Art Institute of Chicago announces iPhone and Android app, “Art Institute of Chicago Tours.”
The app presents 50 rich and varied tours of all the public spaces in the museum and its thousands of works on view. The custom tours offer information on more than 300 works of art, 50 different ways to organize a visit to the museum according to a visitor’s interests, and turn-by-turn navigation, made possible by the museum’s new free and open Wi-Fi network and “indoor-GPS” software. The “Art Institute of Chicago Tours” app allows museum-goers to explore unfamiliar parts of the museum, learn more about their favorite works and artists, and plan personalized visits to the museum.
Map apps that help smart phone users get around outdoors are consistently the most popular in the app stores. Venues such as art museums have long hoped to provide a similar experience indoors, but have faced barriers from the technological limitations of satellite GPS. With its new Meridian-powered app, the Art Institute of Chicago becomes the first art museum in the world to offer visitors an “indoor GPS” app for both iPhone and Android. The Art Institute of Chicago’s app will give visitors that familiar glowing blue dot on the map, guiding them to art works, facilities such as restrooms and checkrooms, and more.
The free app, developed by the Art Institute using Portland, Oregon–based Meridian’s indoor-GPS software, is available from the App Store for Apple devices and from Google Play for Android devices. www.artic.edu