iPhone applications (commonly known as apps) have come a long way since when they first debuted as primarily a tool for the investor and entrepreneur. However, with an ever active community of hackers and developers, the app library of the iPhone and iPad now has some off the most addictive games ever created (admit it, you’ve all spent hours playing those games). Soon, people started making games not for the iPhone owner, but rather their children. Disney games soon started to populate people’s devices, and children soon started to want their parent’s iPods to play those games. Now who would have thought that the next natural step would have been to create games for one’s pets, specifically cats! Well according to developer Nate Murray (developer of the now popular Game for Cats), it is indeed the future.
The idea of the games are simple, entertain your pet with your electronic devices. Apps such as Game for Cats, App for Cats, or Cat Toy are all currently on iTunes available for download. Conceptually, all of these games are the same, some kind of sprite moving around a screen. What’s interesting is how successful these apps seem to be. If you had told me even 5 years ago that one day this would be the future even I would have been skeptical. 5 years ago I would have never guessed that our society would become that dependent on their electronic devices to even rely as forms of entertainment for our pets.
However, watching this shift in culture has been interesting. I wonder if in the future when holograms become all the rage, will they be an acceptable form of entertainment, for both people and pets? Will one day people give up actual adventures into the woods to be replaced by journeys to places recreated purely by technology? Does this represent a fundamental shift in how people are now going to spend their time, forever getting more and more addicted to their portable electronic devices?
Photo Credits: http://www.thevine.com.au/resources/imgthumb/cat-ipad-fun-thumb_190410103144.jpg
-Peter Yao
2 comments:
I have mixed feelings about the future you described with regards to improvements to holograms and virtual realities. But I might as well be honest with myself and admit that when these environments finally do come to be, that I'll probably be among the first on the bandwagon.
These new Apps really show how connected and reliant we are to our electronic devices. The fact that we not only farm our kids out to games like Angry Birds but that we have even pawned out beloved pets (who are supposed to be there for comfort and companionship) off on these devices is more than a little disturbing. We have truly converted over, making technology mans best friend.
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