How Modality Inc sticks you in the...
This will be my take on 3 apps from the Modality Inc factory of junk: Rohen's Photographic Anatomy Flash Cards, Clemente's Anatomy Flash Cards and Moore's Clinical Anatomy Flash Cards.
Disclaimer: I can only talk about Rohen's cards and Netter's Flash Cards, but since the previews (on the maker website/iTunes app store) are similar and the maker is one and the same, I will assume homogeneity between the three apps.
It is outraging to me how unbelievably unprofessional Modality had become. At the hefty price of 24.99 - a third of the cost of the FULL textbook (Moore, Clemente, Rohen or even Netter) - you get about 5% content of the physical volumes. With blatant mistakes. Conducive to learning, as my teachers would put it. My gripes:
- Mislabeled structures. Ex: Mislabeled penile urethra and corpus cavernosum. What if I wanted to learn ahead and would actually memorize this?
- Lack of structures: Whereas Rohen the book (which I own) has on average 20-40 labels per diagram, this piece of app has 2-3. The images are often 40-70% of the complete image in the hard-copy - this makes it sometimes very hard to figure out where you are, since you are missing key landmarks (a testimony that the program was created by programmers, not medical professionals). I have a good feeling that had they put the full image, we would be able to figure out a way to navigate it with the iPhone gestures. For that price I would appreciate to have at least 10-12 labels. Remember: this is not a 5$ app.
- Lack of details: no information on the structures at the 'back of the card'
- No landscape, really??!!
Conclusion: The trio of apps from Modality Inc. is not worth your money. It will not save you time by making your heavy books portable, rather it will give you an illusion of knowledge. I can only recommend the Netter's Flash cards, which were produced - at least so it feels - by a completely different team, in the times when apps were not mass-stamped to reach economies of scale, but created to advance knowledge and produce more qualified med students.
