9 Celebrities and the (Mostly Useless) Mobile Apps They Endorse
Celebrities lending their fame to promote products isn’t something new. They do this all the time, for all sorts of products – including technology and mobile apps.
Take a look below to see a list of 9 apps that have big name celebrities behind them. Some of them are pretty cool and useful, others are useless crap that you’d best avoid. You decide which is which.
Before we get started, I have to point out two things.
First, if an app hasn’t been updated recently (as in it received no updates this year), you’re not going to find it in the list below. So no Hanx Writer (Tom Hanks' typewriter keyboard app for iOS), no Snoopify (Snoop’s photo editing app for iOS and Android), and no Love Rocks Shakira (the tile-matching puzzle game for iOS and Android).
And second, if an app is linked to Justin Bieber or any member of the Kardashian family, you’re not going to find it in the list below either. That is all.
1. Chelsea Handler: Gotta Go!
Chelsea Handler has an excuse-generating app that wants to help you get out of bad dates, awkward conversations, boring meetings, and so on. It’s called Gotta Go! and it works something like this: create an excuse, schedule when it will be triggered, and get out of any awkward situation.
The Gotta Go! app has a simple user interface, makes it incredibly easy to create excuses, lets you pick between a fake call or a fake text excuse, and it’s offered for the great price of free on Apple’s App Store. Sorry Android users, the app is available for iOS only.
2. Heads Up! by Ellen DeGeneres
Heads Up! is a fun guessing game that’s often played on Ellen, the Ellen DeGeneres show. Playing the game is quite simple: hold your phone up so your friends can see the card it displays; guess the card from your friends’ clues.
Heads Up! is available for both iOS and Android. Heads Up! Kids, which features pictures instead of words, is available for iOS only.
3. The Rock’s The Rock Clock
The Rock Clock is an alarm clock app from none other than Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. It doesn’t have a snooze button, because The Rock doesn’t do snoozing. When the alarm goes off, you best get out of bed. Speaking about that, the app’s default alarm tone is Johnson going "beep, beep, beep." It’s one of 25 custom alarm tones that you can preview here.
Need some motivation to get out of bed and face the day? You got it! The Rock Clock features daily motivational messages from The Rock himself.
The Rock Clock is available for free on Google Play and Apple’s App Store.
4. Sniper X with Jason Statham
Seeing that Jason Statham has a social audience of more than 54 million followers, it’s no wonder that mobile game developer Glu Mobile was eager to strike a deal with the actor and get his face on a mobile game. The game in question is a first-person shooter that was supposed to be named "Sniper X: Kill Confirmed." But that name was dropped in favor of "Sniper X with Jason Statham."
The goal in this freemium game is to "become the free world’s ultimate weapon against the forces of chaos and terror." This means working for SPEAR, Statham’s elite paramilitary team, and taking on hundreds of missions where you have to eliminate enemy soldiers, vehicles, and even drones.
Sniper X with Jason Statham is available on Google Play, Amazon, and Apple’s App Store.
5. Britney Spears: American Dream
Britney Spears: American Dream is made by the same company that made Sniper X with Jason Statham – Glu Mobile, the developer with more celebrity-themed mobile games than I care to count. According to Glu, Britney Spears: American Dream lets players "live out their musical aspirations and rise to pop music stardom."
"We’ve developed Britney Spears: American Dream in collaboration with Britney Spears herself. The result is a game that is pure Britney - colorful, adventurous, artistic, and something we’re tremendously proud of," said Niccolo de Masi, Glu Chairman and CEO. "The integration of advanced social features like global chat and ability to create and share original content adds a unique personalization to each player’s experience. We look forward to engaging Britney’s nearly 100 million social followers worldwide, many of whom aren’t traditionally considered ‘gamers’ but we anticipate will enjoy the game!"
Britney Spears: American Dream, a freemium game for iOS and Android, is available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
6. Katy Perry Pop
In Katy Perry Pop – a mobile game from, you guessed it, Glu – you embark on a journey that takes you from an aspiring artist to a pop superstar. It’s a game about building your music career and making it big in the music industry.
"When Glu approached me about creating a game, I knew I wanted to develop a story line that half mirrors my own creative journey from Santa Barbara coffee shops to fantastical Tokyo stages, and the other half create a quirky fantasy land where you can be any kind of musical artist you want to be. There are real-life challenges and tools to learn about the actual music industry inside the game, but also, at a certain point, you’ll discover Katy-Vision, which will make you LOL when you see the wacky world of my imagination," said Katy Perry.
Katy Perry Pop is available for download on Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
7. Demi Lovato: Path to Fame
Relax, this is not a Glu Mobile game. It's an Episode Interactive game that is briefly presented like this: "When you win a chance to tour with Demi Lovato, your ability to balance love, friends, and fans is put to the test! How will you perform on the path to fame?"
If you want to, you can get this game from Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
8. Jay Z’s Tidal
Tidal is a subscription-based, ad-free, music and music video streaming service. You know, kind of like Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, Pandora, and the myriad other music streaming services.
So as I was saying, Tidal is a subscription-based music video streaming service. It’s also an app that you can use on your iPhone or Android.
When it launched, back in October 2014, Tidal belonged to a Norwegian technology company called Aspiro. In January 2015, Jay Z’s Project Panther purchased Tidal for about $56 million. Following the acquisition, a press conference was held to relaunch the service. Tidal was then presented as an artist-owned streaming platform. Jay Z, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Daft Punk, Jack White, Madonna, Alicia Keys and other artists were presented during the press conference as “the owners of Tidal.”
9. Reserve
Reserve is sort of like Uber, but for restaurants. You use the app to make restaurant reservations and to pay for your meals. Why did it make this list? Because Reserve’s list of individual investors features several celebrities: Jared Leto, Will.i.am and Jon Favreau.
Get Reserve for iOS from Apple’s App Store and Reserve for Android from Google Play.
Take a look below to see a list of 9 apps that have big name celebrities behind them. Some of them are pretty cool and useful, others are useless crap that you’d best avoid. You decide which is which.
Before we get started, I have to point out two things.
First, if an app hasn’t been updated recently (as in it received no updates this year), you’re not going to find it in the list below. So no Hanx Writer (Tom Hanks' typewriter keyboard app for iOS), no Snoopify (Snoop’s photo editing app for iOS and Android), and no Love Rocks Shakira (the tile-matching puzzle game for iOS and Android).
And second, if an app is linked to Justin Bieber or any member of the Kardashian family, you’re not going to find it in the list below either. That is all.
1. Chelsea Handler: Gotta Go!
Chelsea Handler has an excuse-generating app that wants to help you get out of bad dates, awkward conversations, boring meetings, and so on. It’s called Gotta Go! and it works something like this: create an excuse, schedule when it will be triggered, and get out of any awkward situation.
The Gotta Go! app has a simple user interface, makes it incredibly easy to create excuses, lets you pick between a fake call or a fake text excuse, and it’s offered for the great price of free on Apple’s App Store. Sorry Android users, the app is available for iOS only.
2. Heads Up! by Ellen DeGeneres
Heads Up! is a fun guessing game that’s often played on Ellen, the Ellen DeGeneres show. Playing the game is quite simple: hold your phone up so your friends can see the card it displays; guess the card from your friends’ clues.
Heads Up! is available for both iOS and Android. Heads Up! Kids, which features pictures instead of words, is available for iOS only.
3. The Rock’s The Rock Clock
The Rock Clock is an alarm clock app from none other than Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. It doesn’t have a snooze button, because The Rock doesn’t do snoozing. When the alarm goes off, you best get out of bed. Speaking about that, the app’s default alarm tone is Johnson going "beep, beep, beep." It’s one of 25 custom alarm tones that you can preview here.
Need some motivation to get out of bed and face the day? You got it! The Rock Clock features daily motivational messages from The Rock himself.
The Rock Clock is available for free on Google Play and Apple’s App Store.
4. Sniper X with Jason Statham
Seeing that Jason Statham has a social audience of more than 54 million followers, it’s no wonder that mobile game developer Glu Mobile was eager to strike a deal with the actor and get his face on a mobile game. The game in question is a first-person shooter that was supposed to be named "Sniper X: Kill Confirmed." But that name was dropped in favor of "Sniper X with Jason Statham."
The goal in this freemium game is to "become the free world’s ultimate weapon against the forces of chaos and terror." This means working for SPEAR, Statham’s elite paramilitary team, and taking on hundreds of missions where you have to eliminate enemy soldiers, vehicles, and even drones.
Sniper X with Jason Statham is available on Google Play, Amazon, and Apple’s App Store.
5. Britney Spears: American Dream
Britney Spears: American Dream is made by the same company that made Sniper X with Jason Statham – Glu Mobile, the developer with more celebrity-themed mobile games than I care to count. According to Glu, Britney Spears: American Dream lets players "live out their musical aspirations and rise to pop music stardom."
"We’ve developed Britney Spears: American Dream in collaboration with Britney Spears herself. The result is a game that is pure Britney - colorful, adventurous, artistic, and something we’re tremendously proud of," said Niccolo de Masi, Glu Chairman and CEO. "The integration of advanced social features like global chat and ability to create and share original content adds a unique personalization to each player’s experience. We look forward to engaging Britney’s nearly 100 million social followers worldwide, many of whom aren’t traditionally considered ‘gamers’ but we anticipate will enjoy the game!"
Britney Spears: American Dream, a freemium game for iOS and Android, is available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
6. Katy Perry Pop
In Katy Perry Pop – a mobile game from, you guessed it, Glu – you embark on a journey that takes you from an aspiring artist to a pop superstar. It’s a game about building your music career and making it big in the music industry.
"When Glu approached me about creating a game, I knew I wanted to develop a story line that half mirrors my own creative journey from Santa Barbara coffee shops to fantastical Tokyo stages, and the other half create a quirky fantasy land where you can be any kind of musical artist you want to be. There are real-life challenges and tools to learn about the actual music industry inside the game, but also, at a certain point, you’ll discover Katy-Vision, which will make you LOL when you see the wacky world of my imagination," said Katy Perry.
Katy Perry Pop is available for download on Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
7. Demi Lovato: Path to Fame
Relax, this is not a Glu Mobile game. It's an Episode Interactive game that is briefly presented like this: "When you win a chance to tour with Demi Lovato, your ability to balance love, friends, and fans is put to the test! How will you perform on the path to fame?"
If you want to, you can get this game from Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
8. Jay Z’s Tidal
Tidal is a subscription-based, ad-free, music and music video streaming service. You know, kind of like Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, Pandora, and the myriad other music streaming services.
So as I was saying, Tidal is a subscription-based music video streaming service. It’s also an app that you can use on your iPhone or Android.
When it launched, back in October 2014, Tidal belonged to a Norwegian technology company called Aspiro. In January 2015, Jay Z’s Project Panther purchased Tidal for about $56 million. Following the acquisition, a press conference was held to relaunch the service. Tidal was then presented as an artist-owned streaming platform. Jay Z, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Daft Punk, Jack White, Madonna, Alicia Keys and other artists were presented during the press conference as “the owners of Tidal.”
9. Reserve
Reserve is sort of like Uber, but for restaurants. You use the app to make restaurant reservations and to pay for your meals. Why did it make this list? Because Reserve’s list of individual investors features several celebrities: Jared Leto, Will.i.am and Jon Favreau.
Get Reserve for iOS from Apple’s App Store and Reserve for Android from Google Play.
