Epocrates phasing out support for Palm and Windows Mobile?
Some not so good news I just came across in PreCentral
This seems to be terrible news for those of us who use Epocrates regularly. Read the email I just recieved from Epocrates.
“Thank you for being a loyal Epocrates member since 12/18/2000. In appreciation, we’re giving you special advance notice that we’re beginning to phase out support for older Palm® and Windows Mobile® devices.
We’ve supported older devices for years, but are moving on to exciting, new developments to provide all our customers with the best Epocrates experience.
They have suggested that one will “need to get a new device soon to continue using our comprehensive clinical content” and suggest getting an iPod touch!
There’s no news of a WebOS version coming out and I sincerely hope Epocrates is not thinking of abandoning all platforms and just going with iPhone/iPod Touch for that would be terrible.
In the meantime, WebOS users can try out DrugView
Addendum
Epocrates has clarified this issue in a comment below which I am reproducing here:
Please let us clarify, Epocrates is not ceasing support for all Palm and Windows Mobile devices, only a handful of older operating systems that do not have the memory or power to run future content and feature enhancements we have in the pipeline. Some of the devices affected include Palm Zire and iPAQ 3835.
Palm continues to be a prominent platform for us, and we will continue to support the majority of Palm OS devices as well as work to develop a native application for the Palm Pre. We are here to help subscribers on these older devices migrate to new platforms over the next 4-6 months. Please contact Epocrates support at support@epocrates.com with any questions, we are eager to help.
Best wishes,
The Epocrates Team
I am glad that Epocrates is indeed developing a WebOS version. This is indeed good news and I hope development won’t take too long!
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About the author, Alan: Alan Teh is a Malaysian Physician who specialises in Hematology-Oncology & Stem cell Transplantation. He has been using Palm PDAs since 1997 and is absolutely reliant on them. His current PDA is a Palm Pre and is a strong advocate of the webOS platform, Palm's latest operating system. Caught the blogging bug in 2004 and has been addicted ever since… |
Please let us clarify, Epocrates is not ceasing support for all Palm and Windows Mobile devices, only a handful of older operating systems that do not have the memory or power to run future content and feature enhancements we have in the pipeline. Some of the devices affected include Palm Zire and iPAQ 3835.
Palm continues to be a prominent platform for us, and we will continue to support the majority of Palm OS devices as well as work to develop a native application for the Palm Pre. We are here to help subscribers on these older devices migrate to new platforms over the next 4-6 months. Please contact Epocrates support at support@epocrates.com with any questions, we are eager to help.
Best wishes,
The Epocrates Team
Might be time to give up on epocrates and try out a different drug info provider. I use Lexi-Comp.
Thank you for the clarification. I shall highlight this in the post itself.
Matt – while Lexi is a very comprehensive drug reference, Epocrate is unique in the way the bundle drug reference with other medical applications such as mobileCME, calculators and other utilities.
I haven’t used Lexicomp on PDA or smartphone (my hospital uses it on its dashboard) but epocrates is optimized for speed for quick answers. Also Lexicomp is expensive for individual user. (epocrates has very good free versions and even its paid versions are not expensive) If I need detailed info I would use desktop/enterprise Lexicomp anyway.
I’m glad epocrates is sticking with Palm os. I hope their Pre webOS version comes out soon. Epocrates does support so many platforms that it must be tough for them to keep up. With the new smartphones with great browsers e.g. Iphone, Palm Pre (Web OS), developers can focus on doing web only versions which minor adaptations for smartphones. (The browsers on Blackberry (I have one- 8830) and older Treos aren’t up to the task.