College Tours in the Age of iPhone

Ace! NewsFlash

New iPhone Application Takes On Traditional College Tours

Forget tour guides. A new iPhone application may be able to replicate the quintessential college tour, minus the huge crowds and backward walking.

The application, created by a Yale University student and two high-school students, provides information on about 100 different locations on the campuses of four universities -- Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. If approved by Apple, the four tours will be available for $10. The students hope to add tours of other colleges and universities as well.

People with iPhones can get information on campus landmarks if they hold their devices in front of them as they walk. Using the iPhone's tracking of GPS coordinates, the program can figure out the user's location. Using a compass, it can determine what buildings the person is facing, and then match that information with 100 key locations on campus. If the iPhone is in front of a building or other location that is in the database, a gray dot will appear on the device's screen. Touching the gray dot opens up a paragraph or so of information about the location.

Max Uhlenhuth, a Yale sophomore who created the application with the two high-school students, said he hoped the programs would give prospective college students more information than they'd get on an official campus tour. "It's probably never going to replace a real live tour guide," he said. "But it will give you information you wouldn't have otherwise. It's very hard to get an inside look at a lot of these colleges."

For example, Yale students could create a guide to the university for those interested in science courses, which would be more helpful than a general tour of the campus, Mr. Uhlenhuth said. See some peppy students get excited about the application here.

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