Professional Courtesy: Appsolutely Amazing by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine



by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine

For all the trouble that smartphones can cause, I am fully dependent on mine. The notion of carrying a computer in my pocket would have given me a headache when Dentaltown.com started 15 years ago, but today it is commonplace. Everyone can name dozens of situations where the smartphone can be a godsend—you need turn-by-turn directions to a new address, you want to scan an item in the store to see if it’s available on Amazon, you need to settle an argument or check the score for any sporting event. In most cases, the information is derived from a Google search, as in: “Just a minute while I Google that.”

Dentaltown.com has long been the dental Google. We currently index more than three-and-ahalf million posts that form the elements of conversations, debates and nuggets of great clinical information on every dental topic you can imagine. In fact, our site search function is powered in the background by a beautiful (and very expensive) piece of technology called a search appliance (go ahead and Google it). This means we are the digital warehouse of all things dental.

Approximately two years ago we launched the first Dentaltown app in an effort to improve your Dentaltown.com experience on a mobile device. Prior to the app, users would see a mobile-optimized version of our site. The app added some additional organization and custom menus. However, the original app was designed to be platform neutral so we could have a single app that would be compatible with many different mobile platforms. While that is very efficient for a small company, we missed out on some features that are commonly found in other applications.

We are pleased to bring you an even better experience on your pocket computer that you call a smartphone. Please put your hands together for the first native iOS App for Dentaltown.com. To say it another way, we have just released the first version of the Dentaltown.com app for Apple mobile devices. This new app better integrates with some of the features built into your phone. For example, the camera, photo library and sharing functions can be easily accessed using icons that are familiar to you in other apps.

Are you on Android? Don’t despair, we have a native Android app in the works and we will release it as soon as it is ready.

This would be a good time for me to introduce our mobile developer, Richard Ortiz. He is the man who is working with the rest of our IT team to be sure the apps are communicating with the “mother ship.” With that in mind, Richard would love to hear your feedback as you start using the new app. His email is richard@farranmedia.com. We will certainly continue to add features over time and your input can influence our priority list. Please be candid and patient as we work on future updates to the app.

What are you waiting for? Go to the iTunes store and download the new Dentaltown app.

I appreciate your feedback on this column as well as any suggestions you may have for future topics. You can find me on Twitter @ddsTom or via email at tom@dentaltown.com.

Have you tried the new app? Comment online at: www.dentaltown.com/MessageBoard/thread.aspx?a=11&s=2&f=212&t=228197

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