MIA releases iStone

Words: Garen Graves/Public/News/20120620131500-1.jpg" width="600" height="338" border="0" alt="The app presents images and technical information of over a 1,000 natural stones from around the world." />
The app presents images and technical information of over a 1,000 natural stones from around the world.
Marble Institute of America, the authoritative source for natural stone standards and education, and studiomarmo, the renowned Italian expert on natural stone graphic and web design, have announced the much anticipated release of iStone, a natural stone swatch application for the iPad that is available in the Apple App Store.

iStone is presented in a beautifully rendered 3D environment and was designed to take advantage of the high resolution screen and advanced capabilities of the iPad tablet. The app presents images and technical information on over 1,000 natural stones from around the world, including a search function that allows the user to filter by stone type, color, country of origin and more. Also included is the ability to view stones in 3D and bookmatch format, as well as, email capability to share images with clients, colleagues or friends.

Designers and architects alike will find the array of colors and information useful in the specification of natural stone. Natural stone professionals will use the app as a replacement for weighty and expensive sample stones or documents.

“The new iStone app is the perfect resource for natural stone professionals, interior designers and architects alike,” said Gary Distelhorst, MIA executive vice president and CEO. “The ability to carry around beautiful images and technical data for over a 1,000 natural stones inside a tool as useful as the iPad is an extraordinary advancement for people who specify or sell natural stone. We are just delighted with how this project turned out and thank studiomarmo for our ongoing partnership.”

MIA Vice President, Jim Hieb added, “anyone that has utilized the MIA’s popular Stone Swatch, Natural Stone Gallery, or Stone Box will agree that this is the next step in presenting that valuable information about natural stone.”

iStone joins MIA’s prior iPad offering, Stones of North America, in the Apple App Stone. To download the iStone app, go to the App Store and search “iStone”. The results will produce several iStone apps, but only one for the iPad. You can also visit www.istoneappforipad.com to learn more or download the application.
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