Monday, January 7, 2013

Tree Problems? We Have an App for That!

After two years of development, we have released a new smart phone app that will help you diagnose and find recommendations to manage over 175 tree problems on over 60 kinds of trees. We call it the Purdue Tree Doctor. It will be like having our entire library of photos and recommendations in your pocket when trying to make a diagnosis.  More importantly, you will be able to use these high resolution photos to help convince your clients of the accuracy of your diagnosis and of the need to make important management decisions.

If you know which type of tree you have (maple, oak, pine etc.) the app will help you match damaged plant parts with over 1,000 high-resolution photos, based upon the location of the problem: leaves, branches, stems, roots, etc. Once you have a tentative diagnosis you can double check it by following links on each photo to detailed descriptions of damage and stages of problem development. From there you can get advice for management. Alternatively, if you know the problem, you can use the aps to find management tips by searching through our problem list. This app is useful for most problems you will encounter in the Midwestern and Eastern United States.

For those of you with spotty internet connections, you will be pleased to know that we designed the Purdue Tree Doctor to have all of its critical information and photos on the phone in a modest package size (250 mb) with a modest price.

The Purdue Tree Doctor costs only $1.99 and is available now for the I-Phone, and the I-Pod touch at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/purdue-tree-doctor/id561944017?mt=8

If you download it from the I-tunes store via a web browser you can put it on your I-pad and enjoy the larger pictures and format.  For those of you without phone or data plans, you can buy an I-phone touch and gain access to this information. Currently we are developing the application for Android phones and expect it to be out in January of 2013.







Cliff Sadof and Janna Beckerman, Purdue University



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2 comments:

  1. SteveJanuary 7, 2013 at 9:30 PM

    What about an app for Windows Phone? It could be jointly developed for both Windows Phone 8 (phones) and Windows 8 (tablets and PCs), due to the coding similarities.

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  2. Purdue AgronomyJanuary 8, 2013 at 2:05 PM

    Hi Steve,
    We recognize your concern. Unfortunately, we need to allocate our development resources to match current use of smart phones. We chose to start with I-phones because they represent 60% of the iOs. The Android system which represents ~ 25% is our next target and will be out in the Spring. Currently the Windows system is just over 1% of tablet systems; until the market share increases significantly, we simply cannot invest in the development of that platform.
    Data:http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8&qpcustomd=1

    Cliff Sadof and Janna Beckerman

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