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SFU iPhone app (WIP)

farhan
edited December 2010 in General
Im working on a SFU iPhone app which will be released beginning of next semester (I hope)

we have got a lot of cool stuff working that should make it very useful to students with iOS devices.
-automatically get your course schedule
-find buildings/retaurants (no room finder sadly) around campus
-email directory for faculty/students
-easy access to deadlines/events in calendar form
-access to MyLibrary check what books are checked out/ books on hold
-easily log into the app once then later allowing you to login to connect/webct/Sakai without having to enter your password again.

Basically the goal is to provide a lot of the websites most students visit on the go in a more easy to use manner


out of curiosity is there anything you guys would like to see in this app? there's a lot of cool stuff that's possible. whats one of the biggest features you'd like to see?


here is a screenshot
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Comments

  • siuying
    perhaps provide an alert when transit stops servicing so students have time (or the choice) to get off the mtn.. i've had too many friends text me in the afternoon/evening whining that they're stuck on the mtn after they walked out of class only to find out the buses are coming up/going down anymore..
  • SimonSimon
    edited December 2010
    thats impressive... how about a link to talkSFU! it's already mobile optimized and a lot of students are finding it to be a useful place to get advice and opinions. another cool feature would be the ability to book study rooms

    looks like a great app, are you developing it independently or for the school?
  • farhan
    it was a project for cmpt 275. they had a contest at the end to find the best app. our app didn't win so our group decided to release it anyways.

    roombooking would be neat. a problem we had with that is that its just too much information to display. im trying to think of ways to simplify finding rooms that are empty and booking them but have only come up with a few ideas nothing that makes the process more enjoyable.
  • Ether
    If you decide to release it, please, please PLEASE cache stuff. I hate it when I open up an app that I was previously viewing and it decides to reload everything even though I might be in a place with slow internet. Take "Schedule", for example. I'm not sure how you implemented it, but a schedule is something that is unlikely to change very often throughout the semester, so there's no need to reload the information from go.sfu every time the app starts up. Again, not saying that you did it this way, but it's one of my pet peeves about iphone apps in general.

    Email search: does anyone actually use this?

    Maps: Is this a specific map of SFU or does it just open Google maps over Burnaby Mountain? A map of RCB.. now that would be useful.

    Assuming that the tags at the bottom are for twitter or something, and that they start a tweet with #SFU, @SFU, or the geolocation, are they really necessary? It's not difficult to type 4 characters, and most people (purely speculation) would probably rather use their dedicated twitter app to send tweets anyway. You could free up the screen real-estate for something else.

    Anyway, it looks pretty good. I'd definitely give it a try if you decide to publish it.
  • farhan
    edited December 2010
    yes for sure. a lot of the important stuff that doesnt change is cached. schedule/events feeds/MyLibrary are all cached.

    email search is something most students doesn't know exits. i think its useful for that one time you want to email your professor something quickly. instead of having to look at course websites/course outlines to find it you can easily find the email and send it quickly.

    maps is something most people are gonna be disappointed about. having a map of RCB is useful but the only thing we have access to is floorplans and in their gross black and white photocopied form. we would have to redraw the floor plans of every building and every floor. actually something im looking into doing.

    As of now the maps opens up google maps and shows all the points of interest. and allows you to search for buildings/restaurants around campus. think of it as a layer ontop of google maps
    here is a screen shot
    http://imgur.com/GHoF6


    as for the bottom links. yea your right its twitter. the only reason I added it was as of now there is no way of getting school news in the app. the SFU twitter account mainly posts stories from sfu.ca so it seemed a cool way to keep up to date with the news around the school.

    my justification was that most people dont go to twitter for news of what is happening around the school. by having the twitter feeds it would allow people to see conversations happening around/about the school that most people dont see.

    thanks for the feedback is there something you'd like to see in the app that you would find usefull?

  • Ether
    edited December 2010
    Hmm.. the SFU webcams? They're good for checking the weather on the hill.

    http://www.ns.sfu.ca/index.php?target=webcams

    .. Or maybe a tie-in with the radio station or school paper.
  • farhan
    yup great idea. im going to add that under the important info section. allong with the Burnaby weather report/road conditions
  • buflibufli
    Hi,

    For maps/directions:
    I have no idea if these guys are still around/working on this project but I suggest you look into it. http://wiki.bc.net/atl-conf/display/BCNETPUBLIC/SFU+Virtual+Campus
    I've seen a live demo of this and it was quite impressive. Downside is it was made in flex and as far as i know non-jail broken iPhones don't have flash :(

    Email Search:
    IMO this is useful. I use it all the time.

    Twitter/Announcements/Cams:
    I agree with the comments above it would be useful. Also if you could get an RSS feed or something of the sfu alerts http://www.sfu.ca/security/sfuroadconditions/ it would be even better :)

    Also as Simon mentioned a link to talkSFU would be dope =P there are other club specific forums out there but talkSFU is nice since its general. lots of useful Q/A going on here :)
  • farhan
    I think your talking about these guys. http://www.maptmedia.com/examples/
    they are the ones responsible for the interactive map available at the surrey campus

    a map that dense would be an app on its own. i want to do something like that but its a lot of work.
  • jarrett
    Another thing that would be very nice to have on this app would be an assignment tracker/scheduler instead of having a separate app that isnt tied into the sfu calender or the current terms classes... Don't know if its possible but it would help :)

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