Three helpful apps for boomers

Thanks to apps, our smartphones are able to serve myriad practical functions quite unrelated to calling or texting. Why not take advantage? Here are three apps that many individuals find highly useful.

Pillboxie

This is an app that allows users to easily and conveniently keep track of their medications. Pillboxie permits you to schedule reminders by dragging and dropping pills (which you label beforehand and provide with a unique shape and colour) into a virtual pillbox labelled by the time it should be ingested. It will then remind you whenever you need to take medication — even if your phone is asleep.

Magnifying Glass with Light

Many farsighted individuals keep a magnifying glass handy for reading small print. However, it’s not always practical to carry around this implement and you may sometimes forget it at home. When you’re out and about and you need to read the fine print on a grocery label or prescription bottle, you can use the Magnifying Glass with Light app. With this app, you can use your phone camera to zoom in on text you’re reading. It also comes with a flashlight feature, in case you’re in dim lighting.

Red Panic Button

This is an app that can quite literally save your life. Using this app, you can, with the press of a button, send a text containing a pre-set message and your exact location to your emergency contacts. This can prove indispensible in emergency situations when you don’t have the time or ability to make a phone call.

Find these apps and others in the App Store, if you have an iPhone, or in the Play Store, if you have a Samsung phone. (These digital stores are themselves apps and have been pre-installed on your device.)