By Alex Leichenger

Gabe Benjamin ’11 is developing an iPhone application that will allow students to view their daily school schedules and keep track of their homework.

The iHW application will feature a student’s personal schedule for the day and a timer counting down to his or her next class. It will also have a “virtual planner” where students can write notes and check the start and end time of each period. The application only works with Benjamin’s schedule so far, but he plans to make it usable for all students soon.

“I’m 99.999 percent sure we’re going to have it available in the summer so anyone can use it next year,” Benjamin said. “If I get it done in time, we could have it available by spring break.”

Benjamin said he hopes to add teachers’; schedules, school email, school news and a campus map to the application.

“At least for me personally, the number one appeal is that essentially it is like a planner but you always have it with you because you always have your phone with you,” Benjamin said.

Benjamin began working on the project in the Computer Science Club, which meets Wednesdays after school.

At the club’s first meeting of the year, members decided to devote the year to learning about iPhone application development.

During subsequent meetings, the club watched hour-long segments of an online iPhone application development class offered by Stanford University.

Members also discussed ideas for an application that would be useful to the school community.

Benjamin became particularly engrossed in the project, conducting additional research before beginning development of the actual program four or five weeks ago.

“I’m open to any and all comments and recommendations,” Benjamin said. “If anyone has any questions or suggestions, or anything they would like to see, I would love to hear it and try to figure it out and put it into the app.”

Students can make recommendations for the application at http://www.twitter.com/iHWApp.