Yale Launches iPhone App
Yale University has deployed a free iPhone app to provide students easy access to campus news and information.
The university has selected iCampus (formerly EZ Axess) to create the app. It allows colleges and universities to brand their apps with custom icons, themes, and graphics. The Yale app also provides campus news, a faculty and staff directory, campus map, videos, access to Open Yale Courses, an events calendar, transit map, Bulldogs game scores, and commencement information.
Details of the features include:
- News, broken down into the categories such as arts and humanities, campus and community, and world and environment;
- Maps, which shows where the university and all its buildings are located, powered by Google Maps;
- Videos, which are shown using YouTube. They include featured university videos, as well as free videos of Open Yale Courses on subjects including capitalism, death, early modern England, environmental politics and law, European civilization, finance, chemistry, physics, psychology, the civil war, and more;
- Photos in categories including Yale in Spring, Residential Colleges, Yale in the 1800s, Yale Historic Buildings, Yale Contemporary Buildings, Yale University Art Gallery, Yale Center for British Art, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, Beinecke Rare Book, and Sterling Memorial Library;
- Calendars for classes and workshops, community events, conferences, exhibitions, family friendly events, films, group meetings, performances, spiritual and worship events, sports and recreation events, talks and readings, and tours;
- A transit route list, which shows what transportation is currently available and on what lines. Students can search by route, stop name, or address;
- An athletics portal, which provides Bluedogs schedules for yesterday, today, and tomorrow, as well as top stories, headlines, and information; and
- Commencement information, including news, photos, videos, schedules directions, parking, information for those with disabilities, inclement weather information, dining, accommodations, frequently asked questions, and DVD and yearbook information.
The app was designed for the iPhone but will also work on iPod Touches, and iPads. It requires iOS 4.1 or later, and takes up 4.6 MB of space.
Yale University is a private school that sites on 315 acres. It has enrollment of 5,310 students at 12 residential colleges. Yale consists of the college, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and 13 professional schools. Besides the iPhone app, the university has Yale Admissions, Dining, TedX, Daily News, and Mobile apps.
For more information, visit communications.yale.edu. To download the iPhone app, go to itunes.apple.com.
About the Author
Tim Sohn is a 10-year veteran of the news business, having served in capacities from reporter to editor-in-chief of a variety of publications including Web sites, daily and weekly newspapers, consumer and trade magazines, and wire services. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @editortim.