The American Museum of Natural History’s Explorer, a free app for iPhone and iPod touch that is part navigation system, part personal tour guide, is already garnering rave reviews.
Explorer is “nothing less than state-of-the art,” writes Gizmodo’s Kyle VanHemert. “I roamed around the fourth floor of the museum this morning with the Explorer as my guide…. it was an excellent adventure.”
Using the Museum’s new public WiFi system, Explorer pinpoints a user’s location and offers turn-by-turn directions to exhibits, cafés, restrooms, and other facilities as well as information about more than 140 objects and specimens, custom tours, and a dinosaur treasure hunt. Visitors can create their own tours on the spot, share their adventures by posting to Facebook and Twitter, and bookmark favorite objects to receive links with more information to explore from home.
The app can be downloaded for free to iPhone or iPod touch devices, and visitors can also borrow one of more than 350 devices from the Museum at no charge.
“While many museums have released apps in the past few years—including the Louvre, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Graphic Design Museum in Breda, The Netherlands—this is by far the most robust we’ve seen,” writes Lauren Indvik on Mashable, a news site for social and digital media, technology, and web culture. “We’re especially impressed that the Museum
American Museum of Natural History Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY, 10024-5192
www.amnh.org
