Plant a tree? There's an App for that!

A new iPhone app launched yesterday called iPhorest, an app that lets you plant trees, both physically and virtually.

iPhorest is a $4.99 app that was created in a collaboration between iPhactory, Ecolife and The Conservation Fund. Basically, when you download the app, you dig a hole, plant the seedling, shake your phone to create a rain storm, and your seedling will then start to grow. You keep repeating this until your tree is full sized.

Sounds like a small novelty app so far, but wait, there's more...

To commemorate the development of iPhorest, Ecolife Apparel worked directly with The Conservation Fund at this year's TED 2009 conference, to plant 2,200 trees--one for each attendee... Tree planting services are provided to iPhactory by The Conservation Fund. For each virtual tree planted, The Conservation Fund will plant a native tree in real life!

So the more trees you plant on your phone and take care of, the more actual trees will be planted in real soil. You'll have to check in with The Conservation Fund to ensure the trees are really being planted and maintained. However, it's great when an app has a positive real-world effect.