World Youth Day? There's an App for That!

On Friday July 29, the Vatican will present a new iPhone/iPad app called "iGPII" to be used in conjunction with World Youth Day 2011. The app will contain WYD history, schedules and local information.The news of the new app has brought a huge favorable response and praise for the Church's continued foray into new media.

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online)- the Vatican Information Service has reported that the Holy See Press Office will hold a press conference on Friday at 12:30pm to unveil the new "iGPII" application for World Youth Day 2011 (WYD). The application will run on iPhones, iPods, and iPads and other devices that utilize the iOS operating system.

The project was spearheaded by the John Paul II Youth Foundation and developed in by Futurtech & Adv Productions. According to documents released today, the new app will highlight the history of WYD, provide a schedule of events, allow GPS positioning as well as give information on food, drink and local accommodations. It is available in five languages: English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

The news of the new app has brought a huge favorable response and praise for the Church's continued foray into new media. The one negative response stated in several places was, "What about Android users?"

At the press conference Marcello Bedeschi, president of the John Paul II Youth Foundation, along with Iacopo Barberini and Giovanni Leone of Futurtech will demonstrate the application and have it available on iPad and iPhone units for journalists to try out. They will also have it available for download.

While we're assuming the app will be available for download to the general public tomorrow as well, but we are awaiting official confirmation from Apple on this.

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Randy Sly is the Associate Editor of Catholic Online and the CEO/Associate Publisher for the Northern Virginia Local Edition of Catholic Online (http://virginia.catholic.org). He is a former Archbishop of the Charismatic Episcopal Church who laid aside that ministry to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church.

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