The iPhone is a new convergent device recently announced by Apple Inc. The device will incorporate a mobile phone, an iPod, an email client, web browser and various other ‘widgets’ designed to help you manage your daily life.
Convergent devices like this are not new and have been used by doctors for many years now. I’ve been using a convergent phone-come-PDA for many years now and am currently the owner of a Windows Mobile i-Mate K-JAM.
What makes the iPhone special is that it seems to have caught the imagination of tech-savvy doctors in a meme similar to that created by the old Palm PDAs of the late 90s and early 2000s.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a slight hitch in the plan at the moment. According to some reports, the iPhone will be a ‘closed’ system and users will not be able to install 3rd party applications.
Does this mean no medical software? Well, it looks that way at the moment but there’s no technical reason why Apple can’t start working with the medical software companies to produce apps that will work on the iPhone. According to David Pogue, this isn’t going to happen, but there has been no official word on this yet.
Another alternative is to deliver the apps through the browser interface. These could be off-line or live via the phone’s data connection. As most medical software apps are really just e-Books, then this is certainly a viable option.
