UF's campus is scattered with about 250 blue emergency phones for those in need of help.
But for some iPhone users, help can soon be just a tap away.
A group of students from the University of California at Berkeley recently helped develop an iPhone application called Panic N Poke that will be released to the public on Monday, said Paula Luu, group member and Berkeley psychology senior.
The application is a mass-message service that will allow users to contact family, friends and authorities in an emergency, she said.
Luu is an intern at the company Life360, which invented the application in response to rising sexual assaults and violent crimes around Berkeley, she said.
Twenty assaults and one stabbing were reported on campus this semester, she said.
The team wanted to create a fun application that could also be used in emergency situations.
The majority of iPhone applications are used for entertainment, she said.
Panic N Poke can be downloaded for $1.99 and comes with an unlimited amount of text and e-mail.
The application has two buttons, the panic button for emergency and the poke button for playful contact, Luu said. When pressed, the panic button will alert any contacts chosen by the user.
The application will continue to notify the emergency contacts until the alert is canceled.
The poke button allows users to blast a mass message to friends, Luu said. The message can be preset to include a favorite movie quote, a GPS location or a fun audio clip.
Although the official 2008-2009 campus crime report will not be publicly available until Oct. 1, University Police officials said 31 simple assaults and 10 violent crimes have been reported on UF's campus so far.
Simple assault crimes do not involve aggravation or a deadly weapon.
Violent crimes include homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, according to the Gainesville Police's Web site.
According to GPD reports, 1,268 simple assaults and 1,044 violent crimes occurred citywide in 2008.
