Excuse Generator Lite Review

Mark Mackay

We review Excuse Generator Lite, an iPhone app that helps you come up with better than 'my dog ate it, Miss'

Published on Nov 11, 2009

We've all been there - due to circumstances outside of your control you’ve been simply unable to attend school, or work and the reasons are the kinds of things that you don't want your boss or teachers to know about.

While the old 'I know someone whose dog really did eat their homework' has turned into something of an urban myth, most people can do better. That's not to say it's easy though, especially if, like most people, you hate lying.

Today we're looking at Excuse Generator, an app that broaches this moral subject, and helps you churn up some dirty rotten fibs. When you first open up the app you're presented with the option for phone excuses or text excuses. If you want to salvage any sort of credibility we strongly recommend using the former in your blagging efforts.

Once the app is installed, opening up the loudspeaker feature option during a call provides access to the sound excuses menu. You can the select from eight different noises. While we felt that the car crash soundbite was a little on the harsh side, it's a pretty decent reason not to be at school, work or with the other half.

Other sounds include static noise, dog barking and cheering crowds, all of which are perfectly solid reasons to get off the phone to the mother-in-law.

The text excuse gives you a little dialogue, which can then be relayed to the appropriate authorities to meet your wicked ends. We decided to start off with the school excuses to see if there were any of the corkers we used to use as young whippersnappers.

Excuse Generator Lite came up with 'My homework must have dropped on the road as I was leaving home, sorry'. Any pro blag artists knows only too well that this one will get shot down quicker than you can say 'my dog ate it'.

After a few more pants excuses like 'My eyes hurt too much, I couldn't see any reason to do it', it was starting to look like this was more of a mess around app than a real excuse generator. Work excuses ranged from the semi-decent 'my key broke in the door and I have to wait for a locksmith' to the frankly laughable 'my dog ate my car keys'.

On the whole though the excuses were flimsier than a regurgitated math project. The audio excuses are fun but the text-based ones were more of a mess-around than anything else. You wont find much inspiration for your excuses here.