Titanifacts iPhone App Review

Titanifacts is an unusual and unique app depicting the history leading up to and surrounding the building of one of the most ill-fated ships of all time, RMS Titanic. If you didn’t know already, Titanic was built a century ago in Belfast, North East Ireland, now known as Northern Ireland.

Titanic was built by one of the world’s leading and innovative ship builders, Harland and Wolff , indeed their bright yellow cranes still dominate the site today, where they still build maritime vessels. Not only did they build the Titanic and sister ships, RMS Olympic and HMHS Britannic, if you’ve been to London in the last decade or more and visited Tower Bridge, you will have no doubt seen HMS Belfast, a former Royal Navy light cruiser moored there, and now a floating exhibit open to the public. Harland & Wolff also built SS Canberra, requestioned by the UK Government as a hospital ship during the Falklands conflict in 1982.

Titanifacts centers around the building of the Titanic at the dockyard in Belfast, known as Titanic Dock locally or Queen’s Island more formally. Although the app consists of several movies optimized for both cellular and WiFi networks, there’ also a blog, news and links with other sites, a number of fascinating maps and a gallery of photos. The picture above for instance, shows the vast hulk of the Titanic, but also if you look closely her sister ship, Olympic, sits alongside (having said that, I’m not sure which one is which). In the movie’s commentary, it explains Harland & Wolff were one of the first major manufacturers to adopt documentary photography in the construction of their vessels, providing a unique insight into the sheer scale of the project. The gallery consists of over 20 photos and drawings.

Map of the ship-building yard and graving dock, used to fit out the Titanic.

Queen’s Island as it is today, courtesy of Google maps, note the 1920’s Royal Navy cruiser (HMS Caroline) in the berth next to the dock where the Olympic class liners, including the RMS Titanic, were fitted out (the hull or keel was laid-out just out of shot, bottom left, but the slipway can still be seen). With a few feet to spare, Titanic only just fitted .

Map of the Queen’s dock showing where the hulls of Olympic and Titanic were built or "laid-out".

I decided to include another image from Google maps, zoomed out slightly, showing the slip-way where both the Olympic and Titanic were ‘laid-out’, that’s to say where Harland & Wolff built the hulls. You can just see the two slip-ways (looking like runways) opposite the new ferry terminal, bottom left. Bottom right you can see the huge, bright yellow cranes of H&W in use today. Part of the site is being redeveloped, lets hope there are no plans to build over the slipways and the graving dock.

As well as the small but select gallery of photos the highlight of the app must be the series of movies. Four chapters detailing the history of the Titanic, up to the time she sailed, form the core content. Each chapter can be viewed either over the cellular network or using WiFi, the latter is much higher quality, but even the more compressed files are quite watchable. While the additional content is interesting, it’s more likely to appeal to ardent Titanic enthusiasts. There’s little here of the tragedy that was to unfold on her maiden voyage, but one particular fact struck me; even though there were too few lifeboats, the Titanic wasn’t sailing at full capacity. She was designed to carry 3,500 passengers. In the event, with around 2,200 passengers and crew, Titanic wasn’t traveling as fast as some rivals when she struck the iceberg. Even so, over 1500 people lost their lives on that fateful evening.

In conclusion, Titanifacts provides a fascinating "behind the scenes" look at one of the most infamous events in maritime history. Not only is it compelling viewing for all those interested in the Titanic saga, but it’s unique delivery makes it an ideal learning aid for children; let’s hope this is the first of many more to come.

Titanifacts for the iPhone or iPod touch is sold exclusively in the iTunes App Store and is priced at $1.99 (£1.19). To purchase a copy, visit iTunes App Store at:

http://itunes.apple.com/app/titanifacts/id339501744?mt=8