Now you can have a ball with your cellphone

A lot will depend, I suppose, on the phone’s apps.

At a minimum I’m going to want a phone that has an app called Google Translate, which will enable my phone to translate my spoken phrases into 24 languages. That will be indispensable for those frequent times when I’m in Tokyo and need to ask for directions to the nearest pizzeria.

And it goes without saying I’m going to need an app called Tiger Woods: My Swing, even though I don’t golf and don’t understand why anyone else does, either. But if I combine Tiger Woods: My Swing with Google Translate it might help me strike up conversations with blond cocktail waitresses in 24 countries.

Most of all, though, I probably shouldn’t even consider a phone that doesn’t have an app for Sphero. Sphero, for those of you who are so old you think a phone is adequate if it sends and receives calls, is the newest and most exciting advance in cellphone technology. With this app, you will be able to use your cellphone to remotely control a ball.

Not just any ball, of course. If you try to remotely control, say, your boccie ball with a Sphero app, nothing much will happen and you most likely will be disappointed. The app only works with a Sphero ball, which is made of white plastic, is approximately the size of a baseball and costs $130.

There’s probably no need to detail the hours of fun you can have remotely controlling a white plastic ball with your cellphone. Guide your Sphero across the living room floor. Guide your Sphero across the kitchen floor. Guide your Sphero from the kitchen into the living room.

But wait, there’s more! For additional hours of fun, watch your pet chase it around the house. Exactly how many hours of fun depends upon your pet, though. If I guide the Sphero ball to bump into our dog’s nose all he probably will do is wake up, sniff the Sphero ball, realize that it isn’t edible and go back to sleep. Which means I will have paid $130 for approximately one nano-second of fun.

So maybe I should skip the Sphero and settle for a phone that merely sends and receives calls, connects to my email, searches the Internet, takes photos, plays music, shows movies and has only a few hundred other apps.

You know, just the basics.

Contact D.L. Stewart at dlstew_2000@yahoo.com.