I was reading an article online from a few years ago that said, “The marketing phrase “There’s an app for that” has become ingrained in our popular culture, and over time, it rings increasingly true.” And so it does, it really, really does.

I’ve got all kinds of cool apps for my phone from a metronome and music note tuner, a truly intense flashlight, battery consumption widget, bar code scanner and last week’s newest (for me) a leveling app that lets me know if something like a shelf or wall is even and true.

I’ve been searching the Internet for some signs of life for balloon applications. Surely there must be something out there for the balloon professional. If there is something like over 650,000 applications for smart phones and tablets, of course there must be SOMETHING valuable for balloon industry veterans (and newbies) to make good use of. There HAS to be many such applications for helium consumption, arch creation and sizing, footage calculations for creating arches and columns, design applications for making arches, columns, murals and logos, a color match application, timing apps for how long a large project might take, etc., etc., etc. – RIGHT?

I searched the Apple App Store. Let’s see, wait, here’s one – Jules Verne’s Five Weeks in a Balloon. Oh, well, I guess that’s not one.

Let’s try again. Click, click, click and I’ve got one – Oscar’s 1-10 Balloons! Nnnooo, that’s not right!!

You know what’s the “best” one I could come up with? BALLOONS – The World Just Got Smaller. You know what it does for us in the balloon industry? Nothing! It’s a silly game where you get a balloon on your phone, put your name on it and then you “launch the balloon into the air and watch it fly away.”

So in my best Saturday Night Live voice I simply say to all of you, REALLY? Really balloon industry? 30 plus years of growth and innovation and we haven’t learned to embrace the all-powerful application market to make our lives a little easier? REALLY?

There are a lot of really smart people out there in the business of balloons. Surely somebody can come up with something! Anything?

Can anybody tell me why, “there is NO app for ANY of that?”