IRL - Social Calendar

This app has the potential to be a useful tool or a parent's worst nightmare. Though IRL - Social Calendar is rated in the app store for users 12 and up and has some nice organizational tools, parents might not enjoy their kids joining the "Litty Committee" (whose activities are symbolized by a beer can) or having their friends nominate them for "bingeing the hardest" or being a "motherf---ing legend."

More than just the questionable references and language, though, the issue with IRL - Let's Hang in terms of teens is its main purpose: facilitating real-life meet-ups. On the upside, the app uses your phone contact list, not a general online search, and this could prevent your teens meeting with strangers. Still, once someone is in a device's contacts, the app can be used to chat, send (and take) photographs, and designate meeting places complete with directions (although during the review period, the built-in directions/map functionality doesn't appear to be working). Also, though the nominations are relatively positive, the fact that you're sending them anonymously can be dicey, since there's no way to know who's giving you feedback. The interface is clean and easy to use, but there are significant glitches, like randomly minimizing and refusing to give directions or let you add a profile picture. Also, upon first downloading it, an error message appeared saying "the server was overloaded" and to contact a customer service email for notification of server status. It was days before registration was possible. Let's face it -- after a message like that, "in real life," no amount of convenience would prevent most people from immediately uninstalling the app. Bottom line: It's a potentially risky app, and its usefulness for older kids is marred by technical issues and poor customer service.