Since the boom of the iPhone platform, tens of thousands of apps have been created. It’s not just games either. Smart, useful apps not only help out their users, they can also carry a price tag.

What about the education market? Recently, there have been some software development companies specializing in mobile apps for colleges, and have gotten a few big names. The problem we find though, is these apps are of a templated nature. One app to the next are almost identical. Basically, a logo attached to a bin of buttons. While we see that this could work, and probably just fine, it doesn’t quite have the ‘wow’ factor of a customized app, with a smart, clean design.

We have started our venture into education based apps. Recently we began to work with the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, to create an iPhone app for the students. While speaking with Deb Verhoff, librarian at AIB, she expressed the areas of interest that she finds useful, based on her experience in day to day library tasks. Basically, when people need information, they come to the library, books or no books. So, we have included certain college information inside the new AIB app including:

1. Current Student Artwork, pulled in from the AIB Flickr Account
2. Current Shuttle Schedules, for campus to campus travel
3. AIB News, via the AIB Front Desk facebook page
4. Blogs of college departments
5. Library Research/Book Lookup

Also, we have been contracted with Bunker Hill Community College to create a new iPhone/iPod Touch app for their distance education department: BHCC Online. This app contains student testimonials, video tutorials for navigating the online learning environment and all information related to courses and degrees that are available for Distance Education. The target of this app is mostly for current students, but also works for recruiting new students for the Distance Ed program.

In both cases, the development process is focused on customization, and smart and effective user interface design. We would love to create something for your college, just let us know!