Skip to content
Surprising Science —

Got Acne? Believe It or Not, There’s an App for That.

Spruce is a new iPhone app helps you secure prescription drugs to treat acne. It’s just another in a long line of telemedical advances coming soon to your device.
Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

The promotional video for Spruce, a new iPhone app released today, features a twenty-something woman unhappy with her acne. She opens up the app, uploads photos of her face, and receives a personalized treatment plan without ever having to enter a doctor’s office. 

As Wired’s Kyle Vanhemert notes, Spruce’s unique approach to telemedicine is to do one particular thing better than the rest. In this case, acne — an affliction not going away anytime soon. Upon uploading photos, Spruce users receive a response from a board certified dermatologist within 24 hours. You can even get a prescription filled at the pharmacy of your choice.

It’s all quite brilliant. If you’re going to get into a burgeoning industry like smartphone apps, and you’re focused on providing a medical service, it’s best to deal with something relevant to your most tapped-in audience: young people.

Check out the video below to learn more about how the app works. You can also read more at Wired, where Vanhemert goes into detail about Spruce’s founder and telemedicine as a whole.

Top photo credit: Accord / Shutterstock

Bottom photo and video: Spruce

Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.
Related
A bearded man wearing glasses and a plaid shirt speaks with a microphone clipped to his collar in front of a purple background with white dots.
The Well
How Rainn Wilson discovered sacredness
The hospital where Rainn Wilson’s wife and son nearly died became his own personal holy site. There, he discovered that the sacred can exist in places we least expect it. During his talk at A Night of Awe and Wonder, he explained how the awe we feel in moments of courage and love is moral beauty — and following it might be the start of our spiritual revolution.
▸
13 min
—
with
Rainn Wilson
Up Next
WikiMind
Design Like A Scientist
When I first started designing products, I used to mainly think about their aesthetics. That seems like the right, and obvious, thing to do. However, product design is not fine […]