Sure you cannot stop piracy 100%, but despite all the control that Apple exerts on its operating system, and the flak they catch for that, as developers, we have always felt a bit more secure and protected by Apple. Google has gotten better. When we first started we had to use the built-in copy protection for Android .apks, but now Android apps can use Application Licensing which takes a couple extra steps to add authentication code to the app which will make it query the Android Market to ensure the license status of that app for a particular user. This limitation also prevents us from providing free copies of our app to reporters, blogs, testers, etc. We would love for Google to allow us to provide free promo codes similar to Apple, but that is not the case. There are many occasions when as a developer you would like to provide free codes to someone. We have to get creative and lower the price for a few minutes when we want to do that for anyone, and even then its never free because after you make an app free you can never charge for it again.
The other significant limitation we realized when creating Android versions of our Mobile OMT apps. The Android Market has an app size limit of 24MB. That means as a developer you cannot even upload a larger app into the market. This would have limited our ability to embed native videos into CORE which currently streams – one of its limitations – and with over 150MB of video for our Android Mobile OMT app and that’s already compressing HD video as small as we could. We had to get creative in getting that content to our app. Our solution was to have a one-time download of the videos from our server after the app was purchased.
The other obvious challenges are the many different Android devices with their unique hardware and screen sizes. Even with as much quality control as we’ve performed on our apps before publishing them, we probably get 5 customer service requests/complaints on technological issues for Android for every 1 for iOS.
How was sales growth over time on iOS vs Android ?
iOS sales have always been strongest by far. They have gradually grown significantly over the last 18 months and especially the last 6 months, probably a lot in part due to increased device sales, the debut of the iPad, Verizon carrying the iPhone, etc. Initially we began to question if porting the CORE app to Android was the right move as sales were extremely low (2-3 a month), but I think the Android market was still in its infancy. Now, even though its never been as good as the iOS sales, it has improved significantly to almost that same number per day. We definitely feel that it’s a worthwhile investment and are now investigating moving our apps to a Honeycomb supported version to maximize them on tablet devices.
How much was developing on multiple platforms a diversion from developing new features or finding new business opportunities?
Great question. I feel like we have to continually keep up with the new OS updates and with new platforms. As I mentioned earlier, I think success lies in keeping up with the most current technological platform. The good thing is that the content is the strength of our apps, and so creating on a new platform requires taking the same content and adapting it to the new platform which is not a huge time commitment. However, it never seems to end. New versions of IOS provide new features, which at minimum require a new update so that the app can maximize its features.
For example, we went to great length to add coding to our Mobile OMT apps to allow them to use the video out feature so they could be used to teach via overhead projector. Then iOS 4.3 is released and allows all the apps to now do that naturally, and does it much better than we could have ever coded, mirroring the change in dimensions, etc. We had spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure how to make that work effectively for our apps. Now with increasing size of memory and increasing options in newer versions of iOS, we are looking at making the videos for CORE a native part of the app so they can be accessed without a network connection. That requires considerable time to reformat nearly 250 videos! But we owe that to the current users and ultimately it makes the app and the user experience much better. Also, our apps rely on current evidence and we really want to make it a priority to add emerging evidence to support OMT to our evidence summaries in those apps, as well as keep abreast of new physical exam tests or new studies with diagnostic properties for old tests to that we can continually add those to the CORE app. So to answer your question, there is a fair amount of time that goes into “maintenance” of these apps.
That being said, we are slowly working on several other offerings that we will hopefully have out later this year. We’re collaborating with some clinicians in different fields to create what we feel are clinically relevant tools in other disciplines. With all of our apps, the actual medical content development, coordination, and summary was by far the biggest time consumer. The toil of putting all that content into an app format comparatively was the easiest of the tasks.
Was it difficult porting an iOS app to OS X and the Mac App Store? Will you be porting other apps ?
With the release of the Mac App Store, porting our apps for desktop use seemed the next ideal step. We’ve had multiple requests from users and clinics asking about desktop versions they could use or put in their clinics. Prior to the Mac App Store, a small company such as ours would have spent an incredible amount of resources in marketing, hosting, delivery (download vs DVD publication), payment processing, etc. Typical textbook publishing companies pay royalties anywhere from 3-8%, and for those of you that have written any medical textbooks, you know that its not really done for the money at that rate.
The Mac App Store (and iOS and Market stores as well) are putting in jeopardy the role of the “middle man” publishing company. Without any of the expenses listed above, we could take material (we already had created for our smartphone applications) and modify it for the desktop environment. It seemed like logical next step. The only challenges were in making the flow and user interface more suited for a mouse-click type of navigation rather than a finger-swipe navigation. There is a little more freedom actually with the desktop versions as you don’t have to consider landscape versus portrait, what it will look on iPhone vs iPad, etc. It’s a lot more predictable.
Not all apps lend themselves to a desktop environment however. Many apps are successful specifically because they provide a feature that makes them unique in a mobile environment. That is the main reason they were created, and to make them “unmobile” would be counterproductive. We are fortunate that most of our apps have content that lends itself to both a mobile and desktop platform. That is definitely something for developers to consider when determining if they should port their app to the Mac App Store. So currently we have ported our Mobile OMT app series (3 different apps) into one comprehensive desktop version called Evidence Based OMT. The CORE – Clinical ORthopaedic Exam version for Mac desktop is being developed right now and should hopefully be available in the Mac App Store shortly.
Do you have plans to develop on other platforms, e.g. WP7 or Blackberry ?
We are definitely not ruling it out. We’ve actually pursued developing for both Blackberry and WP7, but at this point it has not really panned out well. Its difficult to get a device to test apps on, no developer likes to rely on an emulator alone, and multiple requests to Windows Phone 7 development resources in attempts to discuss some pertinent issues have gone unanswered. To date the benefit has not seemed to outweigh the risk, especially as we have not been lacking on projects, ideas, and features to keep us well occupied. We are always open to it and continue to monitor the situation for the opportune time.
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. That’s a loaded question, and probably one a lot of folks wish there was a straight Yes / No answer, but like many other things, the more realistic answer is that “it depends”. There are some good reviews and perspectives on these issues that iMedicalApps has posted on this site that you might want to go back and re-visit. Great question though, and one that’s on many people’s mind.
Video Review of the New England Journal of Medicine iPad App
Touch-free vital signs monitor launched by Sensiotec at #ATA2012
10 Second EM app for Android, for Emergency Medicine Physicians
Top 20 Free iPhone Medical Apps For Health Care Professionals
Top 15 Free Android Medical apps for Healthcare professionals
iPad Stylus Pen Review: An Updated Comparison of the best stylus for the iPad
Comparing Medical App development on Apple iOS verse Android: Interview with Dan Rhon
Sure you cannot stop piracy 100%, but despite all the control that Apple exerts on its operating system, and the flak they catch for that, as developers, we have always felt a bit more secure and protected by Apple. Google has gotten better. When we first started we had to use the built-in copy protection for Android .apks, but now Android apps can use Application Licensing which takes a couple extra steps to add authentication code to the app which will make it query the Android Market to ensure the license status of that app for a particular user. This limitation also prevents us from providing free copies of our app to reporters, blogs, testers, etc. We would love for Google to allow us to provide free promo codes similar to Apple, but that is not the case. There are many occasions when as a developer you would like to provide free codes to someone. We have to get creative and lower the price for a few minutes when we want to do that for anyone, and even then its never free because after you make an app free you can never charge for it again.
The other significant limitation we realized when creating Android versions of our Mobile OMT apps. The Android Market has an app size limit of 24MB. That means as a developer you cannot even upload a larger app into the market. This would have limited our ability to embed native videos into CORE which currently streams – one of its limitations – and with over 150MB of video for our Android Mobile OMT app and that’s already compressing HD video as small as we could. We had to get creative in getting that content to our app. Our solution was to have a one-time download of the videos from our server after the app was purchased.
The other obvious challenges are the many different Android devices with their unique hardware and screen sizes. Even with as much quality control as we’ve performed on our apps before publishing them, we probably get 5 customer service requests/complaints on technological issues for Android for every 1 for iOS.
How was sales growth over time on iOS vs Android ?
iOS sales have always been strongest by far. They have gradually grown significantly over the last 18 months and especially the last 6 months, probably a lot in part due to increased device sales, the debut of the iPad, Verizon carrying the iPhone, etc. Initially we began to question if porting the CORE app to Android was the right move as sales were extremely low (2-3 a month), but I think the Android market was still in its infancy. Now, even though its never been as good as the iOS sales, it has improved significantly to almost that same number per day. We definitely feel that it’s a worthwhile investment and are now investigating moving our apps to a Honeycomb supported version to maximize them on tablet devices.
How much was developing on multiple platforms a diversion from developing new features or finding new business opportunities?
Great question. I feel like we have to continually keep up with the new OS updates and with new platforms. As I mentioned earlier, I think success lies in keeping up with the most current technological platform. The good thing is that the content is the strength of our apps, and so creating on a new platform requires taking the same content and adapting it to the new platform which is not a huge time commitment. However, it never seems to end. New versions of IOS provide new features, which at minimum require a new update so that the app can maximize its features.
For example, we went to great length to add coding to our Mobile OMT apps to allow them to use the video out feature so they could be used to teach via overhead projector. Then iOS 4.3 is released and allows all the apps to now do that naturally, and does it much better than we could have ever coded, mirroring the change in dimensions, etc. We had spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure how to make that work effectively for our apps. Now with increasing size of memory and increasing options in newer versions of iOS, we are looking at making the videos for CORE a native part of the app so they can be accessed without a network connection. That requires considerable time to reformat nearly 250 videos! But we owe that to the current users and ultimately it makes the app and the user experience much better. Also, our apps rely on current evidence and we really want to make it a priority to add emerging evidence to support OMT to our evidence summaries in those apps, as well as keep abreast of new physical exam tests or new studies with diagnostic properties for old tests to that we can continually add those to the CORE app. So to answer your question, there is a fair amount of time that goes into “maintenance” of these apps.
That being said, we are slowly working on several other offerings that we will hopefully have out later this year. We’re collaborating with some clinicians in different fields to create what we feel are clinically relevant tools in other disciplines. With all of our apps, the actual medical content development, coordination, and summary was by far the biggest time consumer. The toil of putting all that content into an app format comparatively was the easiest of the tasks.
Was it difficult porting an iOS app to OS X and the Mac App Store? Will you be porting other apps ?
With the release of the Mac App Store, porting our apps for desktop use seemed the next ideal step. We’ve had multiple requests from users and clinics asking about desktop versions they could use or put in their clinics. Prior to the Mac App Store, a small company such as ours would have spent an incredible amount of resources in marketing, hosting, delivery (download vs DVD publication), payment processing, etc. Typical textbook publishing companies pay royalties anywhere from 3-8%, and for those of you that have written any medical textbooks, you know that its not really done for the money at that rate.
The Mac App Store (and iOS and Market stores as well) are putting in jeopardy the role of the “middle man” publishing company. Without any of the expenses listed above, we could take material (we already had created for our smartphone applications) and modify it for the desktop environment. It seemed like logical next step. The only challenges were in making the flow and user interface more suited for a mouse-click type of navigation rather than a finger-swipe navigation. There is a little more freedom actually with the desktop versions as you don’t have to consider landscape versus portrait, what it will look on iPhone vs iPad, etc. It’s a lot more predictable.
Not all apps lend themselves to a desktop environment however. Many apps are successful specifically because they provide a feature that makes them unique in a mobile environment. That is the main reason they were created, and to make them “unmobile” would be counterproductive. We are fortunate that most of our apps have content that lends itself to both a mobile and desktop platform. That is definitely something for developers to consider when determining if they should port their app to the Mac App Store. So currently we have ported our Mobile OMT app series (3 different apps) into one comprehensive desktop version called Evidence Based OMT. The CORE – Clinical ORthopaedic Exam version for Mac desktop is being developed right now and should hopefully be available in the Mac App Store shortly.
Do you have plans to develop on other platforms, e.g. WP7 or Blackberry ?
We are definitely not ruling it out. We’ve actually pursued developing for both Blackberry and WP7, but at this point it has not really panned out well. Its difficult to get a device to test apps on, no developer likes to rely on an emulator alone, and multiple requests to Windows Phone 7 development resources in attempts to discuss some pertinent issues have gone unanswered. To date the benefit has not seemed to outweigh the risk, especially as we have not been lacking on projects, ideas, and features to keep us well occupied. We are always open to it and continue to monitor the situation for the opportune time.
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