Explorer - AMNH NYC 4+
Official museum app with map
American Museum of Natural History
-
- Free
iPhone Screenshots
Description
Download Explorer, the Museum’s free mobile app! Get a map, turn-by-turn directions to exhibits and amenities, customized recommendations for what to see, and more!
“A great aid to anyone seeing the museum for the first or 40th time.” - The New York Times
Available in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Explorer is automatically set to the language of your device.
Map and Turn-by-Turn Directions
Get directions to exhibits and amenities, including shortest and accessible routes.
Get Recommendations for What to See
Explorer recommends exhibits based on interests you select—and sorts them by how close they are to your location.
Learn More About the Museum’s Exhibits
Go behind the scenes and dive deeper with videos, fun quizzes, and more.
Find the Nearest Restroom
Explorer provides you the shortest route to restrooms, shops, exits, and more.
How does Explorer know where you are? The Museum has placed more than 700 Bluetooth beacons throughout its 45 permanent halls. These tiny beacons give off signals that your phone can detect (when Bluetooth is enabled). Your phone calculates your position based on detecting three of these beacons simultaneously. This triangulation is not always perfect, especially in certain areas like large, multi-level halls, meandering walkways, or stairwells. Your phone should be able to detect the hall that you are in and provide turn-by-turn directions, but sometimes the “blue dot” is not exactly in the right place. In some rare cases it will even be missing. Moving to another area and waiting a few moments will usually fix the issue.
The Museum’s free AMNH-GUEST Wi-Fi also varies in strength throughout the complex. Certain materials and large exhibits (i.e. the Blue Whale) either absorb or reflect the radio signals used by Wi-Fi, further complicating this technology. If you experience difficulty connecting to Wi-Fi in a particular part of the Museum, you can usually fix the issue by moving a short distance away.
We’d Love to Hear From You!
Your feedback is important and will help us improve your Museum experience. Email explorer@amnh.org.
Supported by
Bloomberg Philanthropies
What’s New
Version 3.7.0
Bug fixes.
Ratings and Reviews
Just short of perfection
This app is a MUST if you are going to the American Museum of Natural History. Not only does it give you turn by turn and visual directions INSIDE THE BUILDING to what you want to see next. It also lets you digitize your tickets.
The ONLY flaw keeping it from being perfect is that it doesn’t save a digital membership card. Give me that and I will change this to 5 stars.
Developer Response ,
Thank you for your feedback. We are glad that Explorer helped you find your way inside the Museum! Additionally, we are working to support digital membership cards soon.
Battery drain
The app was helpful and recommended. However, it uses Bluetooth for location and despite setting it to only when using the app, it still will drain your battery fast. So, fully close (kill) the app when not using it, don’t just exit it to another.
The amount of battery consumption could be lowered by reducing the frequency that Bluetooth is used to ping the network. Also, I felt from my experience that Bluetooth was still actively transmitting even while the application is suspended. That should not be happening. The application should only use Bluetooth when actively using it.
Developer Response ,
Thank you for your review. We’re glad you found Explorer to be helpful. As with every iOS app that uses Bluetooth, Explorer gives you the choice to allow or not allow the app to use Bluetooth. If allowed, Explorer will be able to detect and show you your location inside the Museum on a map, as well as give turn-by-turn directions. That does require some battery use. Explorer can still be helpful during a visit without allowing it to use Bluetooth, though some features won’t be available.
Saved me from fear
I got this app so I could at all costs STAY AWAY FROM THE BLUE WHALE MODEL. Whales scare me so badly, and I needed to know how I could stay as far away as possible from it. But my family wanted to see it, so I walked with them up to where the exhibit starts, so I could not see it. This app helped me know how close I was getting to it, since it tracked my steps real time. It was spot on accurate to my location in the museum. I'm rating it five stars since it saved me from having a heart attack in public. Also the other stuff in the app works great.
App Privacy
The developer, American Museum of Natural History, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy.
Data Linked to You
The following data may be collected and linked to your identity:
- Location
- Search History
- Identifiers
- Usage Data
- Diagnostics
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- American Museum of Natural History
- Size
- 89.9 MB
- Category
- Education
- Compatibility
-
- iPhone
- Requires iOS 14.0 or later.
- iPod touch
- Requires iOS 14.0 or later.
- Languages
-
English, French, Portuguese, Spanish
- Age Rating
- 4+
- Location
- This app may use your location even when it isn’t open, which can decrease battery life.
- Copyright
- © 2024 American Museum of Natural History
- Price
- Free