[UK] Self-employed ad man Sam Butterfield, who describes himself as “an ideas person”, has created possibly the world’s most pointless iPhone application iPhone Pilot.
That said, with its ability to turn grown men into excited children, it may also be a work of pure genius.
The app turns the iPhone itself into a WW2 fighter plane that you hold in your hand and fly around the room, accompanied by flying and shooting noises, and attachable paper wings.
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Butterfield didn’t code the app himself but commissioned Dotank Studios to do the work out of his own pocket.
Not only is the app a bastion of creativity – Mad Men’s Don Draper himself would be proud – but it targets a segment of the iPhone demographic that we’ve not seen before, if a little too openly.
“So, get in touch with your inner idiot”, the ad man’s copy reads, “and let rip with iPhone Pilot”. It surely won’t be long before Butterfield’s work catches the attention of Cupertino, not just for its marketing prowess but what better proof that on the iPhone there literally is an app for everything.
Naturally, iPhone Pilot has a social gaming element too, thanks to the app’s multiplayer capabilities. “Challenge someone to a dog fight. Even better, assemble a squadron of iPhone Pilots with your mates, and wage war on the squares in the office next door.” Squares, of course, don’t have iPhones so are likely to be defenseless.
And it would be remiss of Butterfield not to have built in a viral component as well. He’s encouraging those who download the app to video their iPhone Pilot dog fights and upload them to YouTube. More genius.