1. 99 Bottles
There are now over 1,300,000 apps on the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store is home to around the same number of Android apps right now. What we're trying to say is - there are a lot of apps out there, and unsurprisingly, a lot of them are crap.
We're sure you've stumbled on some stinkers yourself, but we hope you've not come across any as bad of these. You see, at TechRadar we're making it our mission to scour the underbelly of both app stores to find the truly terrible, the truly disgusting, and the truly WTF, all in the name of technology.
Each week we'll be nominating an app that deserves the crown of "worst of the worst", with an aim to complete a list of the ten truly most terrible apps we've ever seen.
So let us begin our dangerous journey through the bowels of humanity's ideas. It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.
1. 99 Bottles!
iOS
Price: Free
Let us set the scene: You're having '99 Bottles of Beer' sung to you by Stephen Hawking. We just described the entirety of the 99 Bottles app.
No, that's not fair, you can also pause the song or choose to start it over. There are also some crap bottle animations that twitch along with the "music". Ok, now we've described it.
Yes, it's the slow, awkward rendition of 99 Bottles you never asked for but you're sure as hell going to get anyway. And what happens if, God forbid, you last the whole 19 minutes and 48 seconds? No spoilers here, but we can confirm that time is accurate because we sat through the whole damn thing ourselves.
Actually, we got a text message at just over 50 bottles down the first time and accidentally hit 'start again', so we basically sat through it twice for this column. You're welcome.
You'll hear all the greats: 87, 64, 50, 42… And if your phone goes to sleep just as bottle 93 has been taken from the wall, does it start exactly where it left off? Course not, it starts number 93 ALL OVER AGAIN.
We really can't think of any useful applications for this other than torture, and Amnesty would be all over this in a heartbeat.
To its creator's credit he at least acknowledges how ridiculous the app is. We just don't know why anyone would use it, let alone make it. Then again we did play it for the whole 20 minutes so we're hardly in a position to judge. No wait, make that 29 minutes and 42 seconds. Again, you're welcome.
2. Pet Baby
2. Pet Baby
iOS
Price: Free
Here's how I imagine the meeting at Trashicon HQ happened the day the idea for Pet Baby was born.
"Hey guys, people like sharing pictures of their pets. I think I've spotted what they call a 'market opportunity'."
"You sure have, Jerry. But our app budget is focused on babies right now. Babies are funny, remember?!"
"But wait, why don't we combine the two?"
*The room falls deadly silent. A single bead of sweat runs down Jerry's forehead. He's eyeing up his desk across the room, mentally packing up his belongings*
"Careful Jerry, that's the sort of thinking that'll get you a… PROMOTION."
*Everyone claps*
And thus, Pet Baby was born. An app that asks the question that's been on the collective lips of humanity since the dawn of man: "What would your pet look like… as a human baby?" Given that most babies look the same, the answer is probably 'just like every other baby ever', right?
WRONG. Your pet baby is a mutant child that will devour your soul.
You see, rather than making any effort whatsoever to morph your dog's face into some sort of funny canine-baby mashup, the app lazily hacks the two together with an opacity tool to create what can only be described as a pure evil.
But does the fun stop there? Oh no. No, once your rabid demon child has been conceived, you can expose your friends and family to the horror via Facebook and Twitter.
Just look at some of the beauties we came up with:
And God forbid the app ever does produce anything looking mildly sentient, you can expect something like the following:
This app had zero reviews at the time of publishing.
