Explorer vs Rhode Tour
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Explorer
Navigate a world-renowned museum with ease. This app provides interactive maps, turn-by-turn directions to exhibits and amenities, and personalized recommendations based on your interests. Enhance your visit with behind-the-scenes content and engaging quizzes.
- Interactive museum map
- Turn-by-turn directions
- Customized exhibit recommendations
- Exhibit information and quizzes
- Amenity finder (restrooms, shops)
- Multi-language support
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Download Explorer, the Museum’s free mobile app! Get a map, turn-by-turn directions to exhibits and amenities, customized recommendations for what to see, and more! “A great aid to anyone seeing the museum for the first or 40th time.” - The New York Times Available in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Explorer is automatically set to the language of your device. Map and Turn-by-Turn Directions Get directions to exhibits and amenities, including shortest and accessible routes. Get Recommendations for What to See Explorer recommends exhibits based on interests you select—and sorts them by how close they are to your location. Learn More About the Museum’s Exhibits Go behind the scenes and dive deeper with videos, fun quizzes, and more. Find the Nearest Restroom Explorer provides you the shortest route to restrooms, shops, exits, and more. How does Explorer know where you are? The Museum has placed more than 700 Bluetooth beacons throughout its 45 permanent halls. These tiny beacons give off signals that your phone can detect (when Bluetooth is enabled). Your phone calculates your position based on detecting three of these beacons simultaneously. This triangulation is not always perfect, especially in certain areas like large, multi-level halls, meandering walkways, or stairwells. Your phone should be able to detect the hall that you are in and provide turn-by-turn directions, but sometimes the “blue dot” is not exactly in the right place. In some rare cases it will even be missing. Moving to another area and waiting a few moments will usually fix the issue. The Museum’s free AMNH-GUEST Wi-Fi also varies in strength throughout the complex. Certain materials and large exhibits (i.e. the Blue Whale) either absorb or reflect the radio signals used by Wi-Fi, further complicating this technology. If you experience difficulty connecting to Wi-Fi in a particular part of the Museum, you can usually fix the issue by moving a short distance away. We’d Love to Hear From You! Your feedback is important and will help us improve your Museum experience. Email explorer@amnh.org. Supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies
Rhode Tour
Explore Rhode Island's rich heritage and culture through an interactive GPS-enabled map. Discover historical locations with detailed information, archival images, and media. Access content online or via the mobile app.
- Interactive GPS-enabled map
- Historical location information
- Archival images and media
- Heritage and culture exploration
- Coastal to coast coverage
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Rhode Tour places the heritage and culture of Rhode Island at your fingertips with this free Smartphone app. Known as the “Ocean State,” Rhode Island is filled with interesting stories, captivating places, and intriguing people from coast to coast. With a growing list of interpretive stories, each point on the interactive GPS-enabled map includes historical information about the location, along with historic images and media from archival collections and historical publications. The information on the app may also be accessed by visiting the project website at rhodetour.org. Rhode Tour is brought to you by the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage and the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Rhode Tour at 5.0 against Explorer's 3.9. Rhode Tour also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 58%) and device support (3 vs 1). Explorer's advantage is ratings volume (108 vs 2). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Rhode Tour holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.9. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Explorer has 108 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 58% of Explorer's written reviews are positive against 100% of Rhode Tour's.
Explorer ships an update every 2 months, Rhode Tour every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on August 31, 2026 and September 17, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Explorer | Rhode Tour |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.9 (108 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 58.1% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 108 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months — better | Every 4 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 88 MB | 19 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | American Museum of Natural History | Cleveland State University Research Corporation |
Customer experience
Explorer
Rhode Tour
Bugs and requests
Explorer
Reported bugs
12 issues- App crashes when accessing membership/ticket linking
- Location services fail to detect user position
- Bluetooth continues tracking after app closes
- Payment confirmation button unresponsive
- Duplicate charges on payment attempts
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- App freezes on food page navigation
- Crashes when changing map levels
- Swiping on image galleries doesn't work
- App won't open or closes immediately
- GPS shows incorrect floor levels
- Directions loop back on themselves
- Maps don't match physical museum layout
Requested features
10 requests- Digital membership card storage
- Apple Pay support for payments
- Search function for exhibits
- Swipe functionality for image galleries
- To-do list based on interests and time
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- Planetarium and show times integration
- Ability to highlight halls on map
- Improved battery optimization
- Current exhibition listings
- Ticket pricing and hours information
Rhode Tour
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Explorer
No in-app purchases
Rhode Tour
No in-app purchases









