A strange thing happened when the menus arrived at the table during Ilene Berman's 48th birthday dinner. It involved 10 women, five smartphones and an application called Mag Light. The dimly lit atmosphere at Cibo E Beve in Sandy Springs was momentarily interrupted as the women whipped out their phones to illuminate the very tiny light brown print on the cream-colored menus.
"No one thought twice about it," said Berman, a partner at Taylor English Duma, LLP. "It is becoming commonplace."
Berman, who thought it offensive when her husband did the same thing during a dinner for two last summer, has joined the ranks of smartphone users who find themselves smoothing the path to middle age with mobile apps.
"It opens a world of possibilities for so many things," Berman said.
There are apps to test your vision and determine if a visit to the optometrist is in order. A voice-activated nutrition app translates food options into healthier alternatives. A blood-glucose monitoring system app will let diabetics monitor blood sugar on-the-go. And an app equipped with emergency buttons can find or track an individual's location -- a helpful tool for Alzheimer's sufferers and their families.
For the uninitiated, apps enable programs configured for a desktop computer to be used on smartphones and other mobile devices. In December, the total number of apps available on the four top mobile phone platforms reached the milestone of 1 million. While games are the most popular category of apps in general, utility, lifestyle and health-related apps that make navigating daily life easier are attractive to some middle-aged and specialty consumers.
VaShaun Jones, 35, of Atlanta, also uses a flashlight application, but not to read restaurant menus. Jones, who was visually impaired at birth and lost his sight five years ago, uses it to find light sources in a room. When the app is activated, he can sweep his phone around the room and observe the difference in shadows to find a window or determine if there is a light on.
Lifestyle solutions for the visually impaired have been on the market for years, but many are antiquated, Jones said.
"They are helpful, but they don't move at the same pace as the rest of the world." Apps, he said, help bring things up to speed.
Jones, who has served as an accessibility consultant for Apple, also uses Glympse, an app that allows the user to send location updates to friends for a select time period, and an app that converts speech to text so that he can send e-mails and text messages.
Dictation apps also help users who may have trouble seeing a small keyboard or who may not have the dexterity to type, said Dr. Brandy Hobbs, a Conyers-based optometrist.
Hobbs has fielded an increasing number of questions about apps from patients and their families. Sometimes she offers a demonstration of the Eye Exam app.
"It is accessible and has good information on eye disease," said Hobbs, who also issues a word of warning. "It is not an actual exam. It is an app on your phone."
Still, health-related apps are reportedly an increasingly popular category for developers as reflected in health care giant Sanofi Aventis' creation of the forthcoming iBGStar, the first blood-glucose monitoring system that connects directly to an iPhone to manage diabetes information on-the-go. Though the jury may be out on the effectiveness of some health apps, doctors are not above recommending them to patients.
When Rick Butgereit, 52, needed to lose weight and eat better, his doctor recommended a desktop program that provides and tracks nutritional information. The Marietta resident tried using that version, but would get into trouble when he was eating on-the-go. So he installed the Nutrition Pal app on his iPhone.
"It imposed some discipline on me when it was time to make an eating decision," Butgereit said.
He opens the voice-activated app, recites what he plans to eat and gets a list of alternative options. When he makes a selection, the app gives a calorie count and saves the information.
Butgereit said he has lost weight and his blood pressure has dropped in the two months since using Nutrition Pal. The results, he said, have changed his outlook on apps.
"Before I wasn't big on downloading apps," Butgereit said. "But now that I have found these very purposeful apps, there are a couple others that I am looking at."
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