Paul Watson, Campus Carrier Editor-in-Chief
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| apple.com Viking Fusion is releasing a new smartphone app which will be available Friday. |
The new Viking Fusion smart phone application will be available for free download starting Friday.
The app, available for iPhones with iOS7 and Android phones, will contain nearly all the same content the website currently contains.
Viking Fusion advisor Stephen Hames said the project originally began in September 2012 when a committee of communication professors examined the benefits of having an app and the process for creating one, including costs.
The actual designing and programming of the app began in spring of 2013. After much deliberation and searching for a developer, Berry alumni David Moskovitz (07) and Isaac Jessup (09) were hired to create the app. Hames said Jessup was a good part of the team because he was one of the students who helped create the original Fusion website during his time at Berry, so he was familiar with the mission and goals of the organization.
Hames said one of the motives for building a mobile app was that it was practical.
“We are keeping up with technological demands,” Hames said. “More and more people are going mobile…so we need to provide a mobile platform to keep up with the times.”
Bob Frank, associate professor of communication and department chair, was a member of the development committee. He said the idea for an app came from another committee member: Brian Carroll, associate professor of communication.
“The motivation was a realization triggered by Brian Carroll’s reading and thinking that by 2014 the majority of people will be getting their information from a mobile site,” Frank said.
Carroll said creating a mobile app was a smart move.
“The desktop is declining; smartphones are now the dominant interface to get information,” Carroll said. “We needed to make it easier for people to access Fusion.”
Frank said most of the app development process was done via video conferences during which Moskovitz and Jessup would display the current state of the application and the committee would comment on what they liked and what they wanted changed. The app development hit a rough patch when the Apple app development system crashed, delaying the process for about a month, but Frank said the team worked through it.
One of the biggest concerns the committee had was the cost of working with different operating systems.
“Whatever you develop for a phone, you have to develop for both Android and iOS7, both of which are constantly updating,” Carroll said.
Carroll said the new app will be good for the department and the school as a whole.
“If these trends are true, we don’t want to wake up and find ourselves marginalized,” Carroll said. “ We want to keep ourselves mainstream. We want as many people to see our students’ work as possible.”