New iPhone application syncs with Point

MYMapp is an iPhone application created by Matthew Salesi ’11, Michele Capece ’11 and Yu-Han Hsu ’11. The application “grabs” all the events currently listed on Point and runs them through a process that accurately extracts information about each event’s location, Salesi said.

“It makes it easier for freshmen who are new on campus and don’t know where the buildings are,” he explained.

The application can also map study rooms, nearby printers and other places that aren’t necessarily buildings, Salesi added.

Salesi, Capece and Hsu said they noticed that Point often contains inaccurate information about events and many different names for the same location.

Though Point contains “very useful info,” Hsu said, no one checks it. That was the impetus for turning the USG service into a mobile application.

MYMapp puts Point events into users’ pockets and can also resolve the difficulties that arise from having multiple names for each building. When users open the application, they see their location and the locations of nearby events or points of interest. Users can interact with the map to pull up events on any part of campus.

Salesi, Capece and Hsu developed the application in COS 333: Advanced Programming Techniques, but they have continued to work on it after the class ended.

They will collaborate with Dining Services to develop a component that will allow iPhone users to see dining locations on campus, their hours of operations and menus.

The application will have a carbon footprint feature that will list foods and their respective carbon emissions rate, Director of Dining Services Stu Orefice said in an e-mail. It will also highlight buildings with vending machines and indicate their type and the forms of payment that they accept.

Hsu and Salesi had not done iPhone programming before creating MYMapp. All three said that working on the application in COS 333 gave them the chance to try something new and get help from their classmates. They attributed part of the application’s success to their preceptor, Nick Johnson GS.

Salesi said that making an iPhone application was like “learning a new language.”

The team was brainstorming one night when they first came up with the idea for MYMapp, Hsu said.

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“We originally thought of something called a Doodler — like Twitter, except with drawings,” he said. “Eventually, we ended up trying to do something that could be really useful after the class ended.”

When asked about MYMapp’s potential rivals — Fountainhop and Scoop — Salesi said that he sees Fountainhop as being “sort of unsuccessful in the long run.”

Since Fountainhop seems to throw in a lot of social events, people may be more inclined to just continue using Facebook, he explained.

“It would have to be pretty well accepted before people start using a feature like that,” Salesi said. “It’s also less than optimal in that they ask you to submit events to their website. Our app is using something already there — you don’t have to send things to a separate repository.”

Four students at Stanford initially developed Fountainhop, and three Princetonians brought it to campus this fall. The application lets users publicize their locations or post them as status updates on Facebook. Users can’t post without a netID.

On the other hand, Scoop publicizes informal student events, like parties at the eating clubs. It requires that students log in through their Facebook accounts.

More than 700 people have downloaded MYMapp as of Wednesday evening, even though it’s still being improved, Salesi said. The creators are currently working on creating a similar application for AllPrinceton.com, a local news website.

“It turned into a good little thing,” Salesi said.