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The Bump app has been discontinued.
In the olden days of tech, way back when people used Palm Pilots, you could send contacts, calendar dates, and other information directly from device to device by beaming the information. But that was ages ago, when people still used PDA’s (personal digital assistants) and mingled with dinosaurs.
Then smartphones appeared that took pictures and people wanted to share their pictures. But the only way to share them was to either attach them in an email or send them via text message.
Lo and behold, a free app called Bump came along and changed everything.
Bump, available for free in the iTunes App Store and Android Market, allows you to transfer contacts, photos, music, calendar dates, apps and your information from one smartphone to another by bumping the phones together. Not only is the app free and fast, it’s fun! I dare you to use this app without a big grin on your face.
The great news is that the app works between devices so you can send information from Android phones to iPhones and vice versa. The app also works on iPad and iPod Touch devices so you can share information among all of these.
The iPhone version of the app has a few more features than the Android version. The iPhone version gives you the ability to send music and calendar dates as well. With the iPhone app you can also send your contacts, photos and messages to other Bump users without having to be close by.
With the iPhone app you can add friends which gives you the ability to send messages and all the Bump information you could send if you were close to each other. Your friends need to have Bump loaded and then you can share information with each other.
Here’s a video explaining how Bump works:
Let’s say you’re at a business conference and want to exchange contact information with someone you just met. You pull out your iPhone, she pulls out her Android phone, you open your Bump apps, bump and share your contact information. Fun, fast and way cool!
Or let’s say you’re at a family reunion. You take a bunch of pictures with your phone of your kids playing with their cousins. You can Bump with your family members to share the pictures right away.
Handy Tip: Allow the Bump app to use your location for quicker results. I’m not a big fan of apps knowing where you are if they don’t need to (see, Apps: To Push Or Not To Push?). But with Bump, you will be much more successful transferring your information if you allow the app to determine your location.
Bottom Line
If you have an Android phone, iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, you should grab this free app now. You will be happy you did next time you want to share contact information, photos or other information with others. You may not be sharing just your information, you may also be sharing a giggle!
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Do you share photos and contact information with others? How do you share the information? Have you used Bump? Let us know in the Comments section below!
* Image by Marlo Gayle
** Image by Katkamin
I liked things years ago. Computers have got faster but I can’t program the things any more. I don’t have a clue about half the things Windows & does because there are no instructions. I still have 2 thick books that came with MSDOS 3.3 and one was how to use it and the other was GW BASIC. I enjoyed programming in that, QBASIC an Quickbasic. Since then it’s been Visiual basic which i can download for free but have to buy a book for, which I did but it’s not too helpful. I also had loads of great games like scorched earth and f16 strike eagle that I could hack! I even miss PKZIP! lol. I liked batch files too and wrote lots of them. Microsoft should think of people like me and do a book for Visual Basic and make it easy to learn. In fact they could change the damn program and make it easy to learn. The same applies to web programming, I see no reason why someone should have to go to college to learn ASP.NET programming.
Interesting blog though! I’m having a strange day, I have written two blogs today and the readers are reading all different blogs. They have read 50 different blogs today between them out of a possible total of around 120! I did suggest that the Farmville player might like the other blogs though! lol
I have embedded a Youtube video in tomorrows blog and it worked this time. The embed code is different now and I might try changing the code that embeds the Facebook video to match and see if it works!
I shall try to find you blog about Twitter…
Hi Mike, Congratulations on Level 500 in Farmville. Your belted calf trick is brilliant. Anyone who plays Farmville should definitely check out your blog for advice from a Farmville expert!
I agree, there are times when I really miss MS-DOS, but in general I like tech better now than before. Smartphones and the iPad are so darn handy, I really wonder how I lived without them. It must be frustrating as a former programmer for you to witness so many changes to programming languages.
Have you ever given thought to writing your own apps? You have so many talents (as demonstrated by your many blog topics) including programming skills, you are ripe with potential for developing all sorts of apps.
If you do develop an app, please let me know so I can review it here at The Wonder of Tech!
Thanks so much, Mike, for your visit and wonderful comment! 🙂
Oops, I forgot. Here is the link to my Twitter article from March: https://wonderoftech.com/2011/03/celebrate-twitter%E2%80%99s-birthday-sign-up-today/
I hope you enjoy it! 🙂
Thanks Carolyn! I might even be ahead of my kids on this one!!
Hi Karen, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! You and your kids should have a lot of fun sharing photos with this app. The bumping process never ceases to entertain.
Thanks so much, Karen, for your visit and terrific comment! 🙂
The thought of accidentally sharing my dentist’s contact information while Bump sharing my contact info with a business colleague is a bit daunting. Is there an easy way to be sure what’s shared using Bump?
Hi cho cho, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! Great question. When you decide which contacts to share, you either enable all contacts to be shared or you check off which contacts you want to share.
To share your own information is easy and completely separate from sharing your contacts. Unless you want to share your dentist’s information, just leave her name unchecked. Only check the names of the people whose contact information you want to share.
Thanks so much, cho cho, for your visit and brilliant comment!
Not too long ago, when AppStore reached 1 billionth app, Bump was the billionth app downloaded. Here in Silicon Valley, I met with the founders too.
Incredible, what the founders have done with a small, fairly simple concept. They were an app first, but saw the merit of the simple data transfer using their method. And they soon became a platform company.
Now many other apps include Bump library to do some data transfer between apps. Say you want to transfer a coupon, a ticket stub, a picture, virtual baseball cards, or any kind of small data.
Even we considered using Bump at some point of time to sync both parents’ charts for the same kid. But later decided to build a more robust server side (which we are working on now) to do much more. However Bump still remains a favorite amongst many app developers for its lightweight, cross-platform (iOS, Android, etc.) protocol.
Hi iRewardChart, What an interesting comment! I forgot that Bump was the billionth app downloaded. It’s such a great app, I bet it accounted for quite a few of the billion previously downloaded apps.
I am so glad they developed the Bump technology. I remember missing beaming from my Palm devices before I discovered the Bump app. The Bump app is a lot more fun though and the process seems much more like a true connection.
How cool that you met the developers. They must be very pleased at how their technology has expended to include so many more uses. And it is very handy that information can be transferred between Android and iOS devices.
You made the right call with your syncing choice for your iRewardChart app. I think of Bump as more of a one time transfer and your upcoming syncing option should offer more ongoing syncing (I believe?).
I’m looking forward to the update to your awesome app so I can sync between my iPhone and iPad and my daughters’ iPod Touch cevices. It’s hard to keep up with all of their stars!!! 😉
Thanks so much, iRewardChart, for your visit and fascinating comment. You always add so much to the conversation with your comments! 😀
I have actually downloaded this app a long time ago, but I have never used it. It looks so cool. But, none of my friends have it, and I guess it makes it kind of useless if I’m the only one using it 🙂
Hi Jens, I have a solution to your problem: spread the word about this fun, free app! If your friends have Android or iPhones, they can download the app for free! Perhaps you could tantalize them with some of your pictures from your holidays. Or take pictures of them and offer to share the pictures with them via Bump.
If you give them a reason to use the app, I bet they will download it!
Thanks so much, Jens, for your visit, great comment and awesome tweet! 🙂
Carolyn, I enjoy your blog and have learned so much from you. Thanks! I nominated Wonder of Tech for Philadelphia’s Best Blog! Hope you receive some well deserved recognition!
Wow, thank you, Nicole! I didn’t even know about this award. I really appreciate your support. I am so glad you learn a lot from this blog and believe it to be Philadelphia’s Most Valuable blog!
I will keep you posted to see if The Wonder of Tech is included in the final award voting.
Thank you kindly for your visit, awesome comment and wonderful nomination! 😀
Sounds like fun; one of these days………………..:)
Hi Bill, I’m just wondering what you thought Bump was when you arrived here. Did the title take you back to your disco days?
Thanks so much, Bill, for your visit, comment and awesome tweet! 🙂
Ok, so here I am diving in…please feel free to ignore me if my questions are too ridiculous or off topic for words! I don’t have an iphone, they’ve always scared me though everyone I know swears they have changed their lives
1. What is the difference between an iphone and an Android phone ..and for a total tech-ignoramus, which would you recommend to get started?
I’ve heard about this bump technology and it sounds like a fast way of sharing information…I’m also seriously considering coming out of the dark ages and buying a phone that allows me to do more.
Would you believe me if I told you , I’ve never checked email/fb or sent a tweet from a mobile phone before in my life. Nope..never… old school laptop style for me…but hey with your help maybe it will be onwards and upwards…finally, lol
Hey Stacey, Way to dive right in with a brilliant question! In fact, your dive is like a triple flip in the pike position with a twist.
Seriously, yours is a truly great question. You are certainly not alone. Even though the growth of smartphones is huge, the majority of people do not have smartphones. And most people haven’t accessed the internet from their cell phones (you don’t need a smartphone to use the internet, most mobile phones can do that).
But I think you would enjoy having a smartphone, using apps, and checking your email and blog on the go. With your love of posting fantastic videos, you would be a natural for using your smartphone as a video camera.
As far as which phone you should get right now, don’t. Just wait. Not because I’m going away on holiday today, but because a new iPhone is due to come out soon, most likely September or October. Once the iPhone 5 is launched, you can decide between an iPhone 5, iPhone 4, or Android phone.
After I get back from my trip, I have an article comparing the two types of phones you should find helpful in your decision.
Thanks so much, Stacey, for your visit, amazing comment and wonderful tweet! 🙂
So i’m guessing you need to have the app installed on both phones? And you need to buy it again for the second phone.
But it still looks fun, which is something apps lack these days.
Hi Lynn, You’re right, Bump needs to be on both devices. But since Bump is a free app, you don’t have to buy it at all, just download it!
Bump is fun, you should give it a try. 🙂
Thanks so much for your visit and great comment!