AppWatch

Getting to the Heart of Apps

Application: Braunwald's Heart Disease 
Practice Guidelines app

Produced by:Elsevier

Price: $24.99

Features: With so many book apps on the market tailored for kids, Book Business wanted to get to the heart of some more adult apps. Just in time, Elsevier announced the launch of its "Braunwald's Heart Disease Practice Guidelines" app, available for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch in the App Store. The app includes content from "Braunwald's Heart Disease: A Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine, Ninth Edition," and provides "the most up-to-date, evidence-based cardiology clinical practice guidelines from the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA)," and presents it in a "more streamlined, mobile-friendly way," according to Elsevier.

"This app will give clinicians and professionals anytime, anywhere access to this important information …," said Dr. Eugene Braunwald, founding editor and online editor of "Braunwald's Heart Disease," in announcing the app's release.

"Testing" … "Testing" … "App"

Application: Kaplan Mobile

Produced by Kaplan Publishing

Price: Free

Features: Academic and professional development publisher Kaplan recently announced its new "Kaplan Mobile" app—available for free download in the iTunes Store for all iOS devices. The app enables students enrolled in Kaplan courses to log-in with their Kaplan account and download free, full course content for its GRE, GMAT and MCAT courses, as well as digital copies of its PSAT, SAT, GRE, and GMAT retail test prep books. Users also can sync their accounts with up to two mobile devices.

Kaplan's new app is built on a MarkLogic [data] Server beneath a customized digital content reader developed by Bluefire Productions (a user-experience-design and 
-development, and e-book technology solutions provider).

Maureen McMahon, president and publisher of Kaplan Publishing, told Book Business that the app's goal is to introduce students to new studying tools, such as mobile. (They still receive print course and test prep materials—for now.) "We see this as an evolutionary process," said McMahon. "We want to learn how students will use these materials, whether they are using the highlighting and note taking, or whether they're spending three hours at a time with the materials or 10 minutes here and there." McMahon noted that such data would help Kaplan design app products to best suit students' needs.