There's an App for You, Buddy

I was conversing with the rather brilliant editor and former girl detective Amy Bickers, when she revealed a great idea: Someone should build an iPhone app for detecting lies. If they can't build one that works on everybody, they should at least build one that works on people who want to service your car.

She envisions a world where you can go up to Joe-The-Mechanic-You-Don't-Really-Know-But-Would-ReallyLike-To-Trust and say something like, "Please speak into the screen of my trend-forward mobile device exactly what you think is wrong with my car."

Then, you could look at the screen, and say, something like, "Are you sure? Because, my phone, here, doesn't seem to believe you."

Brilliant idea, which is why, apparently, a few other clever individuals have also come up with it.

Of course, in the real world, such a device would lead to much longer conversations with Joe, who might not take kindly to the suggestion that your phone doesn't believe him:

Joe: "Are you sure your phone has a full charge? 'Cause I don't think it's playing with a full battery."

You: "Oh, it's charged, buddy. And it's on to you."

Joe: "Who you gonna believe? Me or your stupid phone, which, by the way, doesn't even have the best coverage. Talk about lying..."

You: "How dare you insult my state-of-the-art device! Why, I'm the envy of all my neighbors who don't have iPhones, as proven by this Who's Envying U App --"

Joe: "Get outta my shop and take your hipster techno-bling with you."

You: "I still need to know what's wrong with my car."

Joe: "Maybe there's an app for that."

Joe's got a point. That would be cool, an app that diagnoses what's actually wrong with your car. Or an app that tells you which car not to buy in the first place. Or an app that explains how Joe got such a long last name. Or...

Clearly, things could get out of hand if we start depending on our mobile devices too much, if we turn to our little mechanical boxes instead of using our own intuition and judgement. No, it's much better to just trust Joe, who will figure out what's wrong with your car by using his experience, laying his hands upon your vehicle, and hooking it up to a diagnostic computer. That's better, because his mechanical box is bigger than yours.