Boehringer Ingelheim has launched a new iPad app that presents an interactive view of the German pharmaceutical company's 127-year history.

The Boehringer Ingelheim Corporation app is also featured in the Pharma mobile app listing page of PMLiVE's new Digital Handbook.

An Android version of the app has been released today, but in its iPad form the most obvious uses for Boehringer's new app will be at conferences or corporate events. The app represents something of a departure for the company, whose iPad-specific apps have until now mainly focused on healthcare professionals.

In January the company launched the Boehringer Ingelheim app, which features password-protected educational content for doctors.

That app was followed a month later by the Interactions In Diabetes app, which Boehringer's Singapore office launched to help “thought leaders in diabetes to stay up to date with the latest clinical data surrounding linagliptin”.

Boehringer has two further iPad apps. The SPAF Academy app was produced by the company's Brazilian operations to help doctors explain to patients the risk of stroke through atrial fibrillation.

Meanwhile, the Day Power Up app was launched by Boehringer Ingelheim Mexico as a branded game to support its consumer healthcare multi-vitamin and mineral supplement product Pharmaton.

Although apps produced for Apple's iPhone will work on its iPad, pharma companies are increasingly investigating the possibilities of the tablet computer's larger screen size and extended functionality.

But while some pharma companies appear to have embraced the iPad, the number of iPad-specific apps is relatively low.

This, combined with the apps' various different uses, from financial results to games to information for healthcare professionals, suggests iPad apps could be a technology whose case is waiting to be proved.

Links to all five Boehringer iPad apps, as well as a wealth of other iPhone, Android and iPad apps, can be found in the Digital Handbook, whose dedicated section on PMLiVE also features a pharma social media directory among its various resources.

Digital inspiration for pharma on mobile, social media, strategy, best practice, regulations and more