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App Smart

Forget a Birthday? Not if the Phone Can Help It

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Kit Eaton describes three apps that can help you keep track of the birthdays for the people in your life.

IT’S my birthday this week! It’s a date I am not likely to forget, but I acknowledge that when it comes to friends’ or family members’ birthdays, my memory is awful. Often, I even miss the “It’s X’s birthday” alerts that pop up in Facebook. Beyond simple calendar alerts, many apps can help you remember and celebrate a birthday.

There are plenty of birthday reminder apps in the app stores, but many are pretty poor. That is a shame for simple apps for such happy events. However, a great option on iOS is Birthday Calendar by Davia. It’s free.

The app pretty much does what you imagine it would: It displays a calendar view or a simple date-ordered view of friends’ coming birthdays. It can grab data directly from Facebook, from birthdays you have entered into your phone’s contacts or from what you enter directly into the app. On a friend’s birthday, you can send a text or a Facebook wall message with just one tap. You can also set reminder alerts, either days in advance or on the day itself, so that you are less likely to miss it.

The app is simple to use, though the pop-up ads can be irritating. There is also an Android edition. The Android interface looks different, but the functions are the same.

If you have hundreds of friends, a better app may be Birthday Calendar+ by MobTouch Inc., free on iOS. This app looks a little more professional, and has extras that include telling you how many of your friends do not have birthday data available on Facebook. It also reports your friends’ ages in its list of coming birthdays, which could remind you to buy a gift for milestone birthdays. The app works well in its free edition, but the $1 upgrade lets you banish the in-app ads and get extras like data on celebrity birthdays that match those of your friends.

For Windows Phone, the free app Birthdays from Enless Soft is a good option. It has the same sort of alerts and the ability to grab data from Facebook as the other apps mentioned here. In addition, it can display birthday alerts on your phone’s Live Tiles display.

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Fotocam Birthday Pro creates digital greeting cards based on photos you have taken with your phone.

So much for reminding you of a coming birthday; what about helping you celebrate? Personally, I love physical cards, but it’s the 21st century and digital cards can be quite nice.

My favorite card-generating app on the iPhone is Fotocam Birthday Pro, which costs $2. As its name suggests, the app creates digital greeting cards based on photos you have taken with your phone. You can use a snapshot of yourself, the family, a pet or whatever fits, and then use the app’s built-in frames to add that special birthday feeling. There are over 50 frames, each brightly colored, with greetings and images like candles and cakes built in. You can even edit each frame slightly to show more of the photo behind it.

When you have created your masterpiece, the app lets you send your card by SMS, email or Twitter. One irritation is that the app includes a URL advertisement for the app in the text you send, but this is easily deleted.

On Android a good equivalent is AppBasic’s Birthday Photo Frames, which is free. This app does more or less the same thing, although its many colorful “frames” are a bit chintzy. And while there are lots of options for adjusting the photo you have snapped to fit the frame, it can take a while to get it looking right.

For a more creative alternative, check out the Greetings! app by Mobatia, free on Android. This app also creates themed digital greeting cards, but allows more control over the type of art included. This app lets you customize your text greeting as well. Your cards can be shared through Facebook or email, or you can save them and send them through SMS. It’s a bit tricky to learn to work with the interface, but it does work and the app is very popular with Google Play reviewers.

On iOS the justWink Greeting Cards app from the card company American Greetings, which is free, is another creative card-maker that includes a lot of predrawn art and ideas. The cards can be customized with photos, messages and built-in images, and the graphics style is pleasant and cartoony. You can share the results with friends through Twitter, Facebook and so on. If you share through email, you will even get an alert to say that the card has been viewed by the birthday boy or girl. I like this app’s playful interface, and the fact that it is useful for events other than birthdays.

Before I go, one last thing: Remember what your smartphone is really for? Making phone calls! Why not give those special someones the genuine human touch and actually speak to them on their birthdays?

Quick Call

Toca Pet Doctor is the latest from the children’s app maker Toca Boca. Pet Doctor combines the company’s signature cute graphics with educational gameplay. In this case it’s all about teaching children to help and care for animals, and is $3 well spent.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: Forget a Birthday? Not if the Phone Can Help It. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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