American Museum of Natural History’s Explorer App Makes Paper Museum Maps Ancient Artifacts [Apps]

The American Museum of Natural History is dedicated to preserving our planet\’s past. But its new app, which offers turn by turn directions to exhibits, customizable museum tours, and exhibit information, is nothing lower than cutting-edge.

A museum\’s treasures aren\’t worth much once you can\’t actually find them, and with a sprawling facility like the AMNH, which covers 500,000 square feet in total, finding the exhibits you\’re in the hunt for isn\’t necessarily as easy as you possibly can think.

But the American Museum of Natural History Explorer, an app for iPhones and iPod Touches which uses over 300 Wi-Fi hotspots to triangulate your position within the museum, takes the strain out of finding the precise piece of history you\’re attempting to find.

After downloading the app to your own device or borrowing an iPod touch from the museum, you\’ll find that finding out where you\’re going is simply the start-you can even let Explorer guide you on preplanned tours or choose from a listing of exhibits and specimens to devise your personal route throughout the museum. There\’s an interactive fossil treasure hunt for kids, social media integration for updating your Twitter and Facebook friends about your day at the museum, and, yes, instant directions to the nearest restroom (which the museum staff explained is visitors\’ most likely inquiry.)

I roamed around the fourth floor of the museum this morning with Explorer as my guide, and overall it was a good experience-the app pinpointed my location accurately and guided me smoothly from room to room. Sure, component of the excitement of the museum visit is the contemplative stroll-a unprecedented respite from a hectic day-but whether you ditch the navigational functionality and just use it for buying some further info on the fossil you\’re staring at, it\’s incredibly handy.

And that\’s what\’s most enjoyable in regards to the app: what it promises for the longer term. Currently, the informational content on individual exhibits is restricted to a blurb of text, nevertheless it\’s easy to look how audio guide content might be implemented seamlessly into the app. The museum wouldn\’t give any specifics on where they were headed, but they said that they were committed to expanding the app and the museum\’s digital experience. (They did confirm, though, that a native iPad app was on the manner and that the Explorer platform was built for the opportunity of expanding to Android one day).

I\’m sure some will contend that museums are fine the best way they’re (and had been) since they started collecting specimens dozens and dozens of years ago. But I believe that AMNH\’s commitment to exploring technology\’s potential for boosting their collection will ultimately make that history the complete richer. [AMNH, iTunes]

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This post is tagged: American, Ancient, app, apps, artifacts, explorer, Historys, Makes, Maps, museum, Paper