1-25-2010: Apple’s iPhone is shining in areas not anticipated by continuing education providers. Online nursing continuing education and acupuncture continuing education courses at the Healthcare Medicine Institute (HealthCMI) were designed to function on Internet Explorer versions 6, 7, and 8 as well as Safari and Firefox for both Mac OSX and Windows PC users. HealthCMI developers were surprised to find out that some learners were accessing online courses with the iPhone. “The iPhone implementation required no planning or effort- it just works,” notes Allan Blake, HR Director for HealthCMI. He further notes, “We spent months getting our software to properly visualize IE (Internet Explorer) and yet the iPhone required no specialized programming or additional effort.”
HealthCMI developers did not anticipate cellular mobile computing to interest continuing education learners due to the small size of the iPhone display. However, users can easily magnify and therefore read the PDF course materials on the iPhone and are able to wirelessly transfer the course materials to laptop and desktop computers with simple iPhone apps. Others simply login to www.healthcmi.com at a later date from their home computers and re-download the materials.
The Apple tablet, the iPad, iis now on the minds of HealthCMI developers. HealthCMI developers now expect Apple’s tablet to become a preferred mobile computing platform. Allan Blake notes that the comfortable screen size coupled with high resolution and respectable dot pitch makes Apple’s new tablet a formidable mobile reading device. “It’s about the sharpness of the text,” notes Blake on the topic of reader preference and eye strain. “Learners will choose the Apple tablet based on ergonomics and reading comfort. They will experience less eye fatigue than other, less sharp, mobile devices and will therefore naturally gravitate to this technology.” Mr. Blake comments that he is expecting the tablet to be compatible with HealthCMI acupuncture and nursing continuing education online courses because it will be built on the Mac OSX operating system, the same system that both the Safari browser and the iPhone are built on.
About the Author: Adam White, L.Ac., Dipl.Ac. is an Acupuncture Continuing Education provider with the Healthcare Medicine Institute (HealthCMI). To learn more about medical news and medical continuing education visit http://www.healthcmi.com .
