AO Surgery Reference vs LENS Connected Tower App
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
AO Surgery Reference
Access a comprehensive online repository of surgical knowledge for fracture management. It provides detailed guidance on diagnosis, treatment, and aftercare for numerous fracture types, supported by extensive illustrations and expert review.
- 353 fracture types covered
- 172 surgical approaches
- 1222 surgical procedures
- Over 30,000 illustrations
- Feline, canine, and equine fracture care
- Powerful search function
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QUICK ONLINE REFERENCE IN CLINICAL LIFE Gain easy access to the award-winning AO Surgery Reference. AO Surgery Reference is an online repository for surgical knowledge. It describes the complete surgical management process from diagnosis to aftercare for all fractures of a given anatomical region, and also assembles relevant material that the AO has published before. It gives access to: • aid in surgical decision making for 353 fracture types • 172 approaches • 1222 surgical procedures • all richly illustrated with more than 30'000 Illustrations and much more. To ensure the quality of the content, it is authored, edited, and peer reviewed by experienced AO Faculty from all over the world, some of which are also well-known textbook authors/editors. This is a relaunch of the AO Surgery Reference app utilizing the same responsive user interface that was released February 2020. The highlights are: • Consistent navigational logic and user experience on all screen sizes • Inclusion of feline, canine, and equine fracture care • Combination of Preparation – Approach – Reduction and Fixation – Aftercare into one step called treatment. • Introduction of a powerful search function, allowing simplifications of the user interface as it replaces previous shortcuts.
LENS Connected Tower App
Control LENS HD/4K cameras and surgical equipment remotely. Capture, annotate, and generate custom PDF reports of surgical images and videos. Enables operation outside the sterile field.
- Remote camera control
- Surgical equipment control
- Image and video storage
- Voice, text, drawing annotations
- Custom PDF report generation
- Print and email reports
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LENS Connected Tower App provides remote control of settings the LENS HD or LENS 4K camera settings as well as DYONICS◊ Power II, WEREWOLF◊ Coblation and DOUBLEFLO◊ Pump outside the sterile field, including: • View of settings on the arthroscopic display (optional) • Storage of surgical images and video • Create voice, text or drawing annotations • Generate customized .pdf reports • Print and email reports For best experience, please ensure to enable Location Services (General Settings | Privacy) on iPadOS 13 and above.
Screenshots
Verdict
AO Surgery Reference and LENS Connected Tower App both sit at 4.4 stars, but that hides the real split: 86% of AO Surgery Reference's written reviews are positive against 0% of LENS Connected Tower App's. AO Surgery Reference also leads on device support (3 vs 1). LENS Connected Tower App's advantage is iOS requirement (11.0 vs 13.0). On price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
LENS Connected Tower App holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.4. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 14 and 5 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 86% of AO Surgery Reference's written reviews are positive against 0% of LENS Connected Tower App's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
AO Surgery Reference ships an update every 6 months, LENS Connected Tower App every 7 months. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | AO Surgery Reference | LENS Connected Tower App |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.4 (14 ratings) | 4.6 (5 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 85.8% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 14 — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 months — better | Every 7 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 | 11.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1 MB | 252 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 12+ |
| Developer | AO Foundation | Smith & Nephew |
Customer experience
AO Surgery Reference
LENS Connected Tower App
In-app purchases
AO Surgery Reference
No in-app purchases
LENS Connected Tower App
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is AO Surgery Reference free?
Is LENS Connected Tower App free?
Which has better reviews, AO Surgery Reference or LENS Connected Tower App?
Do AO Surgery Reference or LENS Connected Tower App have ads?
Which is updated more often, AO Surgery Reference or LENS Connected Tower App?
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