Essential Skeleton App, an interactive 3D anatomy of the human skeletal system

Despite the advances in modern technology in the field of medicine, many healthcare professionals and medical students still carry around outdated reference guides as well as educational materials when performing their tasks. 

Many medical anatomy apps have been released for mobile devices to serve as an alternative to traditional, and often heavy textbooks. 
These apps can provide students and residents with better insight into the structure of the human body than traditionally used cadavers and medical textbooks.

Here at SteadyHealth, we already compiled the list of the best mobile apps for learning anatomy that range from flashcards to reference textbooks to 3D interactive maps and models.

The first app on that list was the Essential Anatomy, probably the best-known anatomy app on the markets created by 3D4Medical.
The same company also developed the Essential Skeleton app we review today, which is, unlike Essential Anatomy, available for free on both Android and iOS.

The Essential Skeleton is an educational app that provides a detailed anatomy of the human skeletal system in interactive 3D, supported by the 3D4Medical's incredible graphics engine.

The app allows users to navigate a very detailed 3D model of the human skeletal system, with the option to add their own notes or custom pins to any location, which is perfect for students.

Upon opening the app, the users can choose to watch a video tutorial that explains how to navigate and use the app. 

The app is quite straightforward and easy to use with basically two gestures (pinch and tap), so you can skip the video. Even if you get stuck or get off track too much, simply tap the 'Home' icon to get back.

The home page presents a fully three-dimensional model of the skeleton allowing users to view every single bone, from the digits of the foot to an individual tooth, at every angle. 

The model can be zoomed in for extreme close-ups of textures, and even imperfections. The skeleton is positioned on a black background that can be changed to solid white in the settings. However, the tiny bone segments stand out more on the default black background.

Users can start exploring by zooming in and tapping on particular bones. A pinch on the screen would zoom in or out while dragging two fingers across the screen would move the model around. To rotate the skeleton or a selected bone, simply drag one finger across the screen.

The selected segment will turn green and its name will appear with a couple of controls that allow users to hide the selected bone, hide all other bones except the selected one, fade the bone, or fade all others except the selected one. 

There are two icons beside the name of the selected segment. The 'Speaker' icon allows you to hear an audio sample of the proper pronunciation of each bone.

Tapping on the 'Info' or the 'i' icon will display additional information that will appear in a floating pop up window that includes several different thumbnails/images of the selected bone and a paragraph describing its location and relation to the rest of the skeleton.

The text in the 'Info' pop up window is quite small and there is no way to increase the size, which could be a problem on smaller screens.
In this window, users can also add notes about a selected bone.

Users can choose to view only parts of the skeleton instead of the entire system, for example, the skull or spine. To do this, simply tap on the 'Menu' icon on the left side of the screen to expand the menu, and then the 'Book' icon. Select the part of the skeleton you want to view, for example, Skull, Axial Skeleton, Spine, etc.

Users can easily navigate the system thanks to this menu on the left. Here you can search for particular bones, add annotations by using virtual pen and export the annotated images, share images of each bone through email, Facebook, and Twitter, save the image to your device's photo library, and change the settings.

Essential Skeleton app also offers a Quiz feature allowing its users to test their knowledge and identify certain bones with Drag-and-Drop and Multichoice style quizzes.

Besides the smaller text in the Info section, I couldn't identify any other problem with this app. I expected the app would take too much space on my phone, just like the majority of anatomy apps. However, the Essential Skeleton app is quite light for an anatomy reference (around 90MB) and it didn't take too much time to download.

The most important thing, the app is free. However, keep in mind that Android version for the app is Essential Skeleton 3, while the iOS users can download Essential Skeleton 4.

To conclude this review, I'd like to say that the Essential Skeleton app is easily one of the best human anatomy apps on the market.
The app comes with a plethora of interesting information about the human skeleton which can be viewed in a high detail thanks to the modern and fast 3D engine.
So, whether you're a medical student, seasoned clinician, or simply someone interested in human anatomy, particularly the skeletal system, you should download this app.

Benefit: This app is an educational tool which is suitable for medical students, healthcare professionals, and anyone interested in the anatomy of the human skeletal system