If you’re looking for a consumer drug reference guide, most likely you’ll turn to The Pill Book from Random House. Well, that reference guide is available now in a searchable, digital guide as an app for your iPhone. It too is from Random House and it includes several new features that you obviously can’t get from a hard copy of the book. The app also lets you track medications for multiple family members, easily setup reminders, find in-depth and easy-to-understand prescription information, identify pills, and even quickly locate the closest pharmacy.

The Pill Book isn’t going to be for everyone, but it does make a handy reference guide and reminder app for those who have to take a lot of meds. In fact, that’s one of the benefits of this app over an actual hard copy of The Pill Book. The app lets you schedule reminders of when to take your daily meds. All you have to do is search for your medication in the pill finder section and once you’ve found it, you can add it to “My Cabinet” and set a daily reminder for it. You can also add other information to it as well such as which pharmacy you can pick up your pills at, the prescription number, dosage, when to get it refilled, and you can even add an image of it as a quick visual reminder. The Pill Book also works as a very handy Pharmacy Finder so if you’re in an unknown area and need to find a local pharmacy near you, this app will find you one.

Obviously, you’ll want to use The Pill Finder too as a reference guide. Just type in the name of the drug you are trying to find out information for and the results will show up in real time as you type. You can either try searching for the brand name or the actual name of the active ingredient in the drug. From there you’ll find some really handy information such as different brand names the drug is found in, the type of drug it is, what it’s prescribed for, and possible side effects just to name a few. You can even view images of what the drug is supposed to look like if there is an image on record. If for some reason you found some pills and have no idea what they are, The Pill Finder can also search for it based on shape and color. Of course if you find unlabeled pills, you’ll want to be cautious of taking them.

The Pill Book makes for a very useful and feature rich reference guide and reminder app. I’ve never ha a need for one before but after using it, I’m keeping it around on my iPhone to help me remember to take my meds now. Also since I have children, I can see how it can come in handy especially since children often have to take meds to and it’s good to know what those meds can do and the side effects that come with them. Overall, I’d say that if you’re a parent, you’ll want to pick up this app as a handy reference guide.

The Pill Book is available now in the App Store for $3.99. It is compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 5.0 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.