This week I received a sad bit of news in my inbox. The team behind Flook, a contender in the early days of the check-in fad that once was a candidate for a SXSW Interactive award, announced the app would be closing its doors and that users needed to pack up their shit. It’s sad to see any startup go ( Plancast, RIP yo), but this one was particularly sad since I had actually met co-founder Tristan Brotherton at SXSW on the eve of the SXSW awards.

But Flook’s goodbye letter got me to thinking about a process I’ve had to do far too many times lately, and that’s collecting all my digital detritus from an app in the wake of its acquisition or closure. Look, having to do this sucks. Nothing makes all the time, and effort, and drunken one-eyed pecking that has gone into all your three years of checking in than to have to see it download onto your desktop in a tidy zip file merely a few mbs big. Gives me a sad.

This was the experience I had when Whrrl went down the drain…and after an acquisition by the dubious Groupon no less. I was happy for their acquisition but saddened that only a month or so after I’d been fervently checking in through SXSW, I was already being booted.

So the most recent application giving me this particular grief is Gowalla. To put it into perspectives, Whrrl and Flook were only mere hookups – Gowalla was like my boyfriend. When people at App Dev Con thumbed their nose at Gowalla, I stood up in their defense. They were with me in Australia for months before Foursquare even arrived. I wore that damn kangaroo shirt like a badge of honor. They were a hometown hero in Austin. When Gowalla goes down, even if it’s as a result of being plucked by Facebook, I take it personally.

Maybe a little too personally….After several weeks of my less than subtle comments on CTO Scott Raymond’s Facebook posts, he finally fired back:

“(what) would you like to see? ..If not a simple download-the-zip-file thing, what would make you happiest, as a user?.”

Now I don’t know if my reply back to him in the early hours of January 5th was truly cracked or if he’s just been busy moving into some adorable Victorian in NOPA, but to this day I’ve not heard back from Scott. So I let you decide. Here’s a paraphrase of my response:

On a.. tangible level ( and I know you guys like the tangible pins and passports ) I had a vision the other day of you partnering with one of the online self publishing companies to let people export a book of all their checkins. Make it a custom gowalla run. It would also be epic if you partnered with an infographic company like Jess3 to create infographic versions of a person’s feeds….Give them something to celebrate that excites them about what Gowalla will do now at Facebook. Even if you just made sort of cool embeddable graphics people could post on their tumblr, post on their wall, or print on a poster..that would be proper.

I realized that in most cases, when a startup is on its last legs, its not the time to make grand gestures honoring the life of your company..particularly since at that point the fat venture cash has all run out. But for Gowalla, that isn’t exactly the case. I just wish they would honor their users with a piece of memorabilia that’s a nod to the company’s uniqueness.

Plus, how amazing to have a coffetable book of your checkins, am I right?!

You’re telling me Blurb couldn’t make this happen? If OKCupid can give me a flowchart of whether you should date me, Gowalla can’t have an infographic of my journeys around the world?

There’s never an easy way to say goodbye, and this week I think Flook’s touching letter did the job, but in a case like Gowalla, where the end is really just the beginning of something new, wouldn’t it be nice if things closed on a high note rather than sadly sputtering to a stop?

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.

So, only slightly more entertaining than the “Does billboard advertising work? JUST DID!” signs are those advertising the upcoming rapture. Seriously, thanks fundamental Christians for using all that money that could have been spent on starving orphans or irradiated Japanese to let me know that the fake rapture is coming. The rapture is this Saturday, and that sucks, but what doesn’t suck will be the post-rapture looting. Naturally, I’ve got my eye on some sweet Apple products. If my soul is going to be damned, it’s going to be damned with 30′ monitors all over my house.

But of course, when I RSVPd my looting intentions on the Facebook event, someone just had to go shooting down my plans and pointing out we have already all sold our souls to Steve.

Man, you thought it was a long wait for your white iPhone 4, imagine having to wait an eternity for iPad 2. Apparently the gadget is so popular even dead folks can’t get one. I’ll tell you, there are going to be some geeky ghosts haunting some Chinese homes.

Apparently our dead relatives are just as big Apple fanboys as those of us who are still corporeal beings. In China, it’s tradition during the Qinming festival to burn all your dead relative’s favorite stuff like paper mansions and fake money. And apparently some dead folks are really needing to access their iTunes in heaven because cardboard sacrificial replicas of the iPad 2 are selling out and, according to this article, there are some stressed out living worried about the Mac-obsessed dead.

I don’t know, maybe you can just burn some money for them and hope Apple opens a store in the underworld. I mean..if there’s enough demand, heck they opened one during SXSW.

I’m a pretty hip chick, I’m down with what the kids are up to. I know the Youtube memes, I watch the Tosh.O. But despite how down with the times I think I am, there are still certain bits of hip lingo that manage to escape me. My new 22 year old co-worker loves to throw bizarre 4Chan terms at me telling me how “gigapudi” I am and that “chea girl,” he’s got it. Literally, I have to Urban Dictionary half our conversations and I can only imagine this must be the feeling my father has trying to converse with me.

So the other day while I was trying to figure out why my coworker was calling me a South American revolutionary (BTW chea is like “yeah” and not like the marxist guerrilla) I stumbled into a few great new iPhone terms we can throw in our lingo.

I’m not even going to pretend I’m not guilty of this first one. I act like I’m bringing my iPhone into the bathroom with me in case I should get any super important calls, but we all know why I’m really bringing it in there. Come on, no call is important enough to answer on the crapper. It’s really because I’m not wasting a few idle minutes not playing Cut The Rope.

Now this next one is just brilliant. It’s like a “get out of long emails” free card. In fact, I may just change this to my email signature so that people will be amazed at my iPhone typing skills.

Ah Hanukkah, the celebration of the Jews’ oil miraculously stretching for 8 days. Sort like that time you were on the treadmill and your flat iPhone battery miraculously stretched through the end of that Black Eyed Peas Album.

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)

A while back I mentioned my dedication to Daily Mugshot (for which I have since utterly fallen off the wagon.) I finally collected enough days of my exhausted, hungover, working, partying mug to make up a flip book. For under $20 I have a tangible little copy of my flip face for the coffee table.

Only fitting I should find out about the word of the year being “app” from an app! That’s some recursive stuff, aint it? I caught the news this morning while playing my daily Qrank, apparently the word “app” beat out “nom” as the American Dialect Society’s 2010 word of the year. While “app” doesn’t necessarily apply to mobile in particular (and come on, you KNOW it really does), I think this speaks fathoms about the move to the mobile trend when we look at last year’s words: “google” and “tweet”