Will doctors stick by Palm?
This is what Mobihealthnews is asking. Although they report Twice as many physicians use iPhones in 2009 there are some of us holding back due to the short comings of the iPhone - lack of real keyboard, non-replaceable battery, lack of multi-tasking, inability to run Palm applications. On the other hand Apple is addressing software issues in the upcoming OS3.0 with the long awaited Copy&Paste and other “feature” fixes. There are also rumoured new iPhones coming in June and with the ever increasing number of medical applications being developed for the iPhone, I think the physician migration to iPhones will continue.
Mobihealthnews points to the post by Bill Koslosky (the Wireless Doc) who says there are some PalmOS die-hards who just can’t do without their old Palm apps. For these die-hards, the Palm Pre, now that there will be a PalmOS/Garnet emulator, does offer some backward compatibility with legacy applications.
However, the Palm Pre forces physicians to change the way we are doing things. One key area is forcing people to sync their data with the “cloud”. Either on an Exchange server, Google or some other service. The traditional desktop sync is gone. Physicians may not be comfortable with this since there are privacy issues particularly if we are dealing with patient data as we use our handhelds as our PIM.
What should Palm do in order to stem the physician migration over to the iPhone?
1) Release the Palm Pre ASAP. Any further delays will jeopardise their position.
2) A true local Desktop sync solution is much needed. If you look at the small survey, the majority still want a local desktop sync option.
3) Work with key partners in the medical software publishing business to entice them to port their applications to WebOS. This means publishers like Epocrates, Skyscape, USBMIS, Unbound, Uptodate, Lexi and others.
4) Get the Palm Pre out early to physician advocates (I’ve got two hands up here as a volunteer Palm, if you are listening!!)
5) Have Motionapps certify as many legacy medical apps as possible. I will take up Statcoder’s suggestion of maintaining a medical app compatiblity list here if Motionapps does not.
So let me ask you. If you are a Physician with a Garnet device - TX, Centro, Palm Treo - and you’re thinking of getting a PDA phone this year, will you stick by Palm? Will you be like Bill and jump on the Pre ship?
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i think the future is the bluetooth installations...
I simply want the orginal PIM functions of the Palm OS with a drug reference. Any other medical references are available on any computer in my hospital. The only reason I retired my IIIxe was because Epocrates became so RAM-bloated with add-on features that I didn’t use that it overwhelmed the limited resources of that device. Otherwise the IIIxe was perfect: it started every time, never froze, had an accurate touchscreen, and had two AAA batteries that I could replace about once a month. The searchable memos gave me all the patient info I needed as well as the clinical pearls, etc., I wanted to store. All the other features: wireless access, higher resolution color display, bluetooth, music player, document programs, etc. etc. I would cheerfully jettison just to get a reliable Palm back that didn’t need a reset every day and had a stable touchscreen and the old version of Graffiti.
I hear you. Some people get attracted to all the bells and whistles but at the end of the day, don’t use them.
Having said that different folks have different needs and some (like me) do need the “communicator” aspects. After all Palm first called its PDAs the “Connected Organiser”.
In today’s world, that means 3G/HSDPA, Wifi, Decent browser, Push email etc.
My beloved Tungsten E is getting tired (on/off button gone so battery life is miniscule) - so I decided to buy a TX while I still could. I am a mac user and love all apple products, but I didn’t want the monthly data fees of an iphone and ipod touch seemed to be missing a lot of the apps I use every day. I am praying that the machine I get is a good one and hold me a few years until the ipod touch catches up.
This is precisely the question on my mind now. I am using the Treo 680 and I love it for its simplicity despite the aging OS. UpToDate is available for that quick reference. Medcal is so fast and easy to use. Epocrates….well, if i can get it to sync with the online version and if I have the time to figure my way out of it, I use it.
iPhone looks good from far but yet something is not quite right..Maybe the keyboard-less phone or just I am so used to QWERTY keypad.
Blackberry is the other option but there seems a lack of software support and I do not really need the email on the go stuff.
Pre…well, unless we see beyond the hype through to the actual unit, all of the advertising is just advertisement.
Hence, now the best thing to do is just to stick to the Treo and hope it last as long as possible by the time I can make up my mind.
I am currently using PalmTX and love it. However, I too am tired of carrying my cell AND PDA wherever I go. I would like to stay with Palm products, but will be waiting until softwares are ready for PalmPre. I’m ready for the screen shots to look more similar to what you see on the desktop.
lack of real keyboard, non-replaceable battery, lack of multi-tasking, inability to run Palm applications. The pre doesn’t really do much of this. Also, the web connection to Epocrates does not work on my PRE. It gives a welcome overlay no matter whether I am logged into Epocrates or not, making it worthless. Paying an additional 30 dollars for something free on the iPhone, I think not. Palm needs to address this and should do it soon or expect to see physicians leave in droves. I would not recommend this to medical students or anyone in medicine until this problem is fixed in a reasonable manner. The classic program is not reasonable.
After having an iphone for the last year of so, I can say I quickly transitioned from my Palm Tx to the iphone. Finally I had my contacts and calender on me at all times. Didn’t realize that all the other bells and whistles of the iphone; GPS, maps esp, web access and email access would be so useful.
Love that all my apps or similar stuff are now on the iphone. Installing software is much more easier. It’s somewhat less snappy than the Palm but I find that it’s far more useful for my needs allowing an integration of all my data in one spot.
Also a great traveling device overseas (with overseas SIM’s on unlocked iphone). In the past I didn’t usually travel with the Palm on personal trips. The iphone is very useful for travel.
Simon your comment about travelling is a moot one. This is where a CDMA device is less useful than a GSM device.
I think the iPhone has the edge for now because of it’s huge app store but the Palm Pre and WebOS as it is has better long term potential as a multitasking device which does better notifications and handles PIM and email better than the iPhone.
Classic, the PalmOS emulator, has also improved by leaps and bounds and will soon support Bluetooth and Wifi Hotsyncing for those still running legacy Palm apps which need syncing with Desktop apps.
Epocrates for WebOS will come by this year and Lexidrugs is in beta but as a stop gap measure we now have Drugview in homebrew and there is already a medical calculator - MediPDA