Now That Everyone’s Got A Smartphone, We Need Apps That Serve Low-Income Groups

There are 1 million apps in Apple’s app store. They fulfill all manner of needs, real and imagined. But what if you are a smartphone owner who needs food stamps? Or you want to access a “daily deal” that offers free museum admissions to low-income New York City families? While there are no apps for that, increasingly there’s a demand for smartphone software that serves a broader income base in the US.

“What we’re seeing is kind of a major growth in the ownership of smartphones with Internet access within our population,” says Zach Goldstein, director of systems and technology at HealthLeads, a nonprofit that works with hospitals to help doctors write and fill “prescriptions” for life-saving social services alongside their usual prescriptions for medicine. “The advent of smartphones has helped our clients overcome the digital divide,” he says.