Trying to Get Pregnant? Check Your Cellphone

Feb. 20, 2009 — -- So you're late again. You're a woman with a busy career, but you're newly-married and you have hopes for a family, too.

You're trying to get to a meeting when you hear the familiar ping of your cell phone, telling you a text message has arrived.

You open it: "Your fertile window opens today and lasts five more days," it says. "Stress can get in the way of conception, so relax and get a massage, meditate or take a yoga class."

Welcome to Life 2.0 -- an era when wireless applications, downloaded into your smartphone, are coming along to make your life better ... or at least faster. In recessionary times, this technology happens to be very, very cheap.

The text you just received is from -- yes, this is its real name -- Booty Caller. The app is free, offered by a parenting Web site called BabyCenter.com.

Do you really want a text to remind you this might be a good time for sex? It may not be your idea of spontaneous fun, but its makers say it may well help you squeeze some fun -- and a new baby as well -- into an overscheduled life.

"Booty Caller is definitely a sign of the times," said Linda Murray, the editor-in-chief of BabyCenter.com, in an e-mail. Her site, she said, "set out to create a tool that would provide fertility information as well as tips on getting pregnant in fun, digestible text messages."

There are myriad other programs (apps for short) taking advantage of the growth of wireless handheld devices (handhelds for short). With names ranging from Financer to iFitness to Dog Whistle -- well, you get the idea.

Have a need? Someone out there is trying to fill it -- now, quickly, with almost no effort (and little or no upfront cost) on your part.

Many of the apps are designed for the iPhone, perhaps the best-known of handhelds.

But as the market grows, so do the possibilities. Here's a small sampling:

Look around -- through magazines, at store displays, on kids' t-shirts -- and you may see small, square black-and-white patches that remind you of bar codes. They serve much the same purpose. The idea comes from Scanbuy, a New York firm that hopes the little so-called EZcodes will become ubiquitous.

"We've been at it for a while," said Jonathan Bulkeley, the CEO of Scanbuy, Inc., "and the idea's been the same: making it easier for you to navigate using the camera on your phone, instead of the keypad on your phone."

Point your camera phone at, say, an ad for running shoes -- and your phone's screen will quickly show you a Web site with specs and user reviews. Point the phone at the code on a kid's shirt, and you're directed straight to his or her Facebook page.

Bulkeley says he can see countless other uses: How about a marker, for instance, on the wrapper for a head of lettuce that tells you how long ago it was picked from the field? He's even seen a code on a grave marker that lets you read about the life of the person to whom you're paying respects.

Financer is a portable electronic ledger, a way for you to keep track of your money, no matter where you are.

"Financer is one of our most popular applications; and we've seen an increase in demand since the recession," said David Becker, CEO of its maker, dBelement.

The screen of your iPhone takes on the look of a checkbook ledger -- the same thing you used a generation ago, except that it does the math for you.

The market's down; maybe you'd better hold off on the shoes.

iFitness

So you can't afford those Nikes? For $1.99 (a lot of these programs have similar prices at the Apple App Store), iFitness will suggest workout routines to keep you in shape. Flabby arms? Touch "arms" on the menu and find the best exercises. Worried about your abs? The program will suggest a routine.

It will also keep you honest. You can keep a log of what you've done, get an idea of your progress, and if you don't like it, you can try Fit Phone.

Or, if you're like so many of us when it comes to New Year's resolutions, you can stop and feel guilty.

In which case, you may want to download...

Fast Food Calorie Counter

This is an app for those of us who choose to drown our sorrows with a burger and fries. Tap in any of 4,700 items from 41 chains, and it will tell you the calorie count, amount of fat, number of carbs and everything else you need to know to go back and buy those running shoes. $2.99 via Apple from Concrete Software.

This is the part of the story where we remind you that mention of these particular apps does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of them. Each has many competitors, and you're invited to weigh in with suggestions in our comments section. Many apps have features you will love or hate -- and the only way to find out for sure is to try them for yourself.

But most of the apps are either free or very cheap, which means a barrier has been crossed. There are a million things you can now do, with very little effort, on what you used to think was only your cell phone.

Unless, of course, you prefer to do them on paper, or a computer, or even -- what a quaint idea -- in the flesh.