9/11 Memorial App Arrives On September 1 Exclusively For iPad

Beginning September 1, the 9/11 Memorial: Past, Present and Future app will be available for free exclusively for iPad owners, according to The New York Observer. Created by noted writer-director Steve Rosenbaum, the app (which will be free until September 12 and $9.95 thereafter) documents New York’s World Trade Center before, during, and after the attacks of September 11, 2001. The app includes 400 still photographs and hours of video clips, some of which are available on Rosenbaum’s CameraPlanet archive and 2002 documentary, 7 Days in September. According to Rosenbaum, selecting the iPad as the exclusive home of the 9/11 Memorial app was a no-brainer.

Mr. Rosenbaum said he decided to make the material iPad-only because it was simply the best device on which to display it. “I wanted it to be more of an immersive experience,” he said. “The nature of the photographs are so powerful, so to render them in anything but full color seemed wrong to me. And I didn’t want it to be viewed on a phone. I wanted it to be big and glossy.” Apple apparently liked the idea. Mr. Rosenbaum—who runs the tech company Magnify.net, a “realtime video curation engine,” and is the author of the recent book Curation Nation—explained that he submitted his app last week expecting it to take several weeks to get through the company’s notoriously opaque vetting system. “It got approved in a day and a half,” he said.

Take a look:

What is most refreshing about the 9/11 Memorial: Past, Present and Future app is its focus on the future of the World Trade Center location. In other words, the app is more than just a way to remember one of the most horrific days in America's history. It also recognizes that time marches on and how that fact is important to know. Once we get our hands on a copy of the app, we'll let you know what we think. In the meantime, mark your calendar for the app's arrival on September 1 in the App Store.