World Toilet Day - there’s an app for that
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Rather surprisingly, tomorrow is World Toilet Day. Once you’ve stopped sniggering there is a serious reason behind this: 40% of the world’s population have nowhere safe to go the loo, and 4000 children die every year as a result. But how the heck can an iPhone app help?
I wondered the same thing, to be honest, but as I needed to pee and could possibly save some kids from an unpleasant sounding death at the same time I gave it a go. The free to use app in question, Toilet Finder UK, uses the GPS functionality built into the iPhone 3GS to hook into a database of public toilets and direct you to the nearest one. Which is handy, assuming that you are in an area where there are lots of public toilets on that database that is. Users can add toilet locations by reporting missing ones as they find them (which takes some dedication to the cause) but outside of large cities they proved few and very far between.
That’s the trouble with user generated content driven apps, they need to reach a certain critical mass of users before they become really useful and if they are not really useful from the get go they never reach a critical mass of users. To add to the problems I had, my iPhone insisted I was many miles from my actual location. OK, it was kicking up a storm at the time and the sky was black, but when you are busting for a pee and it is pouring with rain, well that’s just about the time when you need an app like this to work. The combination of my iPhone thinking I was more than 10 miles from my actual location, and Toilet Finder thinking the nearest available loo was another couple of miles away from there, I gave up and had a pee against a tree which didn’t seem to mind. Thankfully the rural B-road I was on didn’t see much traffic, so nobody saw me!
I know, you are still wondering how this can possibly save the life of some toilet-deprived kid on the other side of the planet aren’t you? The clue can be found by the fact that the developer of the Toliet Finder app is the WaterAid charity which is on a mission to “transform lives by improving access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in the world’s poorest communities”. So when you fire the app up you get a nag screen that offers to take you to the WaterAid website instead of finding you a toilet. Depending upon your level of desperation you might take the website option where you can discover more about the global sanitation crisis.
“For us, trying to find a loo is an inconvenience, but for someone living in the developing world, not having a toilet can be a matter of life or death. We hope that by using the ToiletFinder UK App the British public will think about how lucky they are to have a loo” says WaterAid’s Amy Faulkner.
I wish them luck with this as it is for a good cause. In the meantime I have invested in an empty plastic pop bottle in the boot of the car, and I don’t need an app to find that!
Rated: 60% (2 votes)
Loading ...Comment by b.sriram - November 18, 2009 on 3:21 pm
In today’s fastfood world when people work round the clock, the biological clock could press the panic button when we are in the midst of some activity.We manage this at home and office but when on the road whether to look left or right.This pressing problem has an answer in UK with Toilet Finder using GPS functionality in select mobiles.This facility first should come into existence for people other affordable countries to track and perhaps mobile companies can act as sponsor for Toilet Finder GPS to be incorporated in any mobile like the pacemaker implantation.Welcome more ideas to play down pressues on the bowel midway!
Comment by Bruce Brendon - November 18, 2009 on 4:11 pm
is there a crAPP for that?
Comment by joe - November 18, 2009 on 5:53 pm
Good article. The App looks great, gonna give it a go.
Pingback by - November 19, 2009 on 4:18 am
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