Karin McLean could never pinpoint when she ovulated - until her software engineer husband, Shane, developed an iPhone application.
Dubbed Lady Biz, the program tracks her menstrual cycles, and daily basal body temperatures.
"It took me two years to get pregnant," says McLean, a 36-year-old sales professional from Lindon, Utah, whose baby is due in May. "Now, I can look back and see I got pregnant on Cycle Day 16. Next time, I'll know."
McLean is not alone. More than 1,500 copies of Lady Biz have been purchased from
Apple's App Store in iTunes -
a website where third-party software designers hawk
their programs, a growing number of which are aimed at women.
Sure, some of these apps are traditional girly stuff - programs that let you try on a new celebrity hairstyle or preview Ralph Lauren's 2009 Fall Collection.
But there are other applications that are eminently useful in the super-busy lives that most women have to juggle. There's an application that turns an iPhone into a travel baby monitor. And a program called Shopper lets you keep track of grocery lists week by week, store by store.
"There's an arms race going on between manufacturers," says Kevin Restivo, a mobile phone analyst at IDC Canada, a Toronto-based research firm. He's referring to Apple's App Store and Waterloo-based Research in Motion's just-launched BlackBerry App World. "A platform is more valuable if you've got applications."
Roberta Cozza, a British-based mobile-phone analyst with Gartner Group, says applications aimed at women are a way to compensate for the fact that the vast majority of phones are "designed really by men and for men.
"Most of the vendors really are missing an opportunity," Cozza says, referring to the fact that women are major consumers of mobile phones (the accepted industry stat is that women influence 89 per cent of consumer electronic purchases).
"It is a shame that the market is so much more oriented in design for a male audience."
Sometimes a simple aesthetic change can make all the difference in making a product appeal to women.
Casie Stewart, a 26-year-old Toronto project co-ordinator, installed Tinker Bell-themed software onto her silver BlackBerry Curve to better reflect her personality. "I don't want a regular BlackBerry like all the guys in my office," she says. "I like mine more unique and girly."
The BlackBerry Pearl proved popular among women with its smaller, friendlier size. Telus created a pink version to raise funds for Rethink Breast Cancer that was also a hot seller. But Cozza says turning a phone pink misses the point in catering to women.
Ed Boyd, the new lead industrial designer of Dell's consumer products, used to design watches and sunglasses at Nike.
The company had a saying: "If you shrink it and pink it, it's not enough," he says.
Cozza says women tend to prefer protective clamshell designs like flip phones or those with sliding keyboards because, in a handbag, they're less likely to get dirty or accidentally dial. She also says touch-screen keyboards on smartphones such as the BlackBerry Storm have alienated some women because the keys don't respond to fingernails.
Natalie Gee agrees. She traded her iPhone in for a BlackBerry Curve because she was spending too much time training her fingers to hit the touch-screen keys properly.
Gee, co-owner of makeup/grooming studio Gee Beauty in Toronto's upscale Rosedale area, also didn't like how dirty the screen got with fingerprints.
She estimates that 70 per cent of her clientele prefer regular keyboards because they can type e-mail quicker on raised keys. Women tend to buy phones that will adapt to them, not the other way around, she says.
Melanie Fine, 39, of Richmond Hill, Ont., says changing the way her thumbs hit the touchscreen keyboard on her new iPhone was worth the trouble.
The certified public accountant, who owns an IT services company with her husband, says she has become an "iPhone junkie" since switching from her red BlackBerry Pearl in November, taking full advantage of many apps to enhance her busy life.
Shopper, a program created by a company called MidCentury Software and available on Apple's App Store, is among her favourite applications. It allows her to keep running shopping lists on her phone for the grocery store, Costco and Home Depot. Not only does it help her plan meals, she says she saves time and money by sticking to her list and avoiding impulse purchases.
"People look at me funny," she laughs. "Most women are walking around the grocery store with their handwritten lists and here I am pegging off stuff on my iPhone. It looks like I'm playing with my e-mail or something. But I'm getting in and out of the store faster than they are."
A demo of the Lady Biz app can be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP8l5_UH-6o
Sheryl Steinberg's tech-inspired novel Opportunity Rings is being published this month by Key
Porter Books.
