There once was a time when owning an Apple product made you feel a part of an elite exclusive club. Your friends would look on enviously with their sensible HPs and Samsungs, because even when there was complete feature parity, there was always a certain cache. Maybe it was that cool kid vibe a macbook or iPod threw off that said “hey man, I don’t care that I paid twice as much for this product than I had too.”

But sadly my friends, the cult of mac has officailly thrown its doors open to the riff raff. First it was iPads at Wal-Mart, now its apps at Starbucks. Gone are the days of the graphic designer sliding his iPhone into his messenger bag. Say hello to slanket-wearing suburbanites getting cheeto fingers on touch screens.

The international coffee giant has swapped its free music download program with a new free app program that will be putting new apps onto the phones of hummer-driving suburbanites everywhere. The first app that will be given away will be Shazam, which will be super awesome for all those soccer moms to tag the latest Michael Buble single.

All jokes aside, if you need another sign of the app store’s growing legitimacy (here’s one if you do need it) this is it, and this is an excellent way to get programmed into the idea of bulk app buying. If Starbucks truly replaces the iTunes music program with this one it will greatly cut the number of users that can participate. Sends a rather strong branding message there? It’s also going to be interesting to see which apps Apple and Starbucks choose to present and how it affects developers.

But back to making stabs at yuppies, here’s my suggestion for the next apps they should look at considering:

Lose it: How about you counteract all those drive ins you installed into America’s strip malls and help people burn off a few calories. Don’t think I missed this infographic on just how many calories that PTA mom is slurping down in her frappucino on her way to Zumba.

Barista: America I hate to be the one that tells you this, but Starbucks is NOT what the rest of the world considers GOOD coffee. Don’t be fooled by all those Italian names like “Venti” into thinking that you are enjoying an authentic European cafe experience. You can learn to make coffee from the comfort of your own McMansion and if that proves too hard, you can always buy some of Starbucks “delicious” instant offerings.

Wi-Fi Finder: To be fair, not EVERYONE who goes to Starbucks is a Juicy Couture-wearing, Arbor Mist-drinking mom. However the rest of Starbucks patrons are composed of Wi-Fi grifters. Those talented folk who know how to make one iced tea last an 8 hour work day. We all see you’ve got nothing but ice left, so get out of here and find some web to steal elsewhere….some of us have OKcupid coffee dates to fuck up.

Ah America, the land of the entrepreneurial, where a snuggie and a dream can equal billion dollar empire of slobiness. Unfortunately, not all of these dreams are good, or even adequate. Some of them are just terrible.

The iOS environment seems to pull in bad ideas like a damn gravitational pull. People have mistakenly been lured into thinking anything made for an iPhone is going to result in mountains of cash, but in practice, the business plan equation looks like this:

Step 1: Idea for an app that lets your cat use emojis
Step 2: ?
Step 3: Profit

Actually, on second thought, cat targeted apps are doing pretty well right now, maybe I’ll actually use this idea. Anyhow, Kickstarter is the place where bad dreams go to be born. If you can get enough people to believe in your product, it becomes real, sort of a pinnochio story. So, let’s look at the best and the worst of Kickstarter for iPhone, starting with the awesome and ending in the awful.

Kickstars: The Best of Kickstarter for iPhone

1. Dot 360 Video
It still boggles my mind the leaps and bounds that iPhoneography has made. It boggles my mind that iPhoneography is actually a word. But the advances being made in this area are rad, and this is one of the raddest I’ve seen in a long time. 360 degree video – it’s not just a device but it’s an app and you can spin your way for a real view of the scene. I’m curious about how this exports and how you can fully use the technology but for the time being…awesomeness.

2. iPhone Holster
Dorks aren’t tough but we sure like to pretend we are…sure we’re a computer programmer by day, but by night we’re a Level 10 Orc. RESPECT. This is a simple product, but it is one that speaks to the tough guy in any geek. It could only be improved by also coming with Gun’s Sounds .

3. The iBottle Opener
When iPhone first came out there were two apps we used to impress our friends. The first was Shazam, which allowed us to exhibit the tiny musical elves that lived inside our phones, and the second was iBeer . This product takes it to the next level – instead of drinking and pouring fake beers we can start using real ones.

Sickstarter: The Worst of Kickstarter for iPhone

1. The Dry Erase iPhone Cover
At first reaction, I actually put this on my awesome list. Dorks and white boards go together like peanut butter and jelly. But then I started digging a little deeper. A) No one, not even the leanest, IPO-dreaming serial startup veteran needs a whiteboard so bad that they’ll need to use a 4 inch one on their phone back. B) The iPhone has fucking drawing apps that do it better. C) your brilliant idea is going to be smudged and erased faster than you can say “brainstorm.” D) this is much more than a shoddy piece of sticky material on the phone back and how it could possibly need $1000 boggles my mind.

2. Man Chair iPhone App
Apple has made itself a walled garden, safe from porno and drugs, but it’s still a safe haven for the incredibly sexist – this douchenozzle is ready to join the ranks. Seriously, this app sounds like some 80s comedian’s terrible sketch about how his wife never fucks him, he has to listen to her talk about her soaps, and she drags him to the Macy’s. It wasn’t funny then, it’s not funny now, but this app sucks in more ways than one. The use case alone is just ridiculous – the amount of time men are even going to be spending on these dreaded trips is minimal and do you think these men would really rather chat with other random dudes versus playing some Angry Birds? I’m sure creator Len Kendall will indeed need $10,000, but it’s more likely help fund his future divorce than his ill conceived app.

3. The Real Weather Girls
App ideas are like assholes, everyone has got one and most of them stink. To be fair, most of the app store’s big wins are ones I never could have predicted, in fact I still can’t understand Zombie Farm, but I can pretty safely predict that the overhead costs and sheer dumbness of this app seal its fate. People create apps for a lot of different reason, but one of the saddest reasons I frequently see is middle aged men who are cashed up and think it’s a ticket to cool. I wonder just a little bit if that’s what this is..if Steve Dworman didn’t wonder if this would be a good way to get close to some hot young aspirational starlets. Weather reports and women have gone hand in hand for a long time, the hot weather girl is not a new phenomenon. But throwing in reality TV is like inviting a hunchback for a menage a trois with weather and sexy chicks. What is this monster?

I know. It’s sad news, you’ve barely had time to show off your white iPhone 4 and you’ll never know what they’re working on for iPhone 5, but like it or not, the rapture is coming. Ok, so the rapture has been predicted before, but only in 1994, 1993, 1992, 1989, 1988, 1981, 1975 and like six other times, but this time folks, IT’S FOR REALS. Now on Saturday, some of us will be ascending to that glowing white place (and I don’t mean the Apple store) and the rest of us will be left here to fend for ourselves. The time of tribulations is going to suck, no doubt, but it can’t be worse than the time before 3G access, and at least we’ll have this collection of apps to guide us along the way. Click any of the apps above to see a full list of the apps you’ll need for the end of days.

And hell, if Saturday isn’t the rapture, I’m sure this list won’t be too stale by 2012.

Lady AppApp is no longer just an icon of the app world, she’s also a figurine. Shouldn’t we all just have our own figurine? Photo by  (Instagram) and video by (StopMotion Recorder)