By Bryan Menell January 23, 2009 6 Comments

Austin-based Ringful has a new app in the iTunes store that might be able to help you figure out wich allergens are causing you grief. Pollen is a relatively simple application that tells you the pollen count based upon your zip code. As you can see from the screen shot at the right there is also an allergy forecast that will tell you if things are going to get better or worse in the next few days.

The flower at the bottom is how you indicate your daily symptoms. After a period of time, you can look at a report and it will correlate what is in the air vs. how you feel to figure out which things you might be allergic to.

With Cedar season here in Austin, the forecast alone could let you know ahead of time how much allergy medication you’re going to need.

The app sells in the iTunes app store for $2.99. Since the app never asks for your name or any other personal information, and the data appears to be stored locally on the iPhone, your allergy problems appear to be private. This certainly would be a great lead generation mechanism for an allergist!

My next feature suggestion would be a nationwide heat map of allergy sufferers by type that could be syndicated to all the news stations for their allergy forecast.  Sort of a Wisdom of Crowds approach to the nation’s allergy status.

If you check out the Ringful website, you’ll quickly figure out that Pollen is very basic compared to some of the other cool technologies and applications that Ringful has developed.

About

Bryan is the Managing Editor for AustinStartup and the Director of the Collaboratory at Dachis Group. He is a co-founder of Capital Factory, on the board of Texchange, and runs the popular Austin Tech Happy Hour with his wife. He advises early stage technology companies including Socialware, SpeedMenu, and AudiencePoint.

Comments:
  1. Excellent suggestions. The “wisdom of crowds” approach to combating allergy is exactly what we need. :)

  2. wow, is this effective? nice one..

  3. I'll back again for sure, thanks for great article :D

  4. This app is not available anymore. :( It was GREAT!

    People Over Process » Links for January 23rd
  1. Spring Pollen Counts are Getting Higher « Allergy Comfort Zone Discussion Forum

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