MU develops iPhone app for freshmen

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) -- University of Missouri freshmen who don't know their way around the Columbia campus this fall will be able to turn to their iPhones for a little help to navigate the first year of college.

GoMizzou, the official iPhone application for Missouri, is scheduled to debut Aug. 23, the first day of classes.

"I see just about every incoming freshman bust out their maps on the first day of school," Tim Noce, president of the Missouri Students Association, told The Columbia Daily Tribune. "Maybe this will make them look a little less freshman-like."

MSA came up with the idea for Missouri when a handful of other colleges came out with iPhone applications. But the Missouri version hit a snag when student leaders found outside companies were charging about $50,000 a year to create and maintain the apps.

"We decided to do it in-house and worked on it, but we ran into some bureaucracy," he said.

Noce said the first version would be fairly basic, and that it would include a campus map, calendar and links to university news.

Noce said there are several possibilities for GoMizzou in the future, including a button that would allow students to call STRIPES, the sober-driving program, with the touch of a finger.

"We're going to look at the feedback we get and see what happens," Noce said.

Kristen Reagan, who will be a junior this fall, said using a map on a mobile phone would have been handier than the map on the back of a folder that she had as a freshman. She'd also like to see a link to some other vital student information.

"I always used to look up the menus at dining halls as a freshman, so that would be pretty handy for freshmen to have," she said.