You know that feeling you get when you're in line at the grocery store and the person in front of you coughs and doesn't cover their mouth? You immediately feel slightly ill and begin subconsciously searching for symptoms that might not even be there. The new Sickweather app is kind of like that, only it's on your phone and you can't give it a mean glare like you can with a real person. The app is designed to help you avoid illness, in theory, and while that may indeed work for some people, for me it does the exact opposite.
Sickweather presents a local map of your neighborhood, including eateries, stores and any other public place, and then overlays reports of illnesses. So if a person down the street has strep throat or the proprietor of a nearby gas station has the whooping cough (and bothers to report it) you're going to know about it. You can even set the app to push notifications to you based on specific illnesses.
The idea here is that if you know a bug is in the area, you can do your best to avoid it. Unfortunately, as soon as I see a report of "The Common Cold" pop up within 100 yards from me, I'm going to start guzzling Airborne and searching for The Walking Dead marathons on cable. What you do with the information is up to you, but the app is free, so it's hard to pass up a glimpse into your local flu scene.
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via TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog http://www.tuaw.com/2013/12/02/sickweather-app-will-either-help-you-avoid-a-cold-or-make-you-fe/
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