IPhone app review - PBS’ ‘The National Parks: America’s Best Idea’

The iPhone app that corresponds with the new PBS Ken Burns series “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” is both a companion for enthusiasts already enjoying the series, and a teaser for those who want to know more about the 12-hour miniseries that everyone is talking about. It is free to download.

The National Parks iPhone App has five sections:

- 2O-minute video preview

- Series schedule (for shows up through the day that is currently airing)

- “Untold Stories” that involve bringing inner-city kids to National Parks, Yosemite ranger Shelton Johnson and the story of Yosemite’s “Buffalo Soldiers.”

- Get Wallpapers, including photos that show Mount Rainier National Park, Olympic National Park, a rainbow from the South Rim at Grand Canyon National Park and tourists at the erupting Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park 1884.

- Get e-mail updates

In the preview video, Park Ranger Shelton Johnson sets a passionate tone by describing a trip he made to Yellowstone one winter when he was delivering the mail by snowmobile. He was in the Hayden Valley, surrounded by bison, and the weather was 60 below. He was so overwhelmed by what he was seeing and feeling that he felt like he had been thrust back into the Ice Age. He turned his vehicle off just to listen:

“I felt like this was the first day. And this morning was the first time the sun had ever come up and those shadows were the first time those shadows had ever been cast on the Earth. And I was all alone, but I felt I was in the presence of everything around me and I was never alone. It was one of those moments when you get pulled outside yourself in the environment around you and I felt like I was just with the breath of the bison as they were exhaling and I was exhaling and they were inhaling. It was all kind of flowing together and I forgot completely about the mail. All I was thinking of was a single moment, in a place as wild as Yellowstone and most of the national parks, can last forever.”

What I think this app is lacking is a connection to the PBS website. Here you have the opportunity to reach out to viewers who are excited about your program, with a ton of bonus material on the national parks section of the PBS website. But if there were any links back to the PBS website, I couldn’t find them. This website includes a Q&A with Ken Burns; profiles of the national parks in the series; information about the making of the film; stories about the cast of characters from the film and historical figures such as John  Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, Stephen Mather; and more.

When I did a search at the App Store for National Parks, I found other apps. We-Envision launched a Parks Envi series of apps that released one app per day as PBS was releasing a new episode of the Ken Burns film. There’s also a National Parks Service app ($0.99). One of the easiest ways to look for iPhone apps related to national parks is to go to the App Store and type in the park you are interested in, scan search results and read reviews until you find one that matches your interest. A Yosemite National Park Recreation Map from Earthrover Software built from Tom Harrison Maps costs $4.99.

— Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times Travel & Deal blogger

Photo: Screenshot of PBS National Parks iPhone app. Credit: AppStoreHQ.com

Permalink | E-mail | Print | Add to My Trips

This entry was posted on Friday, October 2, 2009 at 5:34 pm by Jen Leo and is filed under National Parks, News, Tips & Advice, Travel Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.