Read any good sites lately – on your MOBILE DEVICE?
About three years ago I bought the first iPhone the day it was released. Within 24 hours I wondered how I had managed my day-to-day life without it. I enjoyed it that much and found it that handy.
Today I now have an iPhone 4 and many of my friends and family have smart phones or mobile devices.
The teens and young adults use the text feature a lot but most of my peers use their phones for their schedule and for reading websites and books while traveling.
Today, “there’s an App for that” is quoted almost as much as “where’s the beef?” once was.
Two Questions, Two Answers
When at the annual meeting in New Orleans two questions were often asked of the AAPG Web team: When will you have a mobile version of the AAPG website and will there be an App developed by AAPG?
The mobile site is now available (in beta) and optimized for iPhones and Android 2.0+ phones. When you type www.aapg.org into your phone’s browser you will be given the option of viewing the full site or mobile version. We suggest you save a bookmark of the mobile version to your device’s desktop (iPhone users may bookmark this site with “Add to Home Screen” and have an App-like experience with AAPG Mobile.)
We took a survey to learn that deadlines, news, EXPLORER and BULLETIN articles, and meeting information were the top sought-after information. So that’s what we’ve featured first on the AAPG Mobile site.
The blogs have been updated, too, to be more readable on your mobile device. In fact, you’ll see this little block that looks like a piece of decorative tile just to the right of each blog.
This tile is the new QR code for that blog. Ever seen those before? Well, they will start cropping up on business cards, advertisements, brochures, possibly letterhead.
“QR” stands for “quick response.” According to Wikipedia the codes originated in 1994 out of Japan where these two-dimensional codes were designed to be quickly interpreted by scanners.
There are many Apps that are scanners that any smart phone can use to access a QR code.
Businesses and individuals are able to create these QR codes, publish them and send you to websites or specific URLs within their websites for more information.
You simply launch your QR scanner on your phone; point the phone’s camera at the code; and the next thing you know the phone is launching a web page in its browser. It’s pretty cool.
Where’s the App?
The AAPG web team discussed developing an App for AAPG and discovered that the best experience we can provide to all smart phone and mobile device users will be browser-based.
There will be no App developed but an App-like experience is provided (see graphic). But we do encourage a QR scanner App. You can find a list of those in the Blogzone.
Good browsing!