San Diego -- UC San Diego is the first public university in the nation to provide its students with information on courses, faculty and athletics on their cellphones -- if they have an iPhone, the school announced Friday.

The free iPhone software application also has an interactive campus map that pinpoints the location of each course's classroom. It also enables students to call, e-mail or send text message to instructors.

Campus officials hope to expand the application so that students can also listen to audio podcasts of past lectures.

UCSD is the first public university in the nation to offer such an iPhone application, university officials said.

"It's going to provide so much information in such a sleek interface that it's going to add a whole new dimension to students' day-to-day experiences on campus," said Elazar Harel, assistant vice chancellor of administrative computing and telecommunications at UCSD.

By the end of the year, UCSD plans to offer the same application for students who use a Blackberry.