Want to Know How Ugly You Are? Ask Your iPhone

Oct. 18, 2010— -- If you want the cold, hard truth about how you look, don't ask your friends. Ask your iPhone.

A new iPhone application called "Ugly Meter" lets users take photos of their faces and then analyzes their facial structure in real-time. Once the app is done scanning, it delivers a score on a 10-point scale.

Get a 10 out of 10? It might tell you "You're so ugly, when you walk by the bathroom, the toilet flushes."But if you score something closer to 1, it might be a little kinder. A 2.6-rated picture, for example, might generate the comment, "If beauty were time, you'd be an eternity."

"We've done some serious games in the past and just wanted to do something funny," said Eugene Overline, co-owner and lead programmer of Dapper Gentlemen of Gilbert, Arizona, the company behind the application. "You take it out and you won't get your phone back for an hour."

When he's taken it out at dinner parties, he said," People will just be crying, they're laughing so hard."

RunPee (yes, really) promises to be the small-bladdered moviegoer's best friend.

The application features all the movies currently playing in theaters and tells users approximately how far into the movie each "pee time" begins, the cue line to listen for and even what they've missed. (When you're on your way back to your seat, you can hit a button to unscramble text that provides a short synopsis.)

"The idea came from watching King Kong the re-make in 2005," said Dan Florio, RunPee's creator, referring to Peter Jackson's marathon three-hour blockbuster. Throughout much of the movie, he said, he was desperate to relieve himself.

"I kept thinking, I wish they would just kill this ape so that I could get to the men's room," he said.

Like a good fan, he waited until the end, but not without noting a good three-minute sequence he could have done without.

"I just could have gone to the men's room during the scene and I could have enjoyed the end of the movie and the movie would have been better," the Orlando, Fla. developer said.

When he walked out of the theater and saw the lines of people waiting to get into the theater, he wanted to share his secret. But being a bit bashful, he kept it to himself.

The idea stayed in remission until August 2008, when he launched RunPee.com.

He said he's watched about 80 percent of the movies to scout out the best "pee times," but added his family has helped. And anyone who's interested can submit ideas to the site.

In 2009, he partnered with brothers John and Sam Shahidi, and Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Jordan Palmer, to work on the iPhone app. Download figures aren't available yet, but Florio said traffic to the site has jumped from about 30 unique visitors a day last year to about 3,500 visitors a day.