Ever wanted to play an iPhone memory game about dressing up an avatar? Ever wish that the cute brother of your best friend would admire your fashion sense and want to go out on date with you? Well, now there's Fashion Fix for iPhone. And...let me be blunt. Fashion Fix is the most inane waste of time and money you could possibly imagine. And for some reason I cannot begin to fathom, my tween daughters love it. Available in both a free lite [iTunes link] and paid [iTunes link] version, this incredibly stupid app has captured the hearts of my girls.

The game goes like this: You select a level (5 in the free version, 50 in the paid version) and tap through a little "scene". In the one shown at the top of this post, a particularly vapid girl makes smalltalk with Ben, the brother of her friend. Here, Ben is impressed by her complete lack of conversation and intellect, offering to go out on a date with her.

After this conversation, you study 4 preset outfits, committing one to memory in the 15 seconds allotted. You then shop at the "Boutique" to choose a hair style, outfit, shoes, accessories, makeup and so forth. No, I am not kidding. When you're done matching the style you studied, you tap Done.

Once you do so, the program grades your accuracy, awarding up to 300 points based on how well you matched the suggested outfits. Get over 200 points and Ben returns, inviting you on a date because you have awesome fashion sense. Miss too many points, and Ben returns to say "Sorry. I forgot about an important lecture. Gotta run." Apparently, Ben is deeply, deeply into fashion. Unless you dress exactly according to the mandates of the application, you lose. And the cute (albeit effeminate) boy ditches you because he doesn't approve of your looks.

Could this get more shallow?

For anyone who has a feminist bone in their body, or knows a feminist, or once saw Maude on TV, this application is politically incorrect kryptonite. It will suck every neuron from the user's brain, replacing them with soft pink cotton. That pink cotton will, however, be able to memorize fashion plates and duplicate them on demand.

For everyone who has tweenager daughters, make sure you have a nice talk about how inanely stupid this application is, even as you fork over your two bucks. Because the powers of tweenage persuasion cannot be overestimated.

Reminder: there are more app reviews on the TUAW App Hub.

While a lot has been said about the iPod Touch, not much has been said about the new old standard, the iPod Classic. Kirk McElhearn has written a pretty scathing review of a feature that I didn't even notice-- that album artwork on the side while you're browsing music. Apparently it's not related to what you're listening to at all (which is what I originally suspected it was): it's completely random.

Why would this be the case? I thought it was a cool feature to put what you're listening to on the side, so even while you browse through the music, you could have a static reminder of what's playing. But no. Kirk says it's flashy and moving and random-- just like (gasp) a Flash ad. Apparently you can turn it off, and have just a static graphic sit there. But that doesn't explain why anyone thought it was a good idea in the first place.

To be completely fair to Apple, I haven't actually used the iPod Classic myself yet-- maybe there's some useful function that can come out of showing random, moving art (suggestions for what to listen to next, maybe?). But flash for flash's sake like this seems a weird decision on Apple's part, especially in a device that's supposed to be a Classic iPod.

[via Tsai]