Choosing the right smartphone for medical practitioners is quite confusing now than any previous time , but so far its simple as well because its not about how fancy the smartphone is , its also not about how much the smartphone is recent or new in the market , its more about How many applications ( especially ) medical applications for this device and is the device is supported by developers or not . So what medical practitioners should look for when getting a smartphone :
iPhone and iPod Touch :
iPhone deserves to be the top of this list , even though it still in progress with a cost limitation and geographically limitation and distribution , however its the most developer friendly Phone yet with Apps repositories and many applications directories available . its a developers friendly phone which explains why there are tons of applications for iPhone since it lunched , though many users complain outside USA that they can’t get the AT&T iPhones , though , there are 2 solutions for that , the first : Get the AT&T iPhone and seek a specialist in your area to unlock it , the 2nd solution is simple and clear as it regard the need of the applications more than the phone itself so iPod Touch can solve this issue .
Medical iPhone applications : There are numerous medical iPhone apps , free , and commercials , the medical iPhone applications set , turns the iPhone or the iPodTouch to a powerful medical practice tool . One of the most usable features of the iPhone and iPod Touch is those devices are built for Internet , with Wi-Fi connectivity , But in my opinion of what makes those devices the most usable is the Storage 8GB and More is enough and really outstanding storage space to load the device up with apps .
Windows Mobile :
Windows mobile is an advanced and quite the 2nd place in Smartphones OS used yet , its supported by many Mobile companies though , its also has many many medical applications built for it . Its not quite fancy as iPhone OS , as the last 6.1 Windows Mobile , but regarding the major updates in version 6.5 it’ll be pretty fancy and more usable than the previous one . Windows mobile devices so far till the last year were extending their storage media through external cards and memories , however the embedded memory ain’t enough to install many applications as the iPhone , also many applications are demanding to be installed on the main memory which is small already .
Developing :
Developing apps for Windows Mobile devices is pretty amusing experience for .NET developers , but Hey don’t forget , its Mini-Windows which means there are also many alternatives for Ruby , Python and Lua developers to build apps for it . Downsides :
Android :
Android is still with limited supported gears ( phones ) as well as limited applications so far , but it looks promising as many of the companies start adapting it for some of their production models , however with the limitation of its applications , may affect the interest of the doctors to use it . some of HTC phones as the one i have , has hacked ROM with Android can be installed , also the HTC dream ( Android powered ) is pretty expensive than the windows mobile powered .
Downsides :
Linux Mobile :
Linux mobile OS are out of the competition , mainly because the interest of the developers as well as the lack of supported phones so far . Linux mobile are tricky term because there are the OS as ( Maemo ) and the gear ( OpenMoko ) . There are few companies already supported linux mobile OS ( Maemo ) as Nokia N900 .
Maemo is pretty customizable and open source carrying on the linux concept to be hacky , though as its targeting the usability of the end-users . it also include the concept of package ( apps ) management , and as a linux user i believe this is the most powerful point so far ( i hate to keep out-dated packages/apps ) . Maemo also has applications directory , which is rich directory keep growing .
Maemo is a linux , so it can run linux applications without problem as long the applications do not require specific hardware specifications , which means any developer knows how to build apps on linux can play the game .
OpenMoko : is a linux Phone , and i previously wrote about it in here , its Geeks phone , but its totally out-dated ( so far ) out of luck phone . Even it supports Android but it still needs some improvements to catch up with the real competition .
OpenMoko : Packages and applications OpenMoko has applications / packages repository which is so far a very useful and good decision even its late , but as long as they are losing the market , i believe they need a real new look with more features for their phone !
Note : about openMoko : OpenMoko has their own developers Forge which include a Medical Science Apps as a sub category of Scientific and Engineering category . The Medical Science apps contains only one project so far still in development status ” Telecare/Vitalcare On OpenMoko ” which is consider a promising move . In my personal opinion i believe OpenMoko needs to enhance its hardware features , as more larger screen , and more and good storage space , as a starter to can compete.
Palm :
Palm was and still the famous smartphone used by doctor so far , still many doctors and health care practitioners are using Palm , There are tons of medical applications for palm , which many of them are free and usable in medical and clinical practice , but regarding the new Palm WebOS , and its new PalmPre device , can it runs the old Palm medical apps or the developers should re-develop their applications for the new OS !
The new Palm OS , is supposed to be developer friendly as iPhone , and it’ll be more cloudy since the new OS is WebOS . But am thinking Palm already comes last for the competition so far . Personally as i tried Palm Web OS SDK , its pretty easy and more developer friendly so far , and now i believe it’ll be the most competitor for the iPhone if it catch up the developers interest again .
Blackberry :
Blackberry is known to be a business phone , but can it be counted as the right phone for doctors ?! , Well there are some medical handheld apps developers consider blackberry as a usable phone for doctors , so they built blackberry edition for their apps . but is that enough .
Symbian OS :
Symbian OS is Nokia – the famous mobile company – heart , however Nokia seems to be interested in Linux to power up their gear recently , But as Symbian is also running on many other phones along with Nokia as a popular choice there are quite good medical applications for Symbian OS , but Symbian powered phones are not the favorite phones for smart doctors .
Conclusion :
Doctor`s choice should depends on how many medical applications in the market for the phone he’ll use , though he does not need to ignore the other features as an end-user as well . The first choice so far is iPhone and iPodTouch , the 2nd in place is Windows mobile devices , as for Android and Palm the time will reveal which one will get into the competition . Linux Mobiles are for geeks so far regarding OpenMoko , however the big companies seem to be interested in using Maemo i believe the plans will involve creating a set of applications to make it usable and public . Blackberry and Symbian os devices are OUT of the choice so far .
Hamza Emadeen Mousa
