Top 5 April Fools’ Day Jokes from the Android World

April Fools’ Day is turning into the most important marketing day of the year for tech companies. 2014 was no exception. Here’s what crazy stuff was announced on April 1, 2014 in the world of Android:

5) OPPO O-Lenses

As a contact lens wearer, I get excited anytime I hear about contact lens technology and HUD-type stuff. OPPO announced their new O-Lenses as part of their April Fools’ Day joke. The lenses are “meticulously designed to absolute exactitude using an intricate mesh of carbon nanotubes.” The contact lenses displayed calls, emails, and weather updates directly to your retinas. Other features included extreme zoom capabilities, the ability to take a picture by blinking, and my favorite: retina sharing, which allows you to see the world through someone else’s eyes. Out of all the April Fools’ Day jokes from 2014, this is the one I most want to be real (aside from a Pokemon MMO of course).

4) Samsung and HTC Smart Gloves

Samsung and HTC debuted Smart Gloves as their April Fools’ Day jokes. Unfortunately, neither company talked to the other prior to April 1, which means the jokes had nothing to do with one another. Samsung’s Smart Gloves came with a full tech specs readout and actually sounded pretty cool. Meanwhile, the HTC product, the HTC Gluuv, was just an HTC smartphone attached to a futuristic glove.

3) CyanogenMod notification sounds become sheep sounds

I liked this April Fools’ Day joke because it was incredibly discrete. The CyanogenMod team slipped a sneaky update into their latest nightly build. That update turned all of your phone ringtones into the ‘Sheep’ ringtone, which means that no matter which notification sound you selected, you’d get a loud ‘baa’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4oYd5ANw4M

2) SwiftKey Flow Hard

Swiftkey got in on the April Fools’ Day action with a clever joke about Flow Hard. Flow Hard involves ‘swiping’ on your laptop keyboard just like you swipe on a touchscreen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QfhTWJIDCM The video is pretty funny. It just shows a bunch of professionally-dressed people rubbing their fingers all across their screens. “Flow hard or go home!”

1) Google Maps Pokemon

Pokemon has made the news a lot lately. First, we had the popular Twitch Plays Pokemon event. Then, we had all the Pokemon episodes released on Netflix. For April Fools’ Day this year, Google capitalized on the sudden resurgence of Pokemon by giving the people what they wanted: a real-live Pokemon search that took place around the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YMD6xELI_k Unfortunately, we’re still waiting for our Pokemon MMO. You’ll notice that I didn’t call this article “Top 5 Funniest April Fools’ Day Moments” or “Top 5 Best April Fools’ Day Moments”. Let’s be honest here: April Fools’ Day is just becoming the best marketing day of the year and the same obvious jokes and gadgets keep showing up.