For the purposes of developing an iPhone medical project we analyzed various parameters of all commercial applications in Top-100 of “Medical” and “Healthcare” sections (200 applications; February 1, 2010).

Some of the data is published here, since it can be useful to readers of our blog.

Functionality and sophistication of applications in section “Medical” (Top-100)

The most popular price: $0.99 (35%)

Average price in TOP-100: $4.38

The average price in Top-10: $2.29 (the most optimal price for new applications).

Conclusions

- low quality of the most of applications can probably explained by either unqualified developers (“student’s quality”) or the fact that developers don’t understand the specificity of medical applications and can’t modify them properly for iPhone;

- the main mistake of new developers: charging an exorbitantly high prices per simple applications (most often $9.99), whereby the demand and total profit are minimal.

- customers are promised a valued result with the help of many applications which in reality can’t be derived on the basis of given data (in other words it is a deception of customer with respect to service’s quality);

- the section “Medical” contains relatively few projects with good ideas; mainly these are merely the databases or catalogues of audio/video materials, without adaptation etc (71%);

- applications don’t use the business model of subscriptions(”In App Purchases”) and various additional features of the phone (sensors, camera etc);

The data analysis suggests that section “Medical” still has to get its “medical killer app” as  a result  of effective cooperation between highly skilled doctors and experienced developers of mobile applications.

In the next article we will similarly analyze section “Healthcare” of mobile applications for iPhone.

We also plan to monitor in the future the qualitative changes of applications in Top-100 of this section and will publish respective reports for our readers.

The review is prepared by
specialists of The Viactivity LLC
(development and promotion of mobile applications)