Less than a month after their launch in the iTunes App Store, the  Merck Manual apps are already proving to be convenient resources valued by healthcare professionals and consumers on the go. Both apps have received excellent reviews and are among the Top Paid Apps in the medical category.

Customer comments and reviews for the Professional Edition (App Store link) have come from a variety of sources. Rickkus wrote in the Australia App Store, “Lots of cross references and they are all linked. Just click the link and you are there. Much more information than similar medical apps I have bought, and less than half their price.” In the US App Store, Nursemedic99 commented, “If you like the Merck Manual, you’ll definitely like this app. I use it on a regular basis. It’s well worth the $30 to have the Merck with you at all times.” Before purchasing the app, a healthcare professional who works in a hospital contacted us to confirm that a WiFi/Internet connection is not needed (”we do not have WiFi in my area”). We confirmed that’s true and  then modified the App Store description to emphasize that particular feature of the app. The Professional Edition app has also received positive reviews from lawyers. Jeff Richardson, an attorney and publisher of iPhoneJD.com, wrote a high quality and in-depth review where he concluded, “I suspect that many lawyers have, like me, found the need to look up medical terms, such as during a break in a deposition…the Merck Manual apps are excellent sources of medical information and it is very useful to have all of this information at your fingertips on the iPhone for quick and easy access.”

The Home Edition (App Store link), which is among the top 20 paid apps in the medical category as of this writing, is proving to be a valuable resource for consumers. In the US App Store, Kessee wrote, “Great reference too, easy to navigate, tons of info at a reasonable price!!” and Mehall7 commented, “Easy to use and well worth the price. You won’t regret buying this.” Heather Leister, TheiPhoneMom who’s been mentioned in TechCrunch on more than one occasion, wrote, “This is one heck of an impressive app” and “I’m the type that likes to go into a doctor’s appointment having done some research and love having all this medical information on my itty bitty phone.” In his thorough review of the app at Medtapp.com, family physician Dr. Jojo Ferrer noted that the app enables users to “report bugs, suggest features, and sign up for the newsletter. Kudos to Agile Partners for enabling these in-app; it shows how much importance they give to customer feedback.”

As we said in our blog post when the apps launched, we’re proud of the work with our partners at Merck on the iPhone versions of The Merck Manuals. It’s now fulfilling to see the apps starting to be recognized as valuable references for consumers and healthcare professionals alike. To learn more about both iPhone applications, please visit the Merck Manuals page.

A Bit of History
In 1899, the pharmaceutical company Merck first published a small book titled Merck’s Manual of the Materia Medica. The Merck Manual (as it was later known) became a favorite of those involved in medical care or in need of a medical reference. Albert Schweitzer carried a copy to Africa in 1913 and Admiral Byrd brought a copy to the South Pole in 1929.

By the 1980’s, the book had become the world’s best-selling medical reference and was translated into more than a dozen languages. In 1997, The Merck Manual – Home Edition was published. Written in everyday language, the Home Edition is meant for anyone interested in medical care, but who may not have a medical degree. It has received critical acclaim and sold over 4 million copies worldwide.

The Merck Manual iPhone Apps
Agile Partners collaborated with Merck to bring the trusted content of the The Merck Manuals to the iPhone and iPod touch. “For over 100 years, healthcare professionals have relied on The Merck Manual for essential information on diagnosing and treating medical disorders,” said Robert S. Porter, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The Merck Manuals. “These two iPhone applications now provide the trusted information in a form that is even more valuable for consumers and healthcare professionals on the go.”

The Home Edition app for consumers puts the trusted medical reference at the user’s fingertips, whenever and wherever it’s needed … while on the soccer field, a family vacation, a business trip abroad or getting ready to see a physician. An “Emergencies & Injuries” section that is accessible from the home screen was developed expressly for the application.

The Professional Edition app for healthcare professionals addresses thousands of diseases and treatments, features clinical approaches to each category of disorder, and provides specific guidance on patient evaluation. The app includes a ‘Find by Symptom’ section that is accessible from the home screen.

Agile Partners and The Merck Manuals
Agile Partners’ contributions to the The Merck Manuals actually began well before the development of the iPhone applications. In 2005, Agile helped Merck develop The Merck Manuals Online Medical Library which includes the Home Edition and Professional Edition. The online Home Edition won the 2005 Webby Award for Best Health Website and was a finalist in the prestigious Best Practices category. (The 2005 winner in the Best Practices category was a small, up-and-coming company named Google.)

We’re proud of our work on the online and iPhone versions of The Merck Manuals, and hope they continue to serve as valuable references for consumers and healthcare professionals alike. To learn more about both iPhone applications, visit the Merck Manuals page.

When TabToolkit launched two days ago, Dave at fretbase.com wrote, “Just like GuitarToolkit, we love TabToolkit because it does exactly what it claims it will do … when you load your Power Tab and Guitar Pro tabs, TabToolkit makes you feel like you have been transported into the future.” Dave continues to say, “We think it is well worth its price of $9.99 and a must have for all guitar players who play with tablature.” Travis Ehrlich at geardiary.com wrote yesterday, “Agile Partners have really outdone themselves with this app! TabToolkit is attractive, easy to use and fast … The download feature is worth the money alone. This is a quality app!”

Josh Quittner, editor at large, Time Magazine, was also impressed by the tab download capabilities of TabToolkit. At netly.com, Josh wrote, “The app uses a variety of smart hacks to make it easy to download tabs … Very clever.” Matt Rosoff at cnet’s Digital Noise blogged, “…a very sophisticated app that performs well — no freezes or stutters, as I’ve experienced with other music-oriented apps.” TabToolkit was named a Cult of Mac Favorite by Lonnie Lazar, who also commented, “I can say without reservation that Agile Partners have created an incredibly useful, well-thought-out app.”

TabToolkit has also captured the attention of mobile technology bloggers. Over at thismobilelife.com, the headline was, “TabToolkit: The Guitarist’s NEW Best Friend! … the ultimate guitar tablature resource.” At TotalApps.com, David Kint wrote, “If you had asked me two weeks ago if I ever thought such a multi-featured application would run on an iPhone or even be possible I would have had serious doubts. Yet, here it is. If you own a guitar and an iPhone then the TabToolkit and GuitarToolkit are two essential applications you really must own.” Palm Sounds featured the TabToolkit video.

Finally, we’re fortunate to have received incredible feedback from TabToolkit customers around the world. JackHarteveld in the UK wrote, “This is a fantastic app, definitely worth the price! A clean, easy way to take tabs with you, with the added bonus of letting the device play the songs out for you! A great companion to GuitarToolkit and a highly polished app; an easy recommendation for guitarists.” NickMaher in Australia wrote, “Very polished application, well worth the money” and Vab-1971 in Belgium said, “Application très soignée, un vrai régal.” I’m not entirely sure what that last comment says, but it  came with a five-star rating!

Thank you to all the writers who reviewed TabToolkit in the first two days of its launch, and a special thanks to TabToolkit customers around the world for providing us with your comments and feedback.  Please keep it coming — we’re dedicated to enhancing TabToolkit and all our products, and keeping our customers happy!

If you’re unfamiliar with what a tablature (or tab) file is, it’s a simplified form of music notation that started out for guitar music, but has expanded over the years to enable the creation of complete music compositions. Wikipedia entry for tablature

TabToolkit was a significant technical challenge in a number of ways. By rendering out music notation in realtime and coupling it with synthesized instrument output, we feel like we’re really expanding the capabilities of the platform. We initially planned on launching 1.0 without synthesized audio, but after hearing a prototype implementation work for the first time, we realized we just had to do it.

Creatively, there were plenty of hurdles to overcome as well. We had to create our own font for the music notation display. The combination of Adobe’s licensing options and the lack of good, freely available music notation fonts made creating our own the most compelling option.

A few of the features in TabToolkit:

• Support for the following tab formats: Guitar Pro, Power Tab, text and PDF *
• Audio synthesizer allows you to hear the instrument being played
• View both standard music notation and tablature notation
• Automatically scroll through music with tempo control
• Turn on a metronome with a wide range of sounds
• Select from multiple instrument tracks
• Display a fretboard (guitar or bass) or keyboard that shows finger positions
• Upload tab files directly from your Mac or PC
• Download tabs from the Internet using the built-in web browser
• Portrait and landscape orientations for viewing while docked or on a music stand
• Built-in help, news and feedback support features
• Lefties welcome! Lefty-mode inverts the fretboard to display correct finger positions

* Instrument audio, metronome, auto-playback, music notation and multiple tracks are suppported for Guitar Pro and Power Tab files

Buy it in the App Store or visit the TabToolkit page to learn more.

• Includes chords for alternate tunings. Massive chord library (over 500,000 chords now).
• Chord finder: simply touch the notes on the fretboard that make up a chord, and GuitarToolkit tells you what that chord is! This is a lot of fun and a great way to learn about those great-sounding chords you’ve been playing.
• You can now create your own custom tunings
• Metronome is more stable and accurate
• Direct support for 6- and 12-string guitar, 4-, 5- and 6-string bass, banjo, mandolin, and ukulele with a full chord library, standard and alternate tunings for each instrument
• You can change the reference pitch from A440
• Added the ability to show notes or intervals on chords
• Added the ability to show intervals on scales
• High contrast mode for the tuner
• More chord types added
• Help, news and feedback system added

Screenshots of a few of the new features:

High Contrast Tuner Mode	Chord Finder
New Instruments	Alternate Tuning Chords
Note Intervals	Ukulele!

Take a look a GuitarToolkit product page for more info or open GuitarToolkit in the iTunes App Store.

We’re excited to announce the Star6 Video Freakout contest! Enter a video that shows how creative, fun and crazy you can be with the Star6 app. In addition to the fun you’ll have making the video, there will be two Grand Prizes worth up to $500 each!

The first place winners in both the People’s Choice and Judges’ Choice categories will each receive a $250 Apple Gift Card or iTunes Gift Card. But wait, it gets better! If the Star6 Video Freakout YouTube group has more than 3,000 members by 12:00 midnight EST, September 27, 2009, the Grand Prizes will double in value to $500 each! So invite your friends to join the group and ‘FAVORITE’ your video submission! For more information, visit the contest web page.

To give you an idea of what we’re looking for, check out these videos: Cissy Live Jam with Star6 and Mashed Music Video.

The Tutorials section has everything you need to know to make the most of Star6. My tutorial began with a quick look at the features diagram on the landing page. It’s a “must-see” chart for every new Star6 user because in 15 seconds you’ll get a 10,000 feet perspective of the app’s key features (”Wow, the app does all that?”). If you’re a pro user of Star6, the At-a-Glance Features chart may be all the instruction you’ll need. Fortunately, for novices like me, “Professor Forrest” provides us with much more.

I next opened up a PDF file titled, Sample Editing 101 (remember, I’m a novice). My eyes wandered to a “Sampling (music)” wikipedia link and I was amazed by the amount of information in the article. There’s a history of sampling that begins in 1961 when James Tenney created Collage #1 (”Blue Suede”) from samples of Elvis Presley’s recording of “Blue Suede Shoes.” I sampled (sorry, pun intended) the rest of the article and bookmarked it because I was more interested at that moment in learning how to make some cool new sounds with Star6.

Back at the Sample Editing 101 PDF, I found a link to dmoz.org which provides “a list to other sites where you can download more samples.” Super! Up to then, I had only experimented with the free samples that come with Star6. I was eager to find new samples on the Internet and I wanted to try the upload/download manager that is built into Star6.

I quickly jumped over to the dmoz site and was thrilled to find a long list of samples and loops (”Wow, I could spend a lot of time here!”). After checking out a bunch of links, I ended up at looperman.com where I registered, found some awesome loops, and downloaded several of them. The Star6 upload/download manager worked flawlessly; a physicist might call it “frictionless.”

Using one of the simpler loops that I downloaded, a blues guitar loop, I took the time to really understand the differences between the six process effects — Pitch, Gate, Speed, Jitter, Size, Random — that Star6 offers. To do so, I first went through the Process Effects section of the Star6 User Manual PDF. Professor Forrest did a great job putting together the User Manual — it’s fun and colorful like Star6 itself, and filled with Goldilocks explanations (”Not too much, not too little, just right!”). The User Manual includes lots of helpful images which does make the PDF larger, however a text-only version is also provided on the site if download time is a concern.

Next, I watched Professor Forrest’s Grain Mode Tutorial video which steps through through each of the Process Effects in Grain Mode. (Star6 has two audio engine modes, Grain Mode and Sync Mode. More on that in a future blog post.) Watching the video was really helpful for three reasons. First, the video reinforced my understanding of what I had just read in the User Manual. Second, I stopped and started the video to experiment as Professor Forrest stepped through each Process Effect. Last, but not least, the video was shot outdoors in Berlin’s Alexanderplatz which sure beats a boring classroom and blackboard setting any day of the week!

With Star6’s rich feature set, the tutorial resources already on the website and additional video tutorials to come, I’m sure I’ll be learning a lot more in the coming weeks and blogging about it here. For now, see that screen shot at the top of this post? Well, Star6 also comes with Help Topics built into the app itself. You see, Professor Forrest has you covered!

Pitchfork, the popular and influential Chicago-based music site, has a line in their write-up that I love: “Will I look silly tapping this app while using public transportation? Probably, but it’s worth it.” That’s exactly what I did — on the ‘A’ train in NYC!  My colleague Phil, who’s one of the best ruby developers you’ll find anywhere, was pretty psyched when he saw Star6 on Giles Bowkett’s blog. Jason and our team have been delighted to see folks aren’t shy about their praise for Star6. TheHype.FM said, ”We don’t plug many products through TheHype.FM, but we knew you would all love this” and iSmashPhone.com said, “…one of the best GUIs I’ve seen on an iPhone app. If you’re a musician, or just someone who likes playing around with beats and samples, then this app is a must.”

As someone who’s enjoyed working on five continents around the globe, I’ve been especially pleased to see the international interest in Star6 — from NME, the UK’s biggest music website, to Belio Magazine, an awesome design mag based in Madrid, to engadget German.  All that and more, in just the first week after launch!

However, I know I speak for our entire team and Jason when I say the testimonials of Star6 customers mean the most to us.  One of our customers, Spyced, said, “Must say this is the best performance tool for glitching beats and the GUI is topnotch.” Another customer, Keywiz, commented, “This app is a total sonic party.”

To all our customers and 500+ fans on the Star6 Facebook page: Thank you!

Star6 is a new kind of beast; it lets you perform using any audio sample (ours or yours) as your instrument. We ship the app with seven sample packs, each with six sample loops; but you can upload your own audio too, anything you want. Under the hood in Star6 is a granular synthesis engine, which chops up the audio into tiny pieces and then reassembles them based on your touch and accelerometer inputs. Getting the synthesis engine optimized so that it would run well on all generations of iPhones and iPod touches was a technical challenge to say the least.

The result is totally addictive. During the long testing cycle for the app, I regularly caught myself having just spent the last 30 minutes playing rather than testing. One of my favorites is a loop I cut from James Brown’s The Payback; with a flick of the wrist, James is transformed into an evil chipmunk, the background music into a horror movie theme. This is an exceptionally deep app; unlike other “sound toys” you’ll find on the App Store, Star6 is a performance-grade instrument; there are virtually no limits to what you can do with your loops and the hours you can spend exploring.  Check out the video here.

We collaborated with Jason Forrest (aka DJ Donna Summer) on Star6, and I think the combined effort resulted in something wonderful and unique. Congratulations to the whole team on an amazing new product.