A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
The app, initially promised for Roses in May 2011, was eventually made available to students in June after YUSU solved its problems registering with Apple as a charity.
But there have been no more problems so far revealed new YUSU President Tim Ellis and the application, available for IPhones and Ipads, has an average rating of 4.5 stars on ITunes.
Features of the application, which is free to download, include quick access to YUSU information, and blogs, service information for The Courtyard, YUSU Printroom and Your Shop, events news, campus media, university news such as library news and campus facility updates, campus maps, college information, department links and the much admired Duck of the Day photos.
Reviews on the ITunes store praise the app, with comments including “Great job guys, I would have paid for this!”, “Well done YUSU, easy to use, interesting and informative. A must have for all students with IPhones” and “What a great idea. It would be great if all unis had this for open days and new students!”
After feedback from forty testers, twenty new features were added before the release of the app and Ellis hopes more will be added in the future, with university services such as timetables and library lending all possible additions.
About its product, YUSU said: “The app is designed to deliver you news and updates from around campus. It is intended as an additional communication channel between Union officers and students.”
Ellis added: “Feedback has been very positive with some great suggestions for new features and a fantastic team of comp-sci students who help with testing.”
It’s been really useful for Open Day students and hopefully will be of use to Freshers as well in the coming term.
With maps and useful information, the app could prove particularly useful for the Freshers in October as they navigate York’s large campus and get to know the university.
Ellis said: "I really like the map feature on it that lets you know where everything is around campus easily. It’s been really useful for Open Day students and hopefully will be of use to Freshers as well in the coming term.
“Not only that, but it’s just about to get a navigation feature that will actually let you know exactly where you are on campus - pretty handy for those obscure seminar rooms that you're sometimes put in!
“The biggest thing at the moment is pushing it out to more platforms. At the moment it’s only available as an iPhone and IPad app but look out for an Android version soon,” Ellis added.
Download the app from ITunes and watch YUSU's video guide with former President Tim Ngwena.
I really don't understand why the Android version wasn't launched simultaneously. Or indeed at all, yet. Fact is, we make up 52% of smartphone users, and yet YUSU decides to cater to the "cool" 18%...
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