HP working to bring back Epocrates? 24
Being a supporter of an up an coming mobile platform is quite the rollercoaster ride. A little over a year ago, Epocrates’ webOS app debuted in the App Catalog, amid much rejoicing webOS healthcare pratitioners everywhere. However, there were hard times ahead for Palm, and citing “relatively low interest,” the folks at Epocrates announced in December of 2010, less than a year after it’s release, that the app would be pulled from the catalog. Additionally, existing copies would cease to function in May of 2011.
This lead to a great deal of discussion both among the writers at PreCentral and the community at large. Epocrates, to those in healthcare, is without question an “anchor” application. Think of it like Angry Birds, ShopSavvy or Shazam. It’s one of the handful of apps that fall into the category of must have for a mobile OS to consider itself relevant. Certainly, there are plenty of excellent alternatives still available in the app catalog, with the promise of continued support by those developers, but for a platform whose future is still in question losing Epocrates was still a pretty big hit.
Bearing that in mind, the consensus was that HP should and their proverbial “bags of money,” should intervene to keep big names like Epocrates from disappearing. Apart from a depressing reminder of thier departure just before Think Beyond on February 9th, things have been relatively quiet since then, with the clock now approaching the eleventh hour with just over two weeks to go before the kill switch is thrown and Epocrates on webOS is no more. Being aware of this, @MrKalEl, a member of the medical community and webOS user reached out on Twitter to Richard Kerris, VP of Worldwide Developer Relations to see if anything was being done, and received a very encouraging reply: "[We're] working getting them back"
While this is far from a guarantee, we're hopeful that he wouldn’t have tweeted about it he wasn’t optimistic, and certainly it’s heartening news that Kerris and company see the importance of the healthcare sector and are taking strides to make sure webOS remains relevant there, and also the importance of doing what it takes to keep big names on board in general. Time will ultimately tell what becomes of this, but for the moment, it seems that rollercoaster is again gaining some significant altitude. At the very least, its evidence that Palm’s Developer Relations Team is still firing on all cylinders. Hopefully similar efforts are being made at courting other landmark app developers as well.
Source: Richard Kerris (Twitter)
24 Comments
This will be great if it happens!
I love this image, but each time I see it, it looks more and more like a Palm tombstone.
RIP Palm, you were dying and then HP killed you.
HP doesn't even have to go after then. They'll come back on their own once HP releases some harware running webos!
A four paragraph article based on a single generic tweet response - "[We're] working getting them back" - quite optimistic if you ask me. I mean, what are they not working on at this point? That could mean as little as he told someone from HP to give Epocrates a call. Wasn't this the guy who recently said that he didn't like "pay to port?"
Now people on the forum are going to say "I heard that Epocrates might begin supporting webOS again."
This is EXACTLY what I was thinking. My contract with Sprint is up in July and there is no way I'm going to re-up on my contract and stick with webOS if nothing is out by then. Not going to put money down based on somebody's tweet.
On Feb 8, it was my intention to follow WebOS to whatever carrier they were on if Sprint didn't pick up new hardware by June 6.
After Feb 9, I was so outraged by HP's build up to total failure, I wont be picking up any 3G WebOS device, even for free with a two year contract. I don't feel as though HP deserves Sprint's attention and they don't deserve to be in my pocket.
It makes perfect sense. HP is huge in the medical payments processing space. They would love to sell TouchPads to doctors and like them to the payments back end. Adding Epocrates adds value to the tablet which would be a swiss army knife for the doctor who could also access a backed up copy of the patient's medical record.
I wonder what makes some companies bow out due to low market share, while others jump in.
For instance look at Epocrates bowing out due to low interest while at the same time Rovio ports over Angry Birds (and keeps updating it).
Is it just the demographic for medical software versus games is that different?
I keep hearing the argument "you won't get devs without market share" at the same time I hear "you won't get market share without devs". So what's the compelling argument to get devs onboard without market share, and get consumers onboard independent of developers?
Some apps, like games, are easier to port than others. There were a lot of companies interested in webOS when the Pre was launched because it was the up-and-coming "iPhone Killer". Android hadn't really gotten off the ground yet. Now webOS is probably fifth priority (Epocrates supports iOS, Blackberry, Android, and Windows Mobile).
yeah that's what i heard too from a developer on precentral. That some apps are easier then others. They said regardless you had to rewrite lots of code. I guess if it's not as simple as plug it into a machine and it spits out a webos app then some companies would balk at the extra expense of rewriting and supporting a new app.
but yeah i've heard "porting" games is not a simple task. I'd imagine that, not that it would happen but, porting garage band would not be simple. it seems to have lots of elements from guitar playing, to piano, drums, i think it's a music tuner, it's got microphone, it has to be able to handle interfacing with an actual guitar as part of it's amp modeling section. I would guess that's a bit harder then say porting tetris. I'm not a developer so i don't know but that's what i was told.
I think what bothered Epocrates was recoding the entire app for webOS 2.0+. Why spend that effort if webOS is a small market for them. Essentially Epocrates is text and few graphics (tables, pill pictures.) and a bit of a database for drug interactions. The identical medical info that their physicians and pharmacists create is probably used across all platform versions. The app development cost should not be huge. However the free version of Epocrates is what most users get and a small base of users will have very few paying users who get the premium version or their other premium products. That being said, HP could cover cost of epocrate's app development easily for modest amount.
Interesting point- webOS verison of epocrates is faster and more stable than iOS version. (plus better interface) I have a iphone 4 as 2nd phone and have direct comparison.
H/P do it please, make it right.... Plus do the same for netflix and chase app.
As long as people still think that webOS is "eggs", good luck with that. If Epocrates is only 2.X, then they better not expect to get hundreds of dollars worth of app money if it's for sale. And second of all, get your phones on actual competitive hardware.
Honestly, I am very impressed with the hardware coming out, such as the pre3 and the stingray, but this is pretty much a dealbreaker for me if it does not happen. Epocrates is on the short list of most important apps for any OS i invest in for the duration of my next contract as I am currently a Medical Student and use this application almost every day during our rotations. The fact that they support all the other OS' will make it quite difficult for me, and im sure many other medical (and soon-to-be) professionals.
webOS is the best OS hands down. The fact I can patch it over 100 times to make it exactly how I want it makes it better than just about all the others. However, we need the apps and we need the commitment from HP to deliver the big ones.
Isn't the fact that you can patch it and configure it to your heart's content a big part of the problem? I'd love to see an article on this: on the relative ease of an app developer to protect their intellectual property from being hijacked or pulled down for free.
A dev I know said that he wouldn't develop for webos because it was too easy for a user to either 1) create a bad experience of his app, through their mods, and 2) ease of downloading trial apps and never buying them but continuing to use them.
That might be bunk for all I know, but it rang true to me, and I would love to read an unbiased article from someone who knows - or even one of the current devs.
I know that Android has fought this to an extent as well, and you are seeig Android locked dow all over the place, esp in Enterprise.
I'm not a developer, but imo that customization helps make the phone your own. I don't know how it creates a different experience, because at the end of the day i'm still on version 1.4.5 or 2.1. Just because i change subtle nuances of the phone with a patch, how does the experience change?
Honestly wondering, because I'm not a developer and I don't pretend to be one.
If all you want is to be able to tweak your phone out, android scrapes webos in that regard
Sorry but i don't care about Epocrates. i'm not a doctor. What about ESPN, ESPN fantasy, The view ESPN app that just released? updating the Youtube app so i can access my account? But I can't believe they have pretty much no ESPN sports apps.
nothing wrong with epocrates. I just can't believe that every single day someone isn't asking where is ESPN the biggest sports media deliverer in the country. I want more then just random score apps.
I'm not only a future doctor, but also an avid sports fan and I agree with you on the ESPN topic. Even WP7 has an ESPN app. ESPN's apps are the best sports app hands down.
Let's take it further, how has yahoo not even created an official fantasy app. Yahoo, based on no stats or previous knowledge, has most likely the most users of any fantasy website. They have made official apps for android and apple and honestly its getting tiresome that we continue to be ignored by the major players in the app industry, the big names if you will.
As I doc, I will not consider a phone if ePocrates isn't available. My contract runs out this summer.
I'm considering buying a pad device and if ePocrates isn't available, the pad I purchase will start with "i".
Hopefully, hp rescues ePocrates. I've used it since my Palm Pilot in the 90s!
Epocrates is a must for any Doctor. Pre 3 looks good but I'll continue using my good old Treo Pro until epocrates comes back to WebOS.
For some reason, Shazam is mentioned as being an app to make a mobile OS "relevant". It'd be awfully nice to see that on WebOS.
Here's hoping that May sees an announcement by Epocrates supporting WebOS again!
Mr. Kerris,
Speaking of, where is Shopsavvy or Shazam (would prefer SoundHound instead) on WebOS, anyway?