28 June 2013

Osito: My unintentional weather app

A month ago, I downloaded an app called Osito on my iPhone 4S. It is one of those personal assistant apps that is supposed to look at your calendar and other things on your phone and give you useful alerts to keep you on tasks. Apps like this and Google Now are attractive to me because when you watch the demonstrations, it feels like the phone is learning my habits or reading my mind. The sad reality, at least in my case, is that I don't do anything for Osito to track. I don't have any appointments on my calendar, I only travel once a year, and I don't have a job. Poor Osito has never had the opportunity to warn me that I am going to be late for a lunch meeting or that the traffic on I-85 is particularly heavy.

One thing I have found that it is great at, though, is telling me it is about to rain. I don't just mean that Osito gives me the forecast for the day when I wake up. It tells me when it is about to rain in my neighborhood, and it is accurate within about five minutes. Right before I started this post, Osito sent me a notification that said it will begin raining in my town at 7:16p. At 7:22p the sky darkened and it started thundering. This has happened every single time I got the notification. For me, that is enough reason for me to keep Osito, even if I can't use any of the other functions.

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