10 iPhone 5 Food Features We're Hoping For
Welcome to the first edition of The Kessler Report. What is The Kessler Report? That's an excellent question, young man. The "Kessler" is due to the fact that my last name is Kessler. I believe it means "steelworker" in German. For the record, I am not a steelworker. I'm a food and comedy writer and this "report" is going to take a little bit from both of my skill sets to share food-based fun using the basic unit of currency on the Internet: The list. So sit back, relax, take your pants off (they're obviously already off), and enjoy this first installment of The Kessler Report.
Rejoice! For today is iPhone Christmas! Apple disciples have been waiting for those Digital Saviors at Apple to introduce the iPhone 5 and the day has finally arrived. If past releases are any indication, this one's going to be yet another game-changer. The iPhone 4S brought us Siri, everyone's favorite little snarky assistant, and Apple's sure to have new tricks up their sleeves. While I'm excited for the already-announced Maps feature in iOS 6, I'm hoping for some amazing new features to be unveiled — specifically if they have anything to do with food. Here are the top 12 iPhone 5 food-based features that I'm hoping for:
1. ReservationsESP
The iPhone can do amazing things with reservations. With the OpenTable app, you can make or cancel a reservation without even talking to an overly bubbly hostess. ReservationsESP would take this a step further. How many times has somebody been raving about a new restaurant and you say, "I'll definitely add that to my list," but you totally forget about it two minutes later? ReservationsESP would be listening and then catalog the restaurant in its digital memory. Then, with Apple's awesome predictive technology (think of this like a nom nom AutoCorrect), the iPhone would be able to sense when you're hungry and combine that with the restaurants you've been meaning to try by offering several open reservation options. Been meaning to go to Parm and get a wicked craving for Italian food while you're watching Big Night? ReservationESP buzzes in your pocket right after Tony Shalhoub serves the timbale and tells you that there's an 8:30 reservation waiting for you. Now that's amore.
2. Auto Filter for Food Photos
Did you know that 1 in 3 people take photos of their food? No? That's probably because I made up the statistic. Based on what I see every time I go out to eat, it's probably not that far off. I'm just as guilty as the next guy (or Asian girl), but at least I can claim that I'm doing it for work. My biggest problem is that every time I take a pic with Camera Plus or Instagram, I go through every single filter option to see what looks best. Auto Filter instantly knows what looks best. It's like a personal stylist for your photos. Stop wasting your precious hipster time and let Auto Filter make your food look as porntastic as possible.
3. Restaurant Website DOS Converter
Restaurant websites are the worst. They have useless slideshows, instant-play music, and you can never find any information you need, like their hours or where the hell they're located. The DOS Converter takes any restaurant website and strips it of its soul-sucking qualities by converting the whole thing into the super lo-fi ease of DOS — the ancient text-based operating system. All of a sudden, you've got the address, hours, menu, chef's bio, and anything else that might be useful right there in front of you in plain text. Take that, useless flashing graphic of spaghetti.
4. Momofuku Fried Chicken Repeater (MFCR)
Snagging a reservation for Momofuku Noodle Bar's fried chicken at a reasonable time is like playing the lottery. You have to go online at 10 a.m. every day and hope that your computer hits the jackpot so you can experience the joy of David Chang's fried chicken fiesta for yourself. The MFCR is programmed to constantly attempt to secure a reservation every day until you get one. It's like a hacker's Denial of Service attack, but the end goal is chicken instead of taking down the website of Panama. In-app upgrades allow you to change the target of the attack to the restaurant of your choice. Babbo, Noma and Alinea are all included for a nominal charge.
5. Flavor Profiler
I hate it when I take my first bite of a dish and there's some flavor in there that I definitely know but can't put my finger on what it is exactly. Is it Thai basil? Spearmint? Flavor Profiler knows. Preprogrammed with 14,000 distinct world flavors, Flavor Profiler can instantly analyze a sample of your meal and give you a full ingredient rundown. Just insert a miniscule amount of your food into the newly redesigned dock connector and boom: Flavor Profiler's got you covered. Great for people with allergies and finicky old men that claim that they taste ginger in everything.
6. ThermoTemp
Not many people are great with cooking meats to specific temperatures. Seasoned professionals can do it by touch, but those people are the 1% of home cooks. Sure, you can use a meat thermometer to get more accurate, but that means constant checking to see how your porterhouse is doing. ThermoTemp would enable you to cook your meat to a specific temp without having to babysit your burgers the whole time. It's an infrared scanner that you use when you put your meat on the grill or in the oven. The scanner reads the current temperature of your protein and the heat of your cooking implement to calculate an accurate-to-the-second time for when your meat's ready to rock. There are some apps on the market right now that do this, but they require separate probes and wi-fi, two things you may not have if you're BBQing at a friend's house or on a camping trip. ThermoTemp can also be used to see when that burning hot bowl of ramen is safe to eat without burning your tongue. Zang!
7. Custom Siri: Food World Edition
Siri seems nice and all, but she's kind of bland. That's why I really hope the iPhone 5 adds in customizable Siri voices. Food fans would have the option of swapping in their favorite celebrity food personality to liven things up. Use Padma Lakshmi if you're looking for smooth and sensual or Andrew Zimmern for a friendly uncle vibe.
8. FishIt
You're paying through the nose for that mahi mahi special but you're actually eating tilapia in disguise. It's a major problem. Investigative reporters always seem to find that the fish being served in restaurants are not the fish that you thought you were eating. There was even a big exposé in Boston about this in the past year. FishIt takes out the guesswork and ensures accurate fish representation every time with its patented FishIt FreshFinder technology. Thanks to this brilliant diagnostic tool, you're essentially carrying a full-scale marine biology lab in your pocket.
9. Delivery Tracker
They said your pad thai would be there in 30 minutes. It's been 45. Don't you wish you could track your dinner? Now you can. As soon as you place an order with Apple's new built-in Delivery Tracker, you see a glowing beacon in your Maps app. It's connected to a small GPS tracker that follows your order as it makes it way from Thai Town all the way to your place. Now you know when that 30-minute delivery time is actually going to take an hour. Better yet, you'll know the exact moment when you have to shut off the porn and put on a shirt.
10. GreaseWipe
You're at a county fair chowing down on some funnel cake and you get an emergency text. The napkins are long gone and you have to respond right away, but you know your screen is going to be grease central after you respond to the S.O.S. What's a guy to do? Nothing. With the all-new GreaseWipe feature, your greasy fingerprints won't stick around long enough for you to worry. GreaseWipe is like a miniature windshield wiper for your phone. It's barely visible, but after detecting grease or debris on the screen, it jumps into action with a quick swipe eliminating all that nastiness from your screen. As the new iPhone 5 commercials are going to say (in John Krasinski's voice): your funnel cake fingers are no match for GreaseWipe.
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