Use of iPrinceton application on the rise

Downloads of iPrinceton, a free mobile web application for the University community, continue to rise since its launch in December 2010.

Since the application’s release, the University’s Office of Information Technology has seen 5,920 downloads of the updated iPhone application, about 4,234 downloads for BlackBerry and 1,160 for Android, according to OIT Associate Chief Information Officer and Director of Academic Services Serge Goldstein.

OIT launched iPrinceton to provide easier data access to a growing population of smartphone users on campus. The application was released in increments throughout the summer of 2010, with a full release in December 2010.

The application contains over a dozen features, including course information, campus maps, event calendars and a news feed from the University homepage. Users may also use it to check athletic scores and browse the library catalogue.

Upon its launch, the application was available through the iTunes App Store and the BlackBerry App World store. It has since expanded to other mobile devices such as the Android and iPad.

According to Goldstein, the University began developing iPrinceton to cater to the growing number of mobile phone users — and particularly smartphone users — on campus. Moreover, a number of Princeton’s peer universities such as MIT, Stanford and Duke had all released similar features, he said.

As a result, OIT collaborated with Blackboard Mobile Central, a technology design firm responsible for the University’s Blackboard system. A Blackboard application is available for Apple products and can be downloaded separately from iPrinceton. iPrinceton also allowed OIT to work in conjunction with other University departments, including communications, facilities, the Registrar, University events, athletics and the residential colleges.

“It has a lot of functionality now,” he said, noting that at its first release, the application mostly contained directories. Since then, Goldstein said OIT has added a “Places” application that gives students the ability to check dining hall menus and hours, find rooms in residential colleges and check computing cluster statuses.

Goldstein said that iPrinceton originally contained many modules that OIT and Blackboard continually built upon and modified. All of the modules are now linked to allow for easy navigation between different modules, he explained. For example, clicking on an instructor’s name in a listing in the courses module links to the instructor’s contact information in the directory, as well as directions to his office in the maps section.

“We haven’t had any systematic feedback, but people seem to think it’s useful,” Goldstein said. “I’ll run into people on campus who have the map out.”

Students such as Rosaria Munda ’14 said they use iPrinceton regularly to find buildings on campus.

Meanwhile, Yanran Lu ’14 has the application on her iPhone but said she does not use it often. Instead, she uses existing iPhone applications such as Blackboard Mobile and Google Maps when she needs to check her grades or find a place on campus.

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But at only a year old, iPrinceton is still a growing, changing application.

“We welcome input from all members of the Princeton community regarding additional features which they would like to see in iPrinceton,” Goldstein said, adding that he hopes usage will grow once people familiarize themselves with the host of features the application offers.