What do you get when you shake your iPhone? Sometimes you can find a cheap hotel near where you are standing. How? What does shaking your phone do?

This is one of the most baffling of all technologies to me. I simply can’t comprehend how a signal is transmitted and an app is engaged by shaking a phone. Alright, I am o.k. with plumbing but don’t know how mother boards and circuits work. I admit it. Actually, the shaking establishes your location. But how, I don’t know.

The new app must be shaking everyone up because it is variously listed as the #1 or #5 iPhone app, called Hotel Negotiator. Priceline must be counting the cash. It is made really easy for you because you are given the average successful bid by other Priceline users so that you can make an educated bid (please do underbid).

Shake your iPhone, enter your hotel class (3 stars, 4 stars, whatever you choose) and receive the median successful bid for the last month in the neighborhood where you are standing. Presumably the greatest value or best use is for last minute bookings because of the location identification capability. How many rooms are booked at the last minute? Is that a biggie?

The app is so engaging that it really has a lasting quality. Apps like this are almost enough to get me to abandon Verizon for AT&T but not any time soon. Having William Shatner punch through your phone and cause it to shake sounds like fun.