Science, technology and the revolution brought by PCs surely took their toll on our life's most intimate aspect, the sex life. From vibrators, spermicide sponges and the massively used pill, to electronic stimulators and the online porn industry, you name it; love making is definitely not what it used to be decades ago.

As this is a software review and not a column about sex, I'll cut the story short, I wouldn't want to set your mind off Macintosh applications. While men got the best out of computers and the Internet (I'm evidently referring to gaming, porn and chats), from the sexual point of view, women have to benefit too from the software industry.

Today I'm going to review a very nice and helpful application for the OS X Mac operating system that will help women to be more in control of their monthly biological cycle and to get a reliable fertility councilor.

This software is called iKonceive and it's developed by eSellsoft. The program will enable the user to record all relevant data about the aspects of the monthly cycle. iKonceive will accurately compute all this data to provide with information on fertility.

This information is surely very valuable, since it can be used both as an indicator for when it's most likely to get pregnant and also to prevent unwanted conceptions (this is known as the "natural" contraception method and it implies the woman would calculate, using several parameters, the days in which she is fertile and avoid intercourse on those days; the calculations are not that simple and miscalculation often take place; if you're not great at maths, don't rely on your computing).

For the program to provide the necessary information about the fertility status, the user must write down every day the required parameters. The more accurate the user's data is, the more confident she will be the data provided is correct.

iKonceive analyzes fertility considering two major aspects: the basal body temperature (BBT) and the cervical mucus (CM). Using the data provided by the user, the program puts up charts showing the fertility status evolution, considering each of these aspects. The user will be provided with an overview of the monthly chart. The charts can be customized according to the user's cycle length (the default number is of 28 days, but this value is not necessarily accurate for all women), and the temperature can be recorded and displayed both in Celsius and Fahrenheit degrees.

The program will act like your very own gynecologist. It will record the daily aspects of your menstrual cycle, notes about your cervical mucus, health state, mood, will remember whether and when you had intercourse, and will allow you to write down all that you've experienced and you fell it would be relevant to remember in the future. You should accurately fill in the data for all these aspects to get the best out of iKonceive.

The graphs showing the evolution in basal body temperature and the cervical mucus are both comprehensive, easy to read, color coded and customizable, so you'll have no problem with understanding the delivered results.

I see this kind of tool as very helpful for all women. Most importantly, if you carefully record the required data, you'll be storing a very accurate medical chart concerning your monthly cycle, you can monitor the evolutions and keep track with what's going on with your body. Health is by no means something to be neglected. Equally, it's very important to keep track of your fertile days, either if you're hoping to have a baby, or if you wish to avoid becoming pregnant.

The Good

iKonceive is a very useful tool that allows women to keep an eye on their fertile days and also monitor their reproductive health. The interface is very nice, it's easy to install and use and it's well featured and accurate. The iKonceive help is also well developed and you can always check with it when not sure on the usage.

The Bad

I think iKonceive is perhaps a little too expensive at $30. I also didn't like the fact that I could not add a new day that is prior or after the current date (or enter two different days at the same time). Women have lots on their mind and it's very likely they could miss to fill in the data for one day and this shouldn't disrupt the recordings. Other than this, I really enjoyed the software and it's clear to me much work was put into its development.

The Truth

iKonceive is well developed, easy to use fertility monitor for Mac OS X. It's priced at $30 and it can be tried out for free, but you can only fill in one cycle. If you were looking for such a tool, iKonceive is a good pick.

Here are the screenshots: