I must admit, that when I first heard about ACU’s plan to issue an iPhone or iPod Touch to all incoming freshmen at the start of this school year, I was rather excited. When the announcement was first made, iPhone 2.0 had not yet been announced, the 3G was yet to be seen. Only the original iPhone and iPod Touch were available and my brain-parts ran rampant with ideas on how awesome this could be.
Obviously, with the advent of an official Apple SDK, much of the theorizing about ACU’s plans fell by the wayside, but I was still very interested to hear how it all turned out. So, I’ve decided to gather a few links together to let interested parties read about how the first year of ACU’s greatest technological experiment has worked out so far.
iPhones go to front of the class at Texas university
Abilene Christian U. Will Continue iPhone Giveaway, but Gadgets Add to Worries About Cheating
iPhone University: At ACU, Students Navigate College Life via Apple iPhone
A video podcast that shows off ACU’s web portal developed specifically for the iPhone is also available.
Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing more widespread adoption in additional universities and corporations. It’ll be a great thing to be able to actually leave laptops behind in favor of specially designed web (and native) apps on what I firmly believe to be the most important handheld device of our generation, and certainly the most influential since Apple unveiled the Newton.
(Those of you now looking at your Palm devices, step back cause the Newton pioneered all of that.)
