What the new iPhone means to higher ed web folks
Unless you are living under a rock, you know that Apple announced its new iPhone 3G yesterday. I’ve had an iPhone for six months and love it, and I’m looking forward to the faster speeds and new features like real GPS service.
I’ve also been thinking about how this will impact us as higher education technology and web professionals.
Après moi le déluge
With the price of iPhone now dropping to $199 for the 8GB model, I would be prepared for a large number of students arriving on campus this fall with iPhones. They will expect wifi access as well as websites optimized for browsing on iPhone. There are authentication issues and other wireless security options we’ll have to review.
Now’s the time to also create an iPhone icon for your school.
Automatic Geotagging of Photos
The new iPhone will allow users to automatically, via the internal GPS, to record the exact location a photograph was taken. While this is a neat, potentially useful feature, we’re going to have to be extra-vigilant in keeping an eye on what photos are attributed to our schools or taken on our campuses. Not that we can take them down, but as GI Joe says, knowing is half the battle.
Strain in server resources
If you’ve got an email setup using Exchange, you probably won’t see a huge bump but if a large number of new iPhone users are POP’ing their email every few minutes, we may see an increased load on email servers. If you outsource your email to Gmail, for example, you won’t see this.
Power Users
Many public spaces at our college, such as the library and one of our dining halls, offer power and network connections at many tables and booths. I’ve used the power a ton of times, but it would be really cool if we started to offer other connection options at these stations. The iPhone specific example is a powered USB port, so that we can keep our phones powered on and charging while we study, do research, eat, etc. Are anyone’s schools doing this?
What am I missing?
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You iPhone fans…
How about the decreased importance of mobile style sheets? As more and more mobile phones can handle a full browser who cares about the minimal versions, something most of us never really got around to anyway.
Maybe increased video demand?
More Mac computers on campus? We’ve already begun seeing this as all the students buy iPod’s but also having iPhones should increase Mac’s market share in other areas significantly. With college students it’s cool to have Mac stuff now.
That’s all I got…
Location-aware self/GPS-guided campus tours for prospectives on unofficial visits. If you’re Google map is outdated (new buildings/streets/parking lots) time to ask the map gods to hit refresh. Also time to add your nice photos/videos to Google Maps.
Student orgs and Student Life staff using location-based networks (ex BrightKite) to see who is doing what/when/where, and if it makes sense, joining the conversation.
ex1 – Jill: “Loving the frolf course on campus” Frisbee Golf Club: “Jill, we have a tournament on Saturday, check out our site for details..”
ex2 – Jack (from dorm room): “Weekends are boring at a commuter school” – StuLife: “Hey Jack, head over to the Union, there’s a band playing and some free food.”