As always, Skscape comes out with discounts at this time of the year.
Go to Skyscape’s Offer Page
This time it’s 15% site wide discount
Good opportunity to buy that expensive title from Skyscape, offer ends in July 9.
Happy fouth of July to all …
Posts Tagged ‘Skyscape’
Skyscape’s 4th of July Discounts
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009Skyscape’s Medical Bag @ $1.99
Monday, June 29th, 2009When I first downloaded Skyscape’s Medical Bag for only $1.99, I was telling myself OK this would be very simple for sure. Telling myself that this must be a shrunken version of Skyscape’s titles seducing us to buy the fuller versions, a standard marketing strategy still valid in the tech world. Much like getting a tiny free sample of an expensive perfume.
However, and stunningly, it was not! Play this video for details;
Skyscape’s Medical Bag features a reasonable portions of the original titles namely the Archimedes 360, Labs 360, and Life Support 360.
In fact if you see the video above it shows clearly that the life support content is exactly as the original version and the selected calculators are closer to Archimedes 360 than it is to the free Archimedes. Only the lab section is perhaps significantly trimmed down from the original Labs 360, but in any case still they include what is commonly asked for in clinical practice.
But anyway this is a great deal. The combined prices of the original components is over $80 in Skyscape’s Website and you get them all for only $1.99! Are they serious?
This is not the first time Skyscape is giving away their titles in such a low price. They have done it before in their first iPhone app, the Skyscape Medical Resources. Probably, they realized that selling thousands [may be hundreds of thousands] of low priced apps is more profitable than selling hundreds of high priced apps.
Note that both Skyscape Medical Resources and Skyscape Medical Bag are not offered in the Skyscape website only in iTunes App Store, and there are no Palm or WM or BB versions, only iPhone version. Why? may be they want to take advantage of the alarmingly increasing number of “iPhone” doctors!
Ultimately, this is good for us consumers. We certainly love lower prices.
So here’s my advice; if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, Do not buy Life Support 360, And perhaps Don’t buy Archimedes 360 and Labs 360 either.
Instead go to iTunes App Store and download the Skyscape Medical Bag for only $1.99.
And if you don’t have an iPhone or iPod Touch, get yourself one of them soon.
Of note, Skyscape is using their properiatory titles in these “subsidized” collections because otherwise they would have to pay royalties if they for example include the Harriet Lane or Davis’s Drug Guide.
Don’t let Skyscape fool you!
Friday, June 26th, 2009
Skyscape, the largest medical library for the mobile and the company that we all thrive on when it comes to our handhelds in clinical practice has a puzzling marketing strategy.
I postponed writing about this issue for a while thinking that it’s an error and they’ll will soon rectify it. But even after asking them about it they did not fix it until the time am writing this post.
So let me tell you what is it;
Skyscape first introduced their first native iPhone app “The Skyscape Medical Resources” which is their mother app on which we can install all of their titles.
That app comes free with four resources these are: Archimedes, Outlines in Clinical Medicine [OCM], RxDrugs, and MedAlerts.
Now, if you go to Skyscape Website and check for these resources you’ll find that RxDrugs, and OCM are being sold for and $34 and $23 respectively! Am not talking here about the other platforms [Palm, WM, BB, and others] am talking exactly about the iPhone version.
What’s even funnier is that OCM and RxDrugs are individually being given away for free in the App Store!
I hand checked the versions that you get from the website with those that you get from the App Store and they are exactly the same, I repeat, they are exactly the same.
Moreover, they insisted on this policy and released Skyscape’s Medical Bag which again features trimmed versions of Archimedes 360, and Labs 360 and an exact version of LS 360. All of these are being sold for a total price of over $80 in the Skyscape’s website [click on them above] while in fact you can get them all for only $1.99 from the iTunes App Store!
So dear colleagues, if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, Don’t buy those apps that I just mentioned from Skyscape website. Instead get them for free or at a very low price from iTunes.
And if you don’t have an iPhone or iPod Touch; well, this is another good reason to switch!
Nelson Pocket Book of Pediatric Antimicrobial Therapy
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009The new 2008-2009 edition of the famous little yellow pocket book is out for the PDA and iPhone from Skyscape. Written by the chief editor of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal and in collaboration with the AAP’s Red Book Committee this reference is certainly an authority when it comes to antibiotics in clinical and community based pediatrics.
See this iPhone video review:
See this Windows Mobile video review:
Most of the contents are presented in table format and unfortunately the Skyscape interface [as well as most other developers] does not really fit those tables into the small PDA screen and so we’d have to scroll side to side to see the whole table which makes navigation rather unpleasant. In addition, the lack of landscape mode of Skyscape titles [as of the time of writing this post] further compounds this issue.
It has everything related to infectious disease pharmacotherapy with drug dosages even in detailed circumstances such as the neonatal patient. For each clinical syndrome there is a list of recommended antibiotics sometimes down to the third line of choice. However, the reverse is not true, we don’t get a list of indications against each antimicrobial. This is something we wish to see in future versions.
References and grading of evidence are not so extensively quoted against each recommendation in the Nelson Pocket Book and this will be accounted for in the future editions as mentioned in the newly published website www.nelsonspocketbook.com.
Some Useful Links
- Purchase and download directly from Skyscape website [$25].
- Purchase the original print edition from Amazon [$25].
- Have your say in the Best Antibiotic App Poll.
Skyscape References on Palm Pre
Thursday, June 11th, 2009Skyscape works on Pre with the Classic thing [motionapps.com/classic]. They have a couple of products set up for that. I did 5mcc and a drug reference. Very slow to install, but once there it works great. As fast and usable as on my old TX. Faster, actually.
The smart link works great too. You have to do a manual unlock (like on the Mac/Palm according to a collegue), but that is no big deal.
Even Skyscape now list Palm Pre as an option in their product pages
The new Skyscape iPhone apps
Friday, April 24th, 2009We said that Skyscape has recently changed their business model and is now offering paid apps directly from the app store and we explained why here.
But what is interesting is that all of these new apps are actually funneled back into the mother app [The Skyscape Medical Resources, recently referred to as The Skyscape App], here’s how they guide us …
Now the question is Why? and the answer is simply, their SmartLink technology. One of the biggest features of Skyscape that makes their different resources work synergistically when they are installed together by cross linking.
On Palm and Pocket PC, there was no problem. Different titles installed in different folders and they were still cross linked to each other. But on iPhone this is not possible, you cannot jump from one app to another. That’s why whatever new Skyscape app you install is going to establish itself into the mother app and its icon will then merely function as a shortcut to the mother app, even they explicitly mention that you can now delete this icon and keep the mother app [see screenshots above].
Accordingly, we can now understand why all the new apps have a single common icon on which there is a stamp called Admit One!
Skyscape and Unbound Medicine finally moved to paid iPhone apps
Friday, April 24th, 2009As we expected and explained why in a previous post that the new Apple rules do not allow free apps which would then ask for subscriptions from outside the app store. So here’s the action started, two of the biggest medical developers started offering their apps paid right away from the app store.
For Unbound Medicine there was the Diagnosaurus and just few days ago the Handbook of Nursing Diagnosis, both apps have to be purchased right from the app store and not from Unbound Medicine’s website as it was the case for Nursing Central, Taber’s, and others.
Skyscape, similarly, has also started to market their subscription based titles as stand-alone apps on the app store. In fact, they have gone so furious that as of this moment there’s 29 new paid apps of their various titles on iTunes app store!
The good news is that the Pediatric Constellation is one of the earliest available 
However, what’s really interesting, is that they still offer the various short and long term subscription options on the Skyscape website. Not only that, but also they still send users to their website when the Skyscape Universe tab is tapped on the Skyscape Medical Resources [they recently started to call it the Skyscape App]! It could be just a matter of time before they modify these options, but definitely before the official launch of iPhone 3.0 OS next Summer.
While for Unbound Medicine, right away they tell you go to iTunes to purchase the app and sorry there’s no free trial [see their web page] obviously they did not work out a “lite” free version of the new Handbook of nursing diagnosis.
So now let’s wait for epocrates and Pepid to join the new club and no more $$$ missing Apple pockets!
Skyscape Medalerts, a great free service
Sunday, April 12th, 2009If you have a look at the current voting results of the Best Free PDA application poll on Pda4peds you see that Skyscape’s MedAlerts ranks the second best.
This post is to revisit this cool free service from Skyscape, specially with the latest improvements that we noticed.
Here’s how it looks on Windows Mobile;
One of the most important enhancement recently added to MedAlerts is the push notifications. So that not only when we dock and synchronize the device we get the latest news but also these feeds can be pushed into the device if we choose to do so [as seen on the screenshots above].
The app will find your internet connection whether it’s Wifi or 3G and get you the news right in.
Another new feature recently added, is the option to send the news to our friends via email. A new small email icon now appears next to the title [circled in red in the screenshot above] which if tapped will allow us to choose the email addresses that we want to send the news to.
As we mentioned before, Skyscape MedAlerts can be totally specialty specific by choosing from the list in the Skyscape/my account page and it installs with a free desktop version.
Further detailed reviews of MedAlerts on Pocket PC and MedAlerts on iPhone are available on Pda4peds.
Which Davis Drug Guide for your iPhone?
Saturday, March 28th, 2009Davis’s Drug Guide is produced from Skyscape in the name of DrDrugs implying the phycisians version of it. The latest and most up to date copy is now available native on the iPhone and iPod Touch.
We’ve talked about Davis’s Drug Guide from Unbound Medicine in a previous post, this one from Skyscape is essentially the same and is even sold at the same price which is $50 for the standard edition.
Here’s how it looks;
So we are not going to repeat the merits of this popular Rx reference as we already mentioned that with the Unbound version, However, there are certain differences between the two that we need to examine:
First: the biggest missing feature from Unbound’s version is the built-in drug dose calculators which is fortunately available in the Skyscape’s version.
Second: Unbound’s version provides not only iPhone native version but also web and wireless access to www.drugguide.com which is a great advantage when you want to access it from your desktop or from another mobile device. While in the case of Skyscape you’d have to pay another $50 to get a desktop version.
Third: Skyscape’s SmartLink technology is a an advantage, as we can cross link the drugs to their respective drug interactions or disease information available on the other installed Skyscape titles on the same device. Interlinking is available within the single Unbound Medicine app not across the different apps.
Fourth: UI, navigation, indexing, and search are actually great on both of them and no major difference are noted.
So both have advantages and disadvantages and the choice is individualized. One particular advice here is that if you have many Skyscape titles then it’s wise to go for the Skyscape version for cross linking and if you think you will frequently access it via the desktop or other mobile devices then go for Unbound Medicine’s.
For detailed reviews of both check these links
Skyscape, what to choose subscription or standard edition!
Friday, March 6th, 2009After several shouts and customer dissatisfaction including us in a previous post, Skyscape finally changed their iPhone subscription policy and now offers a Standard copy of the books that they publish.
So now you we can choose to buy the product and keep it forever if we choose the standard option.
Previously there was only yearly subscription and after that year the app will vanish! This has provoked anger and extreme complaints from the users, if you read iTunes reviews of their iPhone app [the Skyscape Medical Resources] you will read descriptions like ripped off, scam, conspiracy, and some other very bad wording.
So in response, they added the Standard option just like what they offer for Palm and Windows Mobile.
In their explanation they say that the standard option will not allow for updates after the end of the 12 months, while if we choose the subscription option and we renew in time, we will always get the latest updates.
The digital content of Skyscape ebooks unlike what we used to have in a traditional book is constantly updated, so for example the A to Z Drug Facts will be updated from the publisher on a regular basis and that will be reflected on our Skyscape’s title. However, this is not absolutely true for all of the titles. There are titles that are still static and gets updated only with the availability of new editions.
In order to make a decision on what to buy a subscription or a standard edition, go to Skyscape website then choose the product then click on unique features tab and navigate down to the bottom of the page to see the updates policy of that particular product. Here’s a screenshot of one of the titles;
If the picture is not clear here’s what it says; “Update Policy: Edition-based. New editions are released when the content changes significantly; there is no standard schedule for new editions”.
So the advice here, is that buy a subscription for a clinical tool or an ebook that gets frequent updates but buy the standard edition if it is a static infrequently updated reference [as screenshot above] such as DSM IV, Lab notes, The Red Book, The Harriet Lane, and many many others.
They’ve also made more subscription options so we can choose to subscribe for a shorter periods of time for less money, which is also a good thing.
Thank you Skyscape for listening to us.