July 1, 2012 (Vol. 32, No. 13)
URL:
http://bit.ly/MSa0Vv
Rating:
Strong Points: Many search options
Weak Points: Nothing major
Platform:
iPad
Cost:
Free
Summary:
For any chemist looking to get MORE from a free iPad app, look no further than Eidogen-Sertanty’s (albeit vaguely named) app, MObile REagents for the iPad. Sure, the name doesn’t say much—but I can tell you that this is a great app to find all of your organic synthesis reagents. Users can search a vast library of reagents that includes over 16 million chemical products sold by 56 vendors. Yet, the many ways in which one can search the library is as impressive as the library itself. In addition to searching by chemical name or formula, one can use the in-app drawing tool to search by chemical structure, or you can even take a photo of a chemical structure with your iPad camera and the app’s optical structure recognition function will extract the structural features. Finally, there is also an option to scan and search by QR codes. Never before has searching a database been so easy!