We are going through a fairly major shift in our front-facing MedImage products, moving away from app-stores and shifting to browser-based apps which will work well across iPhones, Androids and desktops. There are a number of reasons for this shift, which include:

• Security: app-store apps fundamentally have more control over a device, which leads to the need for constant updates to maintain a high level of security. This is a large amount of overhead for a company like AtomJump. The shift to a browser version will allow us to devote more time to actually improving the apps themselves.
• Independence: app-stores will never meet the needs of every organisation publishing apps on them. By imposing their own, increasing number, of restrictions, we feel the two largest app-stores have become a minefield of “do’s” and “don’ts”, according to the opinions of two large US-based corporations; companies which have their own ‘conflicts-of-interest’ in many fields and geographies.
• Cost effectiveness: publishing on app-stores is not free, and there are significant hidden costs for a developer like ourselves, e.g. the need to publish iPhone apps on recent Apple hardware, which has led to us no longer having a good business case for the MedImage iPhone app, in particular.
• Flexibility: being open source, we host our apps for your convenience, but you can also operate your own version on your own local networks. In terms of billing, you will be able to purchase the apps directly from ourselves, in a volume manner, without needing each doctor to be re-compensated individually as was the case via the app-stores.

We’ve now proven that the MedImage image app will work almost exactly as well in a browser as it does locally, and are nearing an Alpha release, hopefully next week. If you would like to help Alpha test, please let us know.

Moving forward, existing users will still be able to use their current app-store apps, for a limited period, but we will be transitioning off these versions within the next 1-2 months.

There is one important difference if you are transferring photos via the ‘direct Wifi’ option and wish to continue with this option: you will need to host your own MedImage ‘app’ server on your local network.