A good friend of mine, Andy Huibers, has just coded his first iPhone application. It’s called “Bump”, and is a way to transfer contact information effortlessly. You literally bump your iPhone with someone else’s iPhone (or iPod touch), and your contact information is swapped. The phones don’t talk to each other directly. An accelerometer in each phone responds to the bump and contacts a central server, which matches everything up. Pretty clever. Here’s a video:
Apparently it’s catching on. The Chicago Tribune even wrote an article about it. And, in what must be the height of fame for an iPhone application, David Pogue of the NYTimes has twittered it!
If you’ve got an iPhone or iPod Touch, check it out. It’s free.
April 1st, 2009 at 2:14 am
And the date today is…
April 1st, 2009 at 5:41 am
Thanks for the reminder, Cusp. A good April 1st story is of course one that just might be true.
In this case, if real, I note that “Central Server” knows who your friends are. Gold dust for marketing, so it’s valuable information to have available for sale, and it’s a smart application that persuades people to give it away for free.
April 1st, 2009 at 8:56 am
April fools!!!!!! hahaha
April 1st, 2009 at 10:14 am
This could have been more entertaining if the faux app. were named “Bump ‘n’ Grind”, with associated modifications in transfer protocol.
April 1st, 2009 at 10:31 am
If it’s a joke, it’s truly elaborate, since the links work for the Chicago Tribune article (dated 3/30) and the Pogue tweet. So do the links at the bumptechnologies site . I’m not seeing anything impossible or crazy here.
I would guess the upgrade from a simple contact swap would be transferring any chosen data.
April 1st, 2009 at 11:04 am
If this works dependably, it’s pretty dang cool.
April 1st, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Hi all, this is Dave, president and co-founder of Bump Technologies LLC. Perhaps this blog post was poorly timed, but I want to assure you that:
1) we are real
2) privacy and data security are very important to us. You can read our privacy policy at http://www.bumptechnologies.com/privacy.phtml
April 1st, 2009 at 4:47 pm
I think it’s awesome that a real, honest-to-goodness iPhone app sounds so fanciful that it could just as well be an April Fool’s prank.
April 1st, 2009 at 4:57 pm
I don’t get why anyone would think this was an April Fools joke. A good April Fools blog post gradually escalates into implausibility, so by the end you realize you’ve been had. There’s nothing in here that rises beyond the level of “Gee, that’s neat.” If it had been a joke, it would be a joke with no punchline.
April 1st, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Completely off-topic, but it’s a really nice interview:
Once a physicist: Vijay Iyer
(PhysicsWorld.com)
April 1st, 2009 at 9:20 pm
“…but I want to assure you that:
1) we are real.”
Riiiiight. Just what do you take me for?
April 1st, 2009 at 9:39 pm
It was love at first grope…
April 2nd, 2009 at 3:13 am
[...] Shared a link on Google Reader. Going bump [...]
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:36 am
Nice application, checking it out now…
looking forward to his future attempts at apps – should be good
April 3rd, 2009 at 8:20 am
I still think this is an elaborate April fool joke.
How can you get something to another phone without telling it what phone it should go to?
That bump action cannot generate a unique vibration or other signature that would be able to link the 2 phones on the server, some info should be exchanged between the 2 phones or the server should get some indication to validate that bump action for those 2 unique phones.
Look at it from the server, if this is popular their server will get many requests from phones saying “I have just bumped”, but without the info “by phone xxx” that would be useless and to get the “by phone xxx” info there needs to be some communication between the 2 phones other than just that bump and if there is some communication then why waste time going to the server, why not just exchange the data…
If the server request contains location and time info it could work as long as it doesn’t become too popular and if the gps fix of the iPhone is VERY accurate otherwise someone could intercept all the info of people who are bumping at a festival (same location/time).
I’ll continue to use the Bluetooth send option on my Windows Mobile phone, fast easy and no server involved.
April 3rd, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Hugo, I assume it’s based on what other phone bumps at the same time in the same location, like you suggest. If you watch the video, after they bump it shows whose phone you’re exchanging information with, and you hit a button to confirm or cancel. So if somehow it did match you to the wrong phone you could just cancel and try again.
April 5th, 2009 at 10:19 am
It seems very possible that the bump information would be unique… Consider the fact that two objects bumping into each other produce the same G – Force on each other – but in oppoisite directions. The pattern of the shock should be identical, or dang close. The chance of someone else having the same signature for their bump is dang small.
Further, you have the TIME of the request – both phones will send their information within seconds of each other… No need to check the phone that bumped 2 minutes eariler… Most likely, they already have the connection to the server, and you only need to check within 1/2 second or so of each other… (It could time sync the phone to the server, and get within a few milliseconds… Plus the shock sig… Yeah, that would do it..)
And then you have the location information (except itouch, in order for this to work on itouch, you would need WiFi active in the area and GPS would be pretty much out.. Reverse IP lookups are still possible)
Now, it is possible that when 1,000,000 people are using this and bumping a couple of times each day.. it could all fall apart… But for now, it works…
-Chert
—
http://www.traderhut.com
April 5th, 2009 at 10:46 am
I can’t imagine a circumstance in which I would want to either (1) give someone else my entire contact list, or (2) copy the entire contact list of someone else. Do you really want to have the number for someone else’s pharmacist, high school buddy, and great-aunt? Or have to go through your entire contact list and weed them out them later? (Who the heck is Wilma F. Stone?? If I delete it, will I remember tomorrow?) Do you want to give your boss or fishing buddy the number for your psychiatrist, marriage counselor, collection agency, or even just your wife’s cell phone? Or stand there and make sure they delete those numbers? I predict this will be a fad that will die out VERY soon, if it hasn’t already. Of course, it is a neat idea, and I’m sure implementing it was a lot of fun.
April 5th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
DP in CA:
The premium version will allow transmission of multiple contacts among other things, but you can choose what you want to share.
Bump allows you to exchange *your own* contact information with someone else, not your *entire* contact list
April 6th, 2009 at 6:31 am
Oh, ok, you’re exchaging “YOUR contact information” not “(all of) your CONTACT INFORMATION” like I thought. English is such a great language.
April 6th, 2009 at 7:25 am
TimG, doesn’t work:
Phone A says to the server I’ve been bumped, datetime/place, my code is AAA123
Phone B says to the server I’ve been bumped, datetime/place, my code is BBB987
If this is at a festival the server will get a lot of codes with more or less the same datetime/place you still need some information that will link those 2 codes.
Unless both phones exchange some identifying information before contacting the server there is no way this can work reliably.
April 6th, 2009 at 7:33 am
Ok, I just read the FAQ (again, I’m sure it was not as elaborate when I posted my first comment here!)
So they do indeed claim to be able to read the unique bump vibration and in case the server is confused about which bumb belongs to which phone pair it’ll ask to do the bump again, okay seems fair.
I still think you’d either have people doing a lot of re-bump at a conference or people getting the wrong info, but for that the app would have to become very popular, until then it’ll probably work pretty well.
Personally I’ll still use Bluetooth, it’s secure, fast and no server involved plus I can send whatever I want and size does not matter.