Heart of London

The Heart of London Mobile Tour App has been awarded third place in the first ever Ontario’s Southwest Innovation Award Competition.

Enjoy this fun and delightful historical tour of London Ontario, while relaxing at home or while following the interactive map and meandering along the riverside at the forks of the Thames River in the Heart of London, Ontario, Canada.

It is like having your own, personal tour guide because Deb Rogers provides 28 sight-seeing stops along the river with 90 minutes of video and great stories of London and some of the characters who contributed to its growth and colourful history. Deb not only provides you with historical details but also personal and humourous comments.

Explore the Heart of London while you watch videos about Eldon House, Museum London, Thomas Talbot, The Battle of the Atlantic, Middlesex County Building, Labatt Park, Governor Simcoe, Blackfriars Bridge and of course, London's first hanging!

Enjoy the bonus song which is Included called The Forks of the Thames, written by Londoner, Valerie Morrison. Listen to it as you stroll along the break-wall from Labatt Park to Blackfriars Bridge.

It is a large app because all 30 videos are included inside the app, which means you will download the app once and have the content with you at all times - so there is no need to reuse your data to stream the videos each time you want to watch them. Be patient with the download. The first part of the download to your device is quick, but wait at least 15 minutes for the entire app to download before you try to run the app. We, as a team, made the decision to include the videos completely, as opposed to streaming, even though it means a larger file must be downloaded and stored on your device. You will want to watch the videos more than once so instead of streaming them and using your data plan each time you watch, we opted for a single use of data plans. Check your space on your device before you download, you will need 1.54 Gigabytes available. It's worth the download, so if you don't have room to install The Heart of London app delete some of those apps that you are not using anymore. Remember that you can re-download apps once you have purchased them without paying for them again.

All the sites in the app are wheelchair accessible except for the Battle of the Atlantic Memorial site. The Battle of the Atlantic site can be viewed from above, so a person could see an overview of the memorial, but getting close to the stones would be difficult. The Harris Park site presents a steep hill down at the north end and then another lengthy hill at the south end to get out of the park. Assistance with a chair would be required at these points.

If you have any questions about the download or any parts of the app please contact me. I would also appreciate your comments for improvements and upgrades.

Enjoy,
Deb :)