iPhone Launches 'purity Ring' Application

The iPhone has applications for almost everything, from helping people to choose the best wine for a meal to locating supermarkets in Holland. Now there is one to help them to stay chaste until marriage.

For just 59p, consumers can download an application that allows them to take a purity pledge and then display a silver ring on their phone to prove their commitment to abstinence.

Its creator, Island Wall Entertainment, claims the product will appeal to the younger generation and those people who have not already committed themselves to a life of abstinence and chastity.

The company's director, Henry Bennett, said: "We're not charging for the idea. We're just covering our costs. It's all about reaching a new market. If you wanted to buy a purity ring, you could spend as much as £100."

The application has a pre-recorded pledge for both genders that the user must accept before being able to display their ring on a loop.

Bennett believes the digital purity ring will complement, rather than substitute, existing pledges and purity rings as well, as reach out to new demographic.

The application may also allow school pupils to circumvent uniform rules banning jewelery. In 2007, Lydia Playfoot lost her high court battle to wear her purity ring at school when a judge ruled she had not been discriminated against.

"We have contacted Lydia's representatives to see if she is willing to talk about her case, but certainly having a ring on a phone would be one way for teenagers to take a pledge without breaking school uniform policy," Bennett said.

"We are preaching to the converted, and we're going for people who wouldn't buy a ring. The app is not the be-all-and-end-all of purity pledges: it's an entry point."

In the US, around 8m people have taken a purity pledge; in the UK, the figure is around 250,000. The country is regularly described as the teenage pregancy capital of Europe, and last week it was revealed that a £6m campaign to cut teenage pregnancies had failed, leading to an increase, rather than a drop, in the number of girls getting pregnant.

Despite these statistics, Bennett thinks the purity ring app "might take off".

Asked whether the virtual nature of the ring might lead people to forget their vow of abstinence in the heat of the moment, Bennett replied: "If you've taken the pledge, you're likely to follow it through."