Medical apps for iPhone can be found aplenty, and soon to come are biomedical apps that interact with implants and monitor vital signs.

A few weeks ago I received my first iPhone, and ever since I’ve had a blast of a time. This single, tiny device, can take the place of so many other utilities: books, movie and music players and yes – even portable game systems. It all depends on the apps you choose to download to your iPhone, of which there is a wide variety. Of all the applications I ventured to check, one of the most interesting is called Sleep Cycle. The idea behind the app is quite simple: it turns the iPhone into an alarm clock that only wakes you up during the light sleep phase, where waking up is easiest.

I’m going to be honest now, and say that in the few days I’ve experimented with the app, I still haven’t reached a final conclusion whether or not it works. The technical idea of using the iPhone accelerometer to measure the body’s movements on the bed is quite innovative, but I don’t think the different phases of sleep can be measured accurately in this manner. All the same, this app demonstrates the one of the many potential uses of smartphones as tiny biomedical devices, a market that has hardly been explored to its fullest.

In his exciting TEDMED lecture, Dr. Eric Topol sheds light on the way we’ll soon use our smartphones to monitor our vital signs and chronic conditions. It’s highly recommended that you spare 15 minutes to watch the lecture and see the future for yourself.

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