As much as I may complain about Apple and AT&T these days I still love my iPhone 3GS. In fact it is BECAUSE the iPhone is as remarkable as it is that I get frustrated with Apple and AT&T standing in the way of the device reaching toward its potential.

The iPhone is the one object that is always with me. It is the first thing I look at in the morning after its alarm has roused me and it is the last thing I hear at night as I listen to some music. It has, in fact, found a way to creep into so many varied aspects of life that I dare-say it has become indispensable.

On a seemingly daily basis I find new uses for the iPhone and ways it replaces other tools. Often these are tiny things that, BI (Before iPhone) would have been done one way but AI (After iPhone) are done another.

So I thought it might be interesting to see some of the more mundane ways the device has found its way into our daily routing. For starters here’s mine…

I was at the doctor earlier this week and discovered that my blood pressure was through the roof. Not surprising since I take a medication that can do that but still of concern. Before jumping into any therapy for it however my doc wanted to track it for a week or two to see what happens through the course of a day and over a week or so.

“Do you have a blood pressure cuff?” she asked.
“I do” said I.
“Great, I be right back with a log you can keep” said she.
“You mean a little notebook to write it down?” I asked.
“Yes, wait one second. I’ll be back with it.”

“Hold on a sec” I said as I pulled out my iPhone and went to the App.
Store.

And there it was…

Thanks to the iPhone I would not have to carry a paper log and a pen. Instead I could just use BP Buddy, a $.99 app that tracks blood pressure.

In fact, BP Buddy does far more than just record notes.

BP Buddy logs information, can present it in a graph so you can look for trends, allows you to add notes (for example, whether or not I had yet taken the medication that might be prompting the high readings), records self-assessed stress levels, and can email the information to yourself or your doctor.

And that’s what it key to the iPhone. Not only does it replace other ways of doing things but it then makes doing them either faster, better or both.

High Blood Pressure? There’s an app for that.

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