You know that country song ‘No Charge’? The one where the little boy asks his mum for money for doing household chores and she responds with things like “For the nine months I carried you growin' inside me, no charge/For the nights I've sat up with you, Doctored you, and prayed for you, no charge”? Yeah, well that’s great and all, but when it comes to running your kids about town the modern parent needs to get paid. Enter, Dad's Cab, which helps you make the most of your Nokia phone...
Dad’s Cab is a fun little GPS-powered app that turns your Nokia into a cabbie’s fare meter with which you can mortify your children and claw back their pocket money in payment for treating your car like a taxi.
The app starts up with a little flash animation and brum-bruuum sound effect (which requires a recent version of Flash Lite – we had to update the firmware in our ageing N95 before it would work) and then presents you with a colourful Fare Meter screen. Hot keys let you start the meter, add extra charges (about which , more later) and cancel the current journey.
Once you start the meter, the fake LED display flicks from FOR HIRE to HIRED and £2.20 gets clocked up before your even pull away from the kerb. You've not had to use a drop of petrol and you are already earning! This has to be a good sign.
Once you are underway, Dad's Cab uses GPS to roughly track your movements and calculate how far you have driven. Its a little less accurate than a proper mileometer, but should give you a rough idea of how far you have travelled. As you drive around, the far increases by both distance and time, so you won't miss out even if you are stuck at the lights for ages. Once the journey is over the app will prompt you to add any extra charges - these are for things like 'Not saying please and thank you', 'Arguing over who gets the front seat' and 'Insulting the driver's music choices'. With a few of these you can soon rack up a whopping fare for your young passengers
The trouble with charging your kids money is that they may not have any to hand - having spent it on iPods, fizzy pop and their own mobile bills. Never fear, Dad's Cab offers a range of alternative payment methods - e.g. "Fake an interest in my stories" will offset £5.00 from the bill. As a final nice touch the app will send the bill to your child as a text message, fully itemised. Ha.
So, then - Dad's Cab. Its a little inaccurate, rather unfair and is probably more shameful even than that 'dance' you did at your cousin's wedding. It is free, however, and a great way to embarrass your children - particularly if they are with their friends. Our only real complaint was the name. Mum's drive too, after all.
Details
Size: 0.689MB
Price: Free
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