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How to travel back in time using your mobile phone


We were genuinely upset when we found out that 05/07/10 wasn’t a day that Doc Brown and Marty McFly travelled to in Back to the Future – damn you Total Film and your hoaxing skills. In an attempt to cheer ourselves up we’ve decided to put together a few ways you can travel back in time using your mobile phone. Strap yourself in and get ready for a journey through history.

What better way to travel back in time than to use old-school hardware. The Native Union Moshi Moshi 01 is a retro-style handset (£30) that plugs into your mobile. Aside from making your friends laugh at you, it’s also a very comfortable handset to hold, and the perfect accessory if you make tonnes of calls from your desk. The solid handle and large ear and mouth piece make it ideal for long conversations. Marty Mcfly rating: 6/10

 

With the right mobile app you can create old-looking photos within seconds. One of our favourite time travelling camera apps is CameraBag for the iPhone (£1.19), which offers a variety of vintage filters. We love the Polaroid style pics and the ‘1974’ filter – you can create pictures that look like they came straight from your parent’s 70s photo collection. We hope they port CameraBag to Android soon. Marty Mcfly rating: 8/10

 

An obvious way to travel back in time is to leave your phone at home. It might sound like a stupid idea but having tried it a few times, we can safely say that nothing makes you realise how futuristic our lives are today than not having your mobile phone with you: no calls, emails or text messages, no GPS and no apps. If that isn’t a major step back in time, we don’t know what is. Marty Mcfly rating: 7/10

The Museum of London has created a wonderful iPhone app called Streetmuseum (free) which overlays a historic image over what you’re looking at. In other words, if you’re in Picadilly Circus, the app will figure this out and then when you look around through your iPhone’s screen it overlays a historic image of Piccadilly Circus. As Bill & Ted would say, that is “most excellent”. Marty Mcfly rating: 9/10

Use your mobile phone’s browser to access howtobearetronaut.com, a curious news blog that focusses on old news rather than new news. What’s great about howtobearetronaut.com is that you don’t feel like you’re reading old content because it’s written in a modern and exciting way. Each HTBAR blog post is filled with intriguing information that at times will completely surprise you. Marty Mcfly rating: 10/10

[Image credit: Flickr users jessica.garro and Marcin Wichary]

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