We’ve all been touched by the iPhone. Sure it’s a phone. Big deal. What has been so revolutionary about Apple’s takeover of the mobile market is the fact that the iPhone is truly a miniaturized, handheld, fully-functional, pocket-sized computer, complete with full web browsing capabilities. Oh, and you can call people with it too.

Currently, 54% of healthcare professionals (HCPs) use a smartphone or a PDA, and and estimated 40% plan to purchase an iPhone in the next year.* Why use an iPhone instead of one of Palm or BlackBerry’s beauties? More physicians are accessing information at the point of care and in between patient visits. And with an iPhone, browsing the Web is a great experience. Most sites just look beautiful on an iPhone, plain and simple.

Many brands will be looking to develop iPhone apps in the coming months. Some of the key apps will target drug-drug interactions—a big help for HCPs.

Still others will focus on the point of care and introduce the ability to text a question to an “on demand” pharma rep, without having to wait for a rep to visit, calling into an 800 number or participating in a virtual detail.

More brands will be focusing dollars and their thinking on the iPhone, trying to figure out how to maximize the physician experience on this device and developing apps that will cater specifically to the specialties they serve. Mobile sampling equipped with e-signature, for example, will enable docs to take back the power of sampling at his or her convenience.

If you’re not thinking iPhone is relevant to your brand, you need to think again.  One Eleven Interactive has been pioneering the mobile market because we understand that this is one way a brand can quickly and easily kick aside the competition and get directly to the hip of the HCP.

You wanted to get close to your customer, right? Docs basically sleep with their phones. Mobile is THE way to do it.

*Manhattan Research, Taking the Pulse 2008