The EP Mobile app is 11 years old, and was long overdue for an update. Recently I updated the Android version of the app, and I just finished updating the Apple version. I’ll use the Apple version to illustrate some of the recent changes in the app.
The primary goal of the update was to improve the consistency of the user interface. From the technical point of view, the original version of EP Mobile was written in an outmoded language, Objective C, which has been supplanted by a newer language called Swift, and the original user interface was designed using an Apple framework called UIKit, which is being supplanted by a newer framework called SwiftUI. During the upgrade process, large swaths of the source code have been migrated to the Swift language, and much of the user interface has been redesigned using SwiftUI.
As an example, here is the original version of the Warfarin calculator, in UIKit:
And here is the new version using SwiftUI:
As you can see the new version is cleaner and prettier. In addition all the calculators and risk scores now have both a Calculate button and a Clear button. Here are before and after screenshots of a risk score:
Even for those modules where it was easier to maintain the UIKit user interface, the two buttons were added so that the user interface of all the modules appears more consistent.
In addition, the Info button at the top right of each screen now consistently opens an information page that contains the reference(s) for each module, and other information such as instructions. All references are given in DOI format where possible and are clickable links. Compare the before and after screenshots below.
In addition to the user interface improvements, one additional calculator (GFR calculator) and one additional risk score (APPLE score) have been added to the app.
With any major change in an app, there are some downsides. In order to support SwiftUI, the minimum supported iOS version was increased to iOS 15. Also, inevitably a few bugs were introduced, which I hope have been stamped out.
I hope with these changes EP Mobile becomes more pleasant to use and continues to serve as a useful tool in your armamentarium.
