By Sarah Petit:

Apple likes to tout its iPad as magical, and while Apple is of course no stranger to hyperbole, the following story really strikes a chord. The video below profiles Evelyn O’Brien, a woman who has been legally blind for more than 30 years after being diagnosed with Macular degeneration. Macular degeneration is a eye disorder that affects the center of a person’s field of vision.

Now with the advent of the iPad, given its portability and ability to zoom in real close on pictures, O’Brien for the first time is seeing things – like her kids faces! – that she hasn’t seen in years.

iPad gives sight to legally blind woman: wwlp.com

Naturally, some folks are wondering why she couldn’t just use a magnifying glass. Addressing that, an optometrist on a Reddit thread chimes in:

Magnifying glasses only allow for a certain amount of magnification; the handheld ones can go up to maybe 4x. People with end-stage macular degeneration need things magnified 10-20x. There are low-vision aids available that do the same thing the iPad is — like CCTVs, which have been out for ages — but they’re a lot more expensive (and less portable, and single-purpose) than the iPad is.

Here’s the world, indeed.

Meanwhile, Windows 7 is helping the elderly with, ahem, intimacy problems.