For the first time, Torrey Memorial Bible Conference featured a free iPhone application to communicate conference information to students. As of Saturday, Oct. 19 the app had been downloaded 1,610 times, according to the app’s developer, junior film major Joshua Nelson.

Junior environmental science major Brendon Anthony downloaded the app and had a positive experience using it.

“I thought it was great — I thought it was super helpful. From an environmental perspective, I was excited because it meant potentially less pamphlets and papers being wasted,” Anthony said.

Anthony also cited the speaker biographies and downloadable information as evidence that the app offered more information to the conference attendees.

Torrey Conference coordinator Amy McDonald credits Nelson with having the idea and the willingness to create the app and said that it will influence future conferences.

“Given the success of the app this year, we plan on printing fewer booklets in the future,” McDonald wrote in an email.

App builder sees project through despite challenges

Nelson explained that the app originally began as a fun project for him on the side. When he heard that the Torrey coordinators were looking for someone to make an app, he explained that he already had preliminary designs ready.

Still, it was a hard project for him. He had had the chance to work on building an app previously as a project for film professor Gerald Fisher’s New Media class.

“It was a kind of popular request at the end of a semester. After we had gone through all the planned material, [Fisher] said, ‘What would you guys like to do next?’ Me and a couple students said, ‘We would like figure out how to build an app,’” Nelson said.

The Torrey app was the first one that Nelson saw through to publishing, which presented its own set of hurdles.

“I had no idea — it made sense to me that there would be an approval process for every app that you submit to the store, but I didn’t realize that every update takes just as much time to be approved and processed,” Nelson said.

Nelson explained that, given this process, it was stressful making last-minute changes to strengthen the app and to make sure that there would be accurate information in time.

The final update, version 1.3, was posted on the App Store Oct. 15, the day before the conference. It had updated information, bug fixes and an interface update, according to the App Store.

The app was promoted in chapel and by Associated Students using QR codes on campus, according to Nelson.

Nelson sees this as a transition to use the resources students already have.

“There’s not really a need to waste paper. It’s not purely environmental, but it definitely helps,” he said.

Negative online review

Nelson worked alone for many hours on the app, even skipping classes to make it ready for the conference. He noted that he felt isolated in the process.

“It was so ironic, because the theme is ‘With,’” Nelson said.

Since the launch of the app, Nelson elaborated that he had received two anonymous reviews, which are publicly posted on the App Store.

One review went methodically through the problems in the app, complaining that it was not up to par with Apple regulations: it had small font and a unique interface.

“I would have been very surprised if someone would have said the same things directly to me, but in all honesty, all of his critiques were really good helpful things,” Nelson said.

Nelson added that he hopes this negative critique can be kept in consideration for whoever works on the app in the future, so that it can be more professional in the years ahead.

McDonald hopes that in the future, the app will have even more uses for students.

“If we could find a way to connect each student's ID card to the app so they could use their phone to scan into sessions and workshops and then see their chapel attendances on their chapel page,” McDonald wrote in an email, “that would help students to know exactly where they were at with their requirements.”