Friday 23 August 2013

App Review: Horse Side Vet Guide™ - Polished, Comprehensive & Perfectly Pitched.

The Horse Side Vet Guide™ App
I wondered how long it would take for someone to produce a really polished horse owners veterinary manual app. They have now!

The new Horse Side Vet Guide™ App (or HSVG for short) is pretty much what you'd hope it to be, an app crammed full of veterinary advice pitched perfectly for the horse owner, with detailed reference text, things to look for, related items, questions to ask your vet, treatments, etc, etc, etc, on an exhaustive range of conditions, traumas and the such like. On top of all that there's a library of short videos on everything from finding the facial artery to take your horse's pulse to bandaging lower limbs correctly. 

I'm more of 'worrier' than a 'long way from his heart' type of horse owner, and my book shelves are crammed full of veterinary books (over 100 I guess), but this app makes finding information so much easier. It is a very well thought through architecture of information which at first glance is overwhelming because of the sheer volume of data in here (1,000 or so entries), but dig into the app a little and you soon discover the simplicity of the structure.
All of the subjects contain a relatively plain English summary plus a variety of sub headings like "Supplied Needed", "Procedure", "Prognosis" and "Tips for Safety & Success". Add to this a search feature and this app just made dealing with everything from minor abrasions to colic a hell of a lot easier. (there are 17 search results for Colic)

I doubt this will be an app you browse for hours and hours unless like me you're a bit of veterinary nerd or failed wannabe vet, but  it will undoubtedly be worth the £2.99 ($4.99) you paid for it when you need to look something up at the yard or a horse show. 

There are also a couple of nice finishing touches too, like a feature for making notes against any of the ailments, treatments or conditions, and I especially like the highlighted 'urgency' notification on the observations subjects . Also the app is intended to be updated on an ongoing basis so you'll hopefully be finding new stuff every so often when you open the app. 

According to the website this is the brain child of Douglas O. Thal DVM Dipl. ABVP, and it must have been a labour of love to compile this much information in such an easy to read way, plus the design of the app itself is very professional and polished. This is definitely the best app in it's class by a country mile. I'll be listing it in HorseHub for sure, and if I had the time this would be the type of app I'd speech enable with my "Siri style" natural language software.

You can read more about the app on their website: http://horsesidevetguide.com/  & Download The App

Just for fun copy and paste the Russian text on the credits page of their website into google translate (I'd like one too please!)

Tip Before You Download: Make Sure you're on WiFi (the app downloads a stack of information, plus a load of videos without warning on the first install).

Whilst you're there download HorseHub too if you haven't already!


1 comment:

  1. Dear Monty,
    Thank you for your wonderful review of HSVG. It is a true compliment from a fellow equine app developer.

    Yes, it was - and remains a labor of love! - the Thals

    ReplyDelete