Big data, small appĭata searching is leading the way in chemistry apps. For example, educational specialist Cengage Learning uses them for chemistry in its science apps, and publisher Taylor & Francis is using them to create app versions of its data offerings, such as the CRC Physical Constants of Organic Compounds table. Several partners have licensed ChemDoodle web components to help build their own apps, Theisen says. ‘We’ve tried to provide a simple tool we can give away for free, but yet is informative and powerful in terms of helping you, whether you’re a student or in an industrial lab.’ ‘ChemDoodle mobile uses them, and we have more than 120,000 installs across both iOS and Android,’ he says. ![]() Theisen gets around this problem by using the web language HTML5 to create a library of ChemDoodle web components, which work on all browsers, regardless of operating system. ‘Even getting something to work on a small screen without a big complex interface – just a couple of buttons – is a challenge.’ĭifferent mobile platforms use different operating systems, and therefore apps need to be specifically created for each one. ‘A lot of people don’t appreciate just how different they are,’ he says. There is, Clark says, a huge chasm between the PC and the mobile interface as software has to be redesigned from scratch, being rebuilt with a completely different philosophy. The ChemDoodle app allows users to draw organic compounds on their touchscreen, and is licensed to several other apps Many companies are slow to get into the mobile space, and find it difficult to sell at a premium price.’ ‘Most people don’t want to spend even a dollar on an app, yet what we’re trying to build and explain in chemistry is not at all simple, and requires a lot of work to put together. Its ChemDoodle chemical drawing program is also available in free app form. ‘Mobile markets are something of a race to the bottom in terms of pricing – how fast can you get something out there at the lowest price possible?’ says Kevin Theisen, president of iChemLabs in New Jersey, US. Another problem is making money from apps. Chemistry is a very small niche – only a tiny proportion of users are interested in chemistry apps, unlike games or streaming TV programmes. ![]() There are good reasons for this slow uptake. ‘We’re still in an evaluation phase, but there are advantages to being conservative and waiting, as there are likely to be fewer growing pains.’ Money worries ‘Big companies in the pharma sector know the move to mobile will happen, but no one wants to make the first jump,’ he says. Alex Clark, president of chemistry app specialist Molecular Materials Informatics in Montreal, Canada, believes chemistry is about five years behind the curve when it comes to adopting mobile technology. Just typing the word ‘chemistry’ into the search box on iTunes comes up with more than 1000 hits.īut there is so much more that chemists might be doing with their phones and tablets. But that powerful pocket computer also has access to thousands upon thousands of apps (programs) and alongside those time-sucking games like Angry Birds and Candy Crush, there are apps designed to make the chemist’s life easier, from molecular weight calculators to chemical data repositories. ![]() And the processors in the average smartphone are now faster than those of supercomputers in the early 1990s. Smartphone and tablet users have instant and easy access to all the information the internet has to offer, as long as they have a phone or wireless connection. Since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 and the iPad in 2010, the way we connect to the internet has been revolutionised.
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