all night sipping wine and philosophizing against our better judgment, regardless of what time we have to get ourselves to a marketing meeting in the morning. But, without her kind, we’d always adhere to the rules and miss out on too many good memories. Because you never really quite remember how tired you got, or how crummy you felt the next day. For this reason, Mandy is an app, not a non-app.

And while we’re very tired, and the sun is coming up, Keef would say it’s all good, mate; it’s a beautiful life.

And Micky would say “BOOM.”