The Vatican, Saturday, unveiled an iPhone App to aid pilgrims’ participation in World Youth Day 2011.
The new App, iGPII, named after the founder of WYD, former Pope John Paul II, works on iPod, iPhone and iPad, and will provide regularly updated information about World Youth day activities, directions to recommended restaurants, places to stay and sights to see in Madrid.
The App promises participants the ability to
- better position themselves for WYD events,
- track their friends’ locations and
- locate the leader of their group should a participant become lost.
A paid App, it is available from the iTunes store in English, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese.
Revenue from the sale of the App will be used to help fund the John Paul II Foundation for Youth, which among other things helps fund youth, who would ordinarily not be able, to participate in WYD 2011.
“We wanted to do something for young people who are in worse situations than young Europeans, so that they could also participate in the World Youth Day,” said the designer Iacopo Barberini.
Barberini intends to introduce versions for Android, BlackBerry and Symbian smartphones for similar events in the future.
World Youth Day 2011 takes place later this month, 16- 21 August in Madrid, Spain.
Sources