Wash U Class Develops iPhone Apps

Smart phones are bringing the world to your finger tips. From the Bible to the daily weather you can access information via the simple touch of a screen. In fact, there are at least 150,000 apps or applications for these miniature computers known as the I-phone and Apple's newest product, the I-pad. Some of the apps are being designed by Washington University students.

Todd Sproull's class in the School of Engineering and Applied Science teaches students to create the code needed to write applications for the hot selling products. "I was really impressed by the students' creativity," said Sproull after this semester's class presented ideas for the term's final project. "It always surprises me with what they come up with," he added.

Among the ideas, an application to speed up the popular college game of "Assassins" by offering live updates about the progress of the game thereby eliminating the more time consuming effort of checking one's email for those updates.


Jim Stevens and Andrew Duffey proposed a program to rate the attractiveness of people you photograph with your I-phone. "Why is this important?", Stevens posed to his classmates then answered the question, "if you are trying to decide which profile picture to put up on Facebook you could see which one looks better. It's fun to mess around with your friends.. you're ugly..you're not."

Stevens and Duffey named their project "Spice Appeal," but told the class they hoped to come up with a better name. William Scales and Matt Lanter offered a more practical tool to help fellow students keep track of their meal points and class schedule. They want any student to be able to check his pre-paid account for meals or call up her class schedule while walking across campus. Lanter said his suitemates like the idea. "I definitely like practical ideas. In a lot of other classes you do games and stuff which are fun, but I want someting that is useful for my life," he explained.

The two students are working with university officials to see if they can test their idea with real student accounts. "That's going to be a huge hit," their teacher Sproull predicted.

Apple offers a development kit for apps that helps students and I-phone fans put their ideas to work. Some apps designed by the public have been approved by Apple and made available for free or a modest cost on the company's Apps Store.

The class teaching assistant Andrew Shaw began inventing applications several years ago. He now can claim several that the public is downloading. His most recent, the "Ambient Alarm" is the number downloaded free alarm I-pad app.

The description says: " This app provides a color changing mood light option that creates a soothing glow. Perfect decoration piece to spice up a room or quickly mesmerize your eyes to relieve stress or fall asleep." Shaw also included an option setting that requires the owner to get up and shake the i-pad to turn off the alarm. You can access the free download from i-tunes at here.