The native iPhone version of Skyscape has been delivered and was named Skyscape Medical Resources, a name that indicates the huge database of titles of the iconic medical applications developer.
Skyscape Medical Resources sports four free titles, these are: Archimedes, Outlines in Clinical Medicine, MedAlerts, and Rx Drugs. Yes, I know that you’ve never heard of such a free offer from Skyscape BUT it’s true they are offering it absolutely free. Click here to open up the free download page on your iTunes.
Not only it provides these lovely four free goodies but it also functions like a portal to all other Skyscape titles where we can purchase the yearly subscription [See screenshots above].
So they intelligently did not market their products separately just like what Lexi has done but instead they developed a single app that we all going to download [because it's free] and then we’ll gradually get tempted to buy the other Skyscape titles from within the app itself. [Update 04-24-09], Now apps are marketed separately but still they flow into the single app, read related post.
Other thoughtful advantages of the single app are:
1) They can send you updates in a single packet instead of having to update many titles a process which takes fairly long time for Apple to approve.
2) They can include their popular SmartLink technology enabling the users to cross link among all the installed apps a function which would have not been feasible on multiple apps.
The flow of pages and the extremely easy interface coupled with large fonts and screen and a flip and touch iPhone’s navigation makes Skyscape a real medical treasure on our iPhone and iPod Touch.
All the features we used to have on the Palm and PocketPC are there such as the history tab and the multi-indexing of each title and even you get some extra iPhone features such as zooming in by double tapping. However, some functions are still missing such as the interactive flow charts and external linking.
Currently there are 350+ [out of the total 500+] Skyscape titles that have been made iPhone ready and can be downloaded either directly from the Skyscape website or from within the Skyscape Medical Resources itself.
Before the availability of this native app they used to offer their products online through their iPhone website http://iphone.skyscape.com and if you have purchased a subscription on that website you can switch to the native version.
So no more excuses now that we have the largest medical PDA library available and up and running so we can safely get ourselves a new iPhone or iPod Touch for Christmas!
Hi, thanks for the article.
Do you think this is really a native app? It seems like this is just a portal of access to their online database..
Hi, thanks for the article.
Do you think this is really a native app? It seems like this is just a portal of access to their online database..
Hi ToniMax,
If you are talking about the Skyscape Medical Resources then YES it is definitely native BUT I think you are unsure about the add-ons the titles that we can purchase and add to the list.
Well, I think YES they are also native and I have two evidences for you:
First] You can read and access these titles even when your WiFi or 3G turned off.
Second] Your iPhone or iPod Touch memory reduces whenever you add any of these titles for example 10MB in the case of Harriet Lane which means that these files are for sure residing in the device.
Hi ToniMax,
If you are talking about the Skyscape Medical Resources then YES it is definitely native BUT I think you are unsure about the add-ons the titles that we can purchase and add to the list.
Well, I think YES they are also native and I have two evidences for you:
First] You can read and access these titles even when your WiFi or 3G turned off.
Second] Your iPhone or iPod Touch memory reduces whenever you add any of these titles for example 10MB in the case of Harriet Lane which means that these files are for sure residing in the device.
“So no more excuses now that we have the largest medical PDA library available and up and running so we can safely get ourselves a new iPhone or iPod Touch for Christmas!”
I’m not sure I agree. Native app is definitely a step up in terms of being able to access programs if you’re in a hospital with neither wifi nor 3G reception. But all the Skyscape programs are still only available for the iPhone as a 1-year subscription version. I would imagine they’ll eventually offer the standard versions (and hopefully the option to upgrade for people who already paid for the subscription), but when exactly will that be?
“So no more excuses now that we have the largest medical PDA library available and up and running so we can safely get ourselves a new iPhone or iPod Touch for Christmas!”
I’m not sure I agree. Native app is definitely a step up in terms of being able to access programs if you’re in a hospital with neither wifi nor 3G reception. But all the Skyscape programs are still only available for the iPhone as a 1-year subscription version. I would imagine they’ll eventually offer the standard versions (and hopefully the option to upgrade for people who already paid for the subscription), but when exactly will that be?
Hi Mark,
I totally agree with you
I don’t like their subscription policy for iPhone apps [read this post] and I don’t think they will change that policy anytime soon because they have the monopoly [as of today] on iPhone as no other company provides such a comprehensive medical library ‘nativelly’ on the iPhone, Unbound Medicine cannot do it because they provide wireless websites as a mean of an iPhone products and Epocrates is still struggling with their Essentials release on the iPhone.
Also, you are absolutely right they should have the courtesy and allow us to upgrade our Palm and Windows Mobile purchases to their native iPhone equivalents [by the way an Epocrates insider told me that they will provide that with Epocrates Essentials].
It could have been worse if they did not allow those who purchased http:iphone.skyscape.com web based access to upgrade to the native product buy luckily they did so [read this post on how to migrate]
Hi Mark,
I totally agree with you
I don’t like their subscription policy for iPhone apps [read this post] and I don’t think they will change that policy anytime soon because they have the monopoly [as of today] on iPhone as no other company provides such a comprehensive medical library ‘nativelly’ on the iPhone, Unbound Medicine cannot do it because they provide wireless websites as a mean of an iPhone products and Epocrates is still struggling with their Essentials release on the iPhone.
Also, you are absolutely right they should have the courtesy and allow us to upgrade our Palm and Windows Mobile purchases to their native iPhone equivalents [by the way an Epocrates insider told me that they will provide that with Epocrates Essentials].
It could have been worse if they did not allow those who purchased http:iphone.skyscape.com web based access to upgrade to the native product buy luckily they did so [read this post on how to migrate]
[...] iPhone does not support file transfer but there should a work around [see how Skyscape came with a wonderful easy to use App that can download all there contents and [...]
[...] iPhone does not support file transfer but there should a work around [see how Skyscape came with a wonderful easy to use App that can download all there contents and [...]
hey! thats cool! – just one question, do you know if it is possible to play iphone 3g apps on the new 4?
No, it’s not possible