BY BELINDA M. PASCHAL
If you’re a techie who keeps abreast of the latest in cell phone gadgetry, you’ll hold iPhone’s newest application near and dear to your heart. If you’re just curious about what you or your sweetie would look like with certain, er, “physical enhancements,” this is one invention you’ll definitely cleave to your bosom.
Say hello to iAugment, a free iPhone app that gives women a virtual visualization – of what they would look with, um, a bit more bounce. The Photoshop-style tool allows users to take a picture of themselves and increase their, uh, “décolletage” using more than a dozen 3D (or should I say 3-double-D?) implant sizes.
Before you make a boob of yourself and assume that a man invented iAugment, it’s actually the brainchild of New Orleans plastic surgeon Elizabeth Kinsley, who created the app with Touch Studios, which develops custom apps for iPhone, Droid, Blackberry and iPad, as well as programs for Facebook.
“This is designed to give them the best idea possible of how they might look after surgery,” Kinsley said. “You can show your friends, your boyfriend or your husband and say ‘what do you think?’”
iAugment also includes the option to find a plastic surgeon near you, which might support Kinsley’s claim that the app is meant for women considering going under the knife were it not for several users’ discovery that the nearest (and only) recommended surgeon is Kinsley herself.
Serious purposes notwithstanding, there’s no doubt a lot of folks won’t give a hoot about the app’s intended use and will download it strictly for entertainment value. I, of course, would NEVER engage in such juvenile tomfoolery, but I DO have a “friend” who tried out the app using pictures of numerous celebrities – some of them female – with hilarious results.
The application is selling so fast, stores can scarcely keep ‘em on the racks, and if the scores of positive online reviews I read are any indication, iAugment won’t be going bust anytime soon:
“What an awesome app! Scheduled my appointment 2day!”
“I downloaded it for my wife, she loves this app.”
“I just have it for making funny pics!”
“I wish that it could go to extremely absurd sizes … I don't care what its true purpose is.”
“Great fun. Works on your butt, too.”
“I'm a guy … how I can undo this?”
A word of caution, though: Dangerously close to iAugment’s “Save” button is another button that posts your results to Facebook. One wrong move and you’ll be saying “ta-ta” to your dignity.
