Vanderbilt engineering students are at the forefront of mobile apps technology

by Laura Miller
photo by John Russell

Sometimes a cell phone isn’t just a cell phone. If you use a smartphone – whether it’s an iPhone or an Android – you know this to be true.

Thanks to the thousands of smartphone applications available for purchase online at minimal cost, one’s mobile phone can also serve as a music player, camera, global positioning system or alarm clock. It can record video, play satellite radio, act as a portable recording studio, serve as a flight simulator or double as an artist’s canvas. And that’s just the beginning.

Innovative engineers, including some Vanderbilt students, are at the forefront of this burgeoning – and lucrative – field of “apps” creation.

This fall, the Vanderbilt School of Engineering created a yearlong networking course to focus on the creation of smartphone technology. Developed by Research Assistant Professor of Computer Science Jules White, the course applies existing computer theory to new real-world models of networking. The particular design of smartphones allows students to adopt functions of a computer and adapt them to wireless technologies, opening up a wide new field for invention and design.

After the Internet boom lost some of its novelty, the field of computer engineering hit a temporary plateau. But courses in application design, because of the engaging format and manifold opportunities for creativity, promise a new interest in the subject. Universities are creating new programs in programming to take advantage of an expanding market. As of August 2009, more than 1 billion applications have been downloaded from Apple’s App Store, and more than 37 million units of the iPhone and the iPod Touch have been sold.

So even with Apple keeping 30 percent of the revenue from each application, developing apps to download – even at a mere 99 cents each – can become very profitable very fast for individuals as well as for businesses. And given the human-oriented, personalized nature of the medium and a highly competitive field, students need to acquire a knack for business and marketing in order to make their apps visible, viable, relevant and appealing to users.

Some Vanderbilt students are already developing their own applications for smartphones, independently and in the classroom.

Engineering senior Hamilton Turner has completed an app called “Wreck Watch,” which combines an accelerometer with GPS technology to ascertain whether the user has been in a car accident. It dispatches a report to local emergency services and notifies approaching drivers of traffic delays.

Turner’s roommate Ben Gotow, also a senior in the School of Engineering, specializes in the creation of artistic drawing apps. Two of his apps, NetSketch and Layers, have become so admired by users that entire online photo galleries, such as the popular Flickr site, have been dedicated to the apps as a thematic medium.

A dedicated Apple user, Gotow was intrigued by the iPhone SDK, which allowed applications to be written in high-level computer languages instead of what he describes as “gnarly, low-level code.”

“I’m interested in human interfaces. I always ask myself the question, ‘How will the user react to this; what will they try to do first?’” he said. “The iPhone is great for exploring human interaction because the multi-touch screen gives you a lot of options.”

Still, even the best anticipation cannot always predict what users will do with a function or application. Gotow originally conceived NetSketch (www.netsketchapp.com) merely as a doodle app, but users turned it into a whole new medium for the creation of art.

Gotow gets inspiration for new work, such as his Layers app (www.layersforiphone.com), by looking beyond the limitations of his previous work.

“You do something once and then realize you could go back and do something better,” he said. “Layers was inspired by the comments, suggestions and requests of users of NetSketch. I tried to extend the app to meet their needs, but realized pretty quickly that I needed something entirely new.”

Even though he professes to have no artistic skill of his own, Gotow said he loves creating apps for artists because art applications are an area in which high-quality work is appreciated and his design will be put to the best use. The popularity of his apps has netted Gotow more than $30,000 to date.

Gotow said he looks forward to creating for the Apple tablet, a larger form of iPod Touch forthcoming from the company, and is currently looking at graduate programs that emphasize human-computer interaction.

Gotow and White currently are engaged in an independent study creating an “augmented reality” function for the iPhone. Based in global positioning technology, it would allow a user to point his or her phone at a building anywhere on Vanderbilt’s campus and receive information about what is going on inside – not only details about the structure’s history, but also information about events occurring in the present and ones soon to come.

Hamilton heads up the Vanderbilt Mobile Application Team, a group open to students, faculty and staff interested in mobile apps development and possessing a yen to invent. For more information, e-mail hamilton.a.turner@vanderbilt.edu.

Posted 11/01/09