Apple is boasting 500,000 apps, which should really make you wonder — who’s buying all these apps and how helpful are they really?  Of course, there are a bunch of great ones that make our lives all the more effortless and fun.  My favorite is Flipboard, which clips together all of your social media updates plus relevant news and trends into an automatically personalized magazine for you to flip through.  It’s great!  But, there must be a fine line between handy and inane, or maybe that line isn’t so fine:

1. Hair Clinic for Man and Woman

What is that guy doing?  Oh nothing unusual, just rubbing his iPhone on his bald head.  Why, you might ask—well because, YES there’s an app that tells you to.  The totally unscientific, untested app called Hair Clinic for Man and Woman supposedly generates undetectable pulses to your scalp which generate blood flow, and get this, grow hair!  For $8.99 you can have long lush hair, or more realistically, submit yourself to the harsh judgment of others as they watch you draw circles all over your head with your new phone.

2. Marriage Proposal App

This app gives you the option to propose to that special someone via smartphone (for $0.99).  Romantic?  Just enter your loved one’s name, add some personalized text, and upload a picture to go with it.  Just in case proposing on your iPhone didn’t ruin the moment, the lucky lady or man then responds by clicking the “yes” button at the bottom of the screen (hopefully).  Mobile enhancement of the human experience is something for which techies everywhere are striving; mobile ruining of the human experience, not so much.

3. Man Poke

The Man Poke app is the epitome of a pointless game: no fun, and no goal.  Via this ridiculous app, the man pictured here is the victim of continuous poking and prodding (with no visual effect) thanks to your touch screen.  The app store blurb for Man Poke reads: “Ever wanted to just poke the daylights out of someone?”  If you’re like most adults, you answered “NO.”  And even if you answered yes, wouldn’t Facebook be a better and more cost-effective poking outlet?  Poke your Facebook friends and leave this poor stranger in a suit alone.

4. The Enigma Clock

Clocks, pshhh, so mainstream right?  Enter the hipster clock.  This clock doesn’t even tell you the time; instead it forces you to decript a mathematical riddle—because we all love math so much!  Spending ten to fifteen mintues decoding the clock completely obviates the desire to know the time, and if you finally do, well it’s no longer that time.  Though you’ll probably never ever want to use this app because smartphones are equipped with time displays, you could have a revolving door of excuses for why you were late to that meeting or to pick up your kid.  “Damn that engima, I’m late again!”

5. iPhone’s weather app

The wild inaccuracy of Apple’s built-in weather app is why it makes the list of the five worst apps.  I understand that the weather is unpredictable, especially in Chicago, but how can this app always be wrong?  It’s definitely unnerving when you check multiple weather sources and they don’t match up, but it seems that Apple’s app is the one that’s always off-base.  More often than not, you’ll find yourself cursing its condescendingly inaccurate reports. (“I know it’s not sunny out, you spiteful little fraud!”)  Go with Weatherbug, a free top-rate weather app, and never again be caught in flip-flops on that cold rainy day in May.

Smartphone users are consistently seeking ways to make their day-to-day activities more fun — a worthy goal.  Apps save time and help those afflicted with chronic lack of patience.  The problem arises when apps simply aren’t accurate or useful, or when the so-called “game” becomes destructive. (There’s actually an app, Hang Time, in which you throw your iPhone into the air, and it then reveals how high it went.)

A smartphone clogged with apps only complicates your search for the best way to seamlessly handle a situation.  It’s time for consumers to take their iPhone off their heads and to start using some judgment.  Just because the app has 5,600 reviews doesn’t mean it’s worthy of your money.  Trust me, you probably won’t regret the missed chance to put your finger on the screen and have it display your mood.