So you’re hanging out with a friend you haven’t seen for ages, and while eloquently discussing the ups and downs of the past few months it suddenly dawns on you that you don’t have his/her contact information! Sound familiar? Maybe not, but you have to admit that typing in someone’s contact details and then manually finding them on Facebook and Twitter seems a little cumbersome for people living in the age of the iPad.
There is a solution. Probability suggests that 68% of people reading this will already be familiar with Bump (just don’t ask me to show you how I worked that out!). It’s been around for a while and has gathered a strong following. Bump’s core purpose, as it seems to me, is to make your life easier while simultaneously making you feel like you’re living in the future.
Intrigued?
“To Bump”
Bump has increased in popularity to the point where it’s developed its own linguistic additions to the English language. “To bump” doesn’t simply mean ‘to knock or run into someone or something, typically with a jolt’, but also “to share contact info, pictures, calendar events, and even connect on social networks by *gently* bumping your phone with someone else’s.”
Bumping
It must be said that the concept behind bump is brilliant! It’s a simple and fast way to share information that is becoming more and more ubiquitous and exactly what iPhones were made for – Apps that make your life easier in a way you didn’t think possible!
Design & Interface
In July 2010 Bump 2.0 was released for the iPhone and included a major facelift. Bump now looks stunning and is a joy to use! The consistent attention to detail throughout and the use of well designed custom icons make for a great user experience.
Bump 2.0
Bump has clearly had a lot of thought put into its interface and it shows. It’s easy to navigate and intuitive to the touch. I especially appreciate the concise and straightforward settings menu, which gives access to multiple options including:
- Automatically add received photos to Camera Roll
- Automatically add received contacts to Address Book
- Use my Address Book to find people I know who use Bump
- Let people find me on Bump
It also lets you sign in to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn so you can immediately connect via Bump!
Updating Your Settings
Get Bumping
There are two ways to do this. The first is to select what it is you want to share and then go for the Bump. The second is to connect and then decide what it is you want to share. To Bump you simply hold your phone in your hand and bump it against another – a smart matching algorithm listens to the bumps from phones around the world and pairs up phones that felt the same bump!
If it doesn’t work the first time then just go for it again! Try and make sure the motion sensors are feeling the same thing.
Sharing Contacts
Bump is extremely useful for sharing contacts, photos, and connecting with people on social networks. It can also come in useful for sharing the odd calendar event, although for heavy calendar sharing there are better ways…
Sharing Calendar Events and Photos
The newest addition to Bump is the ability to ‘share’ music with others using the App. On first reading this sounds incredible! When I’m in a conversation with someone about music I can now just Bump them the tracks they need to hear? Well, er… no.
Sharing Music
Actually all Bump does is send the other party the information related to the song – along with links to listen on Youtube and a link to preview or buy it on iTunes (assuming it’s available). There are, of course, legitimate reasons to explain why Bump can’t actually send music files; beginning with the potential difficulty in maintaining a strong connection for long enough and ending with a fiery discussion about copyright law.
The Future
It’s worth mentioning at this point that Bump is free, and the developers maintain that it always will be. This is amazing, and reason enough for everyone to have Bump tucked away somewhere on their iPhone. It’s also good news in general for the functionality of Bump as it gets progressively more useful with every new user!
It’s also worth noting that the development team behind Bump have made the technology staggeringly easy to integrate into other apps. Only time will tell how interesting this development will be, but there are already some great examples of developers integrating with Bump. A great example is included in the newest version of the PayPal App – it’s now possible to send or request money by simply bumping your phones together!
Using Bump in PayPal
Final Thoughts
Despite being an early addition to the App store, Bump is still a shining example of what great ingenuity can accomplish! It has a determined development team behind it and has been updated numerous times, always something to look out for.
The core functionality of Bump is simply great and achieves exactly what all good inventions should (in my book) – it makes your life easier while simultaneously making it more fun! If you’re new to the iPhone then get Bump immediately. If you’ve had Bump for years then perhaps just take a moment to appreciate how it made you feel the very first time.