Students can forget running to a computer kiosk to figure out the bus schedule or look up someone’s contact information thanks to the University of Wisconsin’s new smart phone application.

Mobile UW, designed to make the lives of busy students a bit easier, consists of eight functions including a campus map, a university directory and a calendar of campus events.

Students can also use the app to access condensed five-minute lectures from UW professors, news about athletics and the phone numbers for UW Police and SAFEwalk.

“Our basic goal was to produce stuff we thought would be useful to people on campus – to students, faculty, alum and visitors,” said Brad Leege, the lead developer for the app and a member of Division of Information Technology staff. “We basically looked at those four major audiences and thought of what was useful to all of those people through the platform that mobile phones offer.”

Although the campus may seem easy enough to navigate, the campus map feature helps Mobile UW users in more ways than one.

“You can get a map using markers to show you what’s happening on various spots on campus, and once you find something that you might want to go to, you can get walking directions or driving directions,” said Nick Weaver, a web designer for UW Communications. “You can find parking… there’s a lot there. It’s a new way of interacting with the campus.”

The app launched Thursday night and had already been downloaded 3,310 times by midnight on Saturday, Weaver said in an e-mail to The Badger Herald.

UW sophomore Elle Lynch said accessing the app on her iPhone is more convenient between classes than using her computer. She also enjoys the sports app.

“I’m really into the sports part of the app because with all of the bowl talk in air it’s good to stay connected,” Lynch said.

Weaver said more people use smart phones to receive information nowadays, and UW created the app to respond to the behavior of people on campus.

The free application is only available for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, but should be on the Android Marketplace in early 2011.