App of the Week: Bump

With the silly season just barely behind us, I’m finding it a challenge to shift my focus from fun apps back to those with more of a business focus. I blame it on three weeks of sun, sand, Kindle and, well, Angry Birds.

So let’s start 2012 off with Bump – an app designed to share (primarily) contact information between smart phones. And it all happens with a simple bump.

Currently available on iOS and Android – and according to the website also being developed for other major platforms – once you have installed Bump, all you need to do is hold your phone and bump hands with someone else who is also using Bump and voila – your details are exchanged.

It works by feeling the bump via the sensors in the smartphone, sending the information up to the cloud, and from there routing it to any other phone that ‘felt’ the bump.

The great thing about Bump is that you will never again arrive at an event only to remember, as you walk in the door, that you’ve left your business cards sitting on the desk back at the office. Nor will you ever need to type in details using teeny, tiny, hyper-sensitive touch screens. If you change your details, you can send a message to your Bump contacts that will simply update their files.

What’s more you can also share photos, music, apps, calendars, social networking details – all with a simple bump.

Great, right? Well, yes – but I do have a little problem. And it’s not even with the app really. You see I haven’t found anyone to bump with yet (doesn’t that sound pathetic?). Bump, despite being free and easy (I know, I know) doesn’t seem to have had a huge uptake yet, at least here in New Zealand. It does have a tool for checking your contacts to see who has Bump, but only four of my contacts have the app; two of those are children, and I already have the contact details for the other two, making it unnecessary to Bump them anyway.

I’m not sure, then, that this can really be called a review in all fairness – perhaps preview is a better word, since I haven’t actually been able to use the app in its entirety. Which just leaves me to plead with you all to download the app, get out there and get Bumping.