The American Museum of Natural History is dedicated to preserve our planet ’s past tense . But its new app , which offers crook by turning directions to exhibits , customizable museum tour , and demo information , is nothing less than state of the art .
A museum ’s treasure are n’t worth much if you ca n’t really find them , and with a sprawling facility like the AMNH , which covers 500,000 square feet in total , recover the display you ’re looking for is n’t necessarily as easy as you might think .
But theAmerican Museum of Natural History Explorer , an app for iPhones and iPod Touches which apply over 300 Wi - Fi hotspots to triangulate your position inside the museum — a exploit of “ indoor GPS ” the museum claim is the first of its kind , and , if it ’s not , it ’s the most useable carrying out of it I ’ve come across — takes the emphasis out of finding the particular musical composition of history you ’re looking for .
After downloading the app on your own gadget or adopt an iPod touch from the museum , you ’ll find that figuring out where you ’re going is just the start — you could also allow Explorer direct you on preplanned tours or select from a list of exhibits and specimens to plat your own itinerary through the museum . There ’s an interactive fossil hoarded wealth hunt for youngsters , societal medium integration for updating your Twitter and Facebook friends about your 24-hour interval at the museum , and , yes , exigent directions to the nearest comfort station ( which the museum faculty explained is visitant ’ most ordinarily inquiry . ) The app , which was developed bySpotlight Mobile , fund by Bloomberg , and bunk on a Wi - Fi mesh follow out by Cisco and Accenture , has a slick visual designing to rival its impressive functionality .
I roamed around the fourth floor of the museum this dawn with Explorer as my usher , and overall it was an excellent experience — the app nail my locating accurately and manoeuvre me swimmingly from room to way . Sure , part ofthe delight of the museum visitis the pensive stroll — a rarified respite from a feverish day — but even if you ditch the navigational functionality and just apply it for getting some further info on the fossil you ’re looking at , it ’s incredibly ready to hand .
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And that ’s what ’s most exciting about the app : what it predict for the future . presently , the informational content on item-by-item exhibits is limit to a endorsement of text , but it ’s well-to-do to see how audio guide content could be implemented seamlessly into the app . The museum would n’t give any particular on where they were headed , but they said that they were commit to expand the app and the museum ’s digital experience . ( They did confirm , though , that a aboriginal iPad app was on the style and that the Explorer platform was built for the possible action of expanding to Android in the time to come ) .
I ’m sure some will make do that museum are ok the path they are ( and have been ) since they start collecting specimens scads and dozens of twelvemonth ago . But I think that AMNH ’s commitment to exploring engineering ’s potentiality for enhance their collection will finally make that chronicle all the richer . [ AMNH , iTunes ]
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