The latest applelet from MyWay Apps is set to be a godsend to the fifteen percent of the world's population that suffers from anomalous trichromacy, or colour blindness.
The app, iCanSeeClearlyNow, makes use of the iPhone 4's extraordinary camera and some clever software to present to the owner an image in a way that they can understand.
"I'm not colour blind myself," said App World! editor Mac Buck, "but when I downloaded this app, I could see how it would be a great boon to those that are."
MyWay Apps have presented the app with the intention of preventing the colour blind from selecting clashing colours when choosing their clothing, and for ensuring that the sofa that they are buying will blend with the rest of their furniture and furnishings. The iPhone is simply held up like a pair of binoculars, and what the iPhone owner sees is what a full colour person would see.
"I've got a couple of friends who are colour blind," said Buck. "Up until now, both have resisted purchasing an iPhone, but when I showed them this app running on my iPhone, they both bought one on the same day. The same day I showed it to them, obviously. Not the same day as each other."
It is difficult to explain to the perfectly sighted how the colour blind see the world, but with the use of this app, there will no longer be any reason for an orange tie with a lemon shirt, or a purple sofa in a green room.
According to Buck, there are a couple of downsides to the app.
"For a start, you look like a right tool stood looking through an iPhone screen at the world," he said. "Secondly, with only one camera, you can lose depth perception. And walk into things."
Overall though, Buck would recommend the app.
"I can see no reason why any colour blind person wouldn't want this app," said Buck. "Unless, for some perverse reason they like seeing the world like an Escher painting."