Model, actress, and 2010 Playmate of the Year, Hope Dworaczyk (pronounced "dor-ah-sik") recently released her own iPhone app called The Rating Game ($0.99; app2.me/3901). From the app, you can take photos of yourself or your friends with the iPhone's built-in camera, and Hope will rate your looks and let you know her thoughts. It is surprisingly entertaining.
I recently got a chance to interview Hope about her new app, her love for all things Apple, and her upcoming projects.
David: How did you get involved in creating apps?
Hope: The App Company (theappcompany.com) came to me and asked if I was interested in creating an app. My first idea was to do a fashion and beauty app because I'm very knowledgeable in the beauty field–hair and makeup and all that. But they said, "Well we want you to do a game app because games are so popular." We ended up getting together and deciding that the Rating Game would be the first app that I did with them.
D: Does that mean there are more apps to come?
H: I hope so, yeah! This one is kind of like a prank app. It's really marketed more towards men because I'm rating, and they think it's funny to give their friends a low rating. But really, my passion is beauty and fashion. Being a model, I work with all these different hair stylists and makeup artists that have done makeup around the world. They have all these tricks that I pick up, and I want to share them because it's kind of not fair to keep these things to myself. So, my next app will be a beauty and fashion app.
D: How did you create the app?
Hope: The first thing we did was write the script for the app. What I would say if you got rated a ten, if you got a nine, etc. Everything from "Wow, you're looking great," to something that was much lamer if you got a one or two. For the bad scores, I would say things like, "Better luck next time." Then, we got together and filmed all the quotes. One of my good friends is a photographer, Josh Ryan, and he was there to do all of the still photography for the app. Of course, I had a wardrobe stylist as well because I wanted to show clothes I'd actually wear.
After we got all of that done, we gave it to The App Company, and it was up to them to put it all together into an app. It took a long time to do. It was almost three months before the app was finished.
D: What has been the response to your app so far?
Hope: My friends think it's the funniest thing. I'm always telling them, "Could you not play that right now, we're eating dinner!"
Hope Dworaczyk's app, The Rating Game, is available in the App Store now.
D: What Apple products do you own?
Hope: I'm a total Apple fanatic. I have the iPhone 4, an iPad, and a MacBook Pro. So I'm all Appled out!
D: Other than your app, what are some of your favorite apps?
Hope: I obviously use twitter all the time. I'm a big fan of it. I use the Facebook app (free, app2.me/260) to communicate with my fans and my friends. I love Hanging With Friends ($1.99, app2.me/3905) right now. It's a hangman game similar to Words With Friends. I use the Huffington Post app (free, app2.me/2832) all the time. I love that site. I also use US Weekly (free, app2.me/3906), Open Table (Free, app2.me/2737), I heart Radio (free, app2.me/2816) and a bunch of travel apps.
D: What other projects are you working on?
Hope: Right now, I'm working on a movie called "Without Men" with Eva Langoria. I'm also doing a bath and body line for Lola cosmetics called, "Hope for Lola." I'm really excited about it; it's a dream of mine to be able to develop beauty products like that.
D: You recently appeared on Celebrity Apprentice. What was that like?
Hope: It was crazy, because the people were so crazy. Not all of them, but there were about five people who were really difficult to work with, which made the show seem crazy. We also barely slept. We'd go for Hair and Makeup at 4:00 A.M. and we wouldn't come back to our rooms until around 11 at night.
Hope was in 10 episodes of Celebrity Apprentice before she got "fired" by Donald Trump.
D: How'd you get fired?
Hope: I did well. I was in 10 out of the 13 episodes. I didn't really do anything to be fired specifically. Trump said, "Hope, you've been playing under the radar." On the episode I was fired, Mimi Williams and Star Jones got into big fight, a full-on screaming match where they each had to get security guards and everything. It was the three of us in the boardroom, and I think that the producers wanted to play that out in another episode.
You can read more about Hope at hopedworaczyk.com.
