Rome Travel Guide for iPhone: the audio guide reinvented

Written by ComPart Multimedia

Tuesday, 18 January 2011

ItalyGuides has released Rome Travel Guide 1.0, their new interactive travel guide for iPhone and iPod touch devices.

ComPart Multimedia srl, is pleased to announce ItalyGuides: Rome Travel Guide 1.0 for iPhone, the second in their series of award-winning, internationally acclaimed audio/video travel guides.

ItalyGuides has sought to reinvent the stale, academic, audio guide, and replace it with a new, cinema inspired app featuring a filmic musical score, professional narration, creative scripting, and dramatic still and video images.

"These are not just ordinary travel guides, these are the beginning of a mysterious and fascinating trip: a voyage across more than 20 centuries of creativity through which art and history intertwine, telling the story of what human ingenuity has created through the ages."

The app guides the user through 55 different points of interest in Rome, and includes over 290 images, maps, and video. ItalyGuides: Rome Travel Guide opens and operates in portrait mode. Its elegant GUI is based on an Italian marble motif, and features simple navigation that provides many paths to the same destination.

The main page features three navigational mode buttons on top, four function buttons along the bottom, and a scrolling list of places of interest in the main part of the screen.

The armchair traveler or actual tourist may choose from three navigational categories: Route (17 primary points of interest along a continuous travel route); Alphabetical (the same 17 listed alphabetically); and Top Places (the 17 listed in approximate order of importance and popularity).

Each listing includes one or more short videos, text, and audio narration. Some branch into sublistings, where there are several things to see at one POI. As displayed in the Top Places scrolling list, they are: The Colosseum, The Roman Forum (18 sublistings), St. Peter's Basilica (4 sublistings), The Pantheon, The Trevi Fountain, Castel Sant' Angelo, Piazza Navona, Capitol - Imperial Fora (6 sublistings), Borghese Gallery, Spanish Steps, Aventine Hill (6 sublistings), Baths of Caracalla, Piazza del Popolo, Trastevere, Janiculum, Via Veneto, and the Termini Railway Station.

The app's four function buttons include: List (scrolled listings), Maps (five different maps of Rome highlighting legends, landmarks, and historical sites), Travel Tips (a 10-minute video presenting "Rome in a Nutshell"), and ItalyGuides that takes the user to the company's main website. The app has been optimized for use with the high resolution Retina displays on the latest iPhone and iPod touch, and it is recommended that the user wear earphones while using the app in Rome.

Feature Highlights:

Beautiful maps of the city and main sites
Basic Rome subway map
55 points of interest with audio tracks (over 120 minutes)
Photo gallery with over 290 high quality images
Video travel guide about tourist attractions and useful travel advice (10 minutes)
Support for Retina display on iPhone 4 and iPod touch

ItalyGuides.it has received considerable recognition and international awards, and has been featured in such magazines and TV shows as:

The Oprah Winfrey Show
BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)
Venice department of the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage
RAI (Radio Televisione Italiana)
RSI (Swiss public Television)
Yahoo!
El Pais
El Mundo
and many more...!

Our goal in creating ItalyGuides: Rome Travel Guide, was to do justice to the magnificent city in which we live, and to use the power of the iPhone/iPod and its Retina display to the fullest. I believe anyone who uses our app will agree with us, that we have succeeded.

Leonardo Calandra, ComPart Multimedia owner.

Device Requirements:
iPhone or iPod Touch with OS 3.1 or later.

Pricing and Availability:
ItalyGuides: Rome Travel Guide 1.0 is available now at the special introductory price of $4.99 (USD). One week following its introduction it will return to its normal price of $7.99. The app is available worldwide through the App Store in the Travel category.

Review copies are available upon request.

Headquartered in beautiful and historic Rome, Italy, ComPart Multimedia srl is a privately held company founded in 1994 by Leonardo Calandra. Embracing a longtime investment in the development and knowledge of the Italian cultural heritage, ItalyGuides is known worldwide for its unique and interactive travel guides for architectural discovery.

Contacts:
ComPart Multimedia S.r.l.
Via delle Cave, 105 - 00181 Roma
Ph. (+39) 06 783.46.971 - 06 783.95.917

Purchase and Download:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/italyguides-rome-travel-guide/id409323397?mt=8&ls=1

YouTube Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjzpD6ZRp2o

Media Kit:
http://www.italyguides.it/mediakit/rome/mediakitrome.zip

Application Icon:
http://www.italyguides.it/mediakit/rome/icon-rome.png

Rome Travel Guide application page:
http://www.italyguides.it/iphonedemo

Press release:
http://www.italyguides.it/