It has become a popular internet joke that kids and teens ignore texts from their parents. It is a universal problem that kids often ignore the texts from their parents deliberately. While some Asian kids may get a beating for doing that, this one tech-savvy father from London found a way out. He built a smartphone app that may destroy your entire life if you do not reply to texts.
The ReplyASAP messaging app covers the entire home screen and continues to buzz an alarm until you answer the message. Nah, you cannot turn off this alarm. Nick Herbert, a 45-years-old worried father from London, UK, got the idea of building this app when he found out that giving a phone to his son was not enough to stay in touch with him. He would not reply to texts quickly and often keep his phone on silent. Before this could drive him mad, he thought of solving this problem for all the parents of the world, once and for all.
Nick made a considerable investment and spent eight months to build this app. He was motivated to offer an ultimate peace to the parents. The man explained and said,
“My son started at Langley Park School for Boys a couple of years ago and has a smartphone. I thought this would make getting hold of him easier, but it doesn’t at all. In fact, he is always playing games and has the phone on silent. It drives me crazy.”
Nick managed to develop the app pretty well, but the only problem at the moment is that his son uses an iPhone. Hilarious!
However, he is currently working on developing the iOS version that will be available on the Apple Store very soon. Every parent wants to relieve his stress.
“It will alleviate the stress when I can’t get hold of him as I will know that he has seen my message,” explained Nick.
The ReplyASAP app does three things; let the parent know if their kid saw the message, inform if the phone is switched off, and particularly force them to reply to the texts. Whenever the kid receives a text from their parents, the app will lock up the phone, take over the entire home screen, and sound an alarm until a reply has been sent back.
The app does have a potential of becoming a nightmare for all the teens, but Herbert says that it won’t be healthy to make it the primary way of communicating with your children.
“As they are teenagers I realize they aren’t going to be massively keen. My son hasn’t really said anything negative about the app. It is all about him understanding why it’s there. If I have something important to say I will send an urgent message. Hopefully, It will make things a bit easier. Will it be the bane of his life? Maybe! I’m not going to be using it all the time to speak to him. It is supposed to be a failsafe.”
If you are a worried parent who is ready to jump off the Play Store and get the app, remember that it is not entirely free. You can download the app for free, but there are a variety of plans that depend on how many users you need to connect with. You can begin with one person in the Bronze plan at $1.28, but it goes as far as 20 people at just $16.73. Does that sound like a trap that your boss might spread for you? Well, there are also the Solver and Gold plans that allow tormenting 4 and 10 people respectively for $3.21 and $9.
What a clever idea! Impressive indeed.
