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.
What a Cute, Little … App?
Application: The Poky Little Puppy app
Produced by: Random House Children's Books
Price:$4.99, with an introductory price of $3.99
Features: Like most people, Book Business can't resist a cute little puppy … or app. Put the two together, and Book Business can hardly contain itself! Random House (RH) Children's Books recently launched its "The Poky Little Puppy" interactive storybook app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, available in the iTunes store. The best-selling picture book of all time, according to the company, "Poky" is one of the 12 original Little Golden Books published in 1942, and the first to be launched as an app.
The "Poky Little Puppy" app was designed "to encourage reading and listening comprehension skills, and to reinforce core preschool-level concepts," according to the company. From its swipe-to-open feature to interactive illustrations on each page, it taps apps' capabilities for engaging content. Users can watch and listen (words are highlighted while the story is narrated), read silently, or tap a word to hear it spoken aloud. Readers (or parents) also can record themselves narrating the story. A "Hide-and-Seek" challenge unlocks bonus stickers, which readers can use to create their own storybook scene.
RH Children's Books collaborated with digital media agency Smashing Ideas, which RH parent Bertelsmann AG acquired earlier this year for its Random House Inc. division. BB
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