Adam Balkin highlights the coolest and newest apps for your cell phone or mobile device in the weekly segment "App Wrap."
Am I Going Down?
Sounds morbid at first but give it a chance and you may actually like the premise of “Am I Going Down?” If you’re getting set to take a flight, the app tells you the chances of your airplane crashing. This may sound horrifying right, but the app was actually created for people afraid of flying. Once you enter in your flight info - departure airport, arrival airport, airline and airplane type - your odds of crashing pop up. Those odds help you realize how the overwhelming chances are in your favor when it comes to having a nice, safe trip. The little stat at the bottom helps hammer it home, by telling you how many years you would have to take that same flight every day to maybe be part of a single crash. The developer says to calculate these odds, the app pulls data from millions of routes via the NTSB, Canada’s version of the NTSB, and the Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives. Right now “Am I Going Down?” is an iOS-only app for $0.99.
Funny or Die Weather
Here’s a new app that helps you look at weather a bit differently - or at least weather on your phone a bit differently. It’s Funny or Die Weather, from the online comedy website Funny or Die, cofounded by Will Ferrell. The weather part is perfectly reliable and thorough as it’s pulled from Weather Underground. Up top, though, is where this one is a bit different. Each day and in each location, the app offers up a different funny quote of the day or commentary and even animation, often times making fun of weather or weather-related terms. Funny or Die says this is the first of a series of apps it’ll unveil in the coming year. Funny or Die Weather is a free app, also right now just for iOS devices.