Scrolling through a painting on a touch-screen, examining a sculpture with a virtual magnifying glass or being guided from your hotel room all the way to the museum entrance - the age of the museum app has begun in Germany.
"More museums are replacing their audio guides with app-based guides on tablets and smartphones," says Thomas Thiemeyer, professor of cultural studies at the University of Tuebingen.
The digital guides are designed to attract a younger generation of museum visitors.
But there is a problem - developing apps costs money, and not all museums can afford it.
"The inclusion of digital media is an investment in the future of the museum," warns Anja Schaluschke, director of the German Museums Association.
German museums sell about 110 million entrance tickets a year, a rise by 12 million over the past decade thanks to Germany's growing importance as a tourist destination as well as museums' skill at drumming up publicity for star attractions and special shows.
But the old-fashioned museum and the bookish visitor are the past.
The future is the world of the "digital native", predicts Schaluschke.
Museums are already using apps in many places. More than 5000 museums in Germany are listed on museum.de, a website and app that tells you when you are close to a museum and what it shows. The app is offered for both the iOS and Android operating systems.
Along with image galleries, the app offers information on exhibitions, admission prices and opening times. Visitors can even use it as a sat-nav to give directions from their hotel to the museum.
But the best apps can do more. Frankfurt's Staedel Museum is regarded by experts as a new media pioneer.
Tens of thousands read the Staedel's online blog, hundreds of thousands watch its YouTube videos, its Facebook page has more than 30,000 likes and its Twitter account more than 11,000 followers.
Smartphone-wielding visitors have been able to use the museum's free wi-fi service since February to download a new app after they arrive.
For children it has educational computer games.
In other nations, museums are also going digital, with experts seeing Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum as a prime example.
Those interested can take an up-close look at almost every painting, from Rembrandt's The Night Watch to one of Van Gogh's self-portraits, using a smartphone. It is like having a magnifying glass in your pocket.
It is also possible to download the pictures. With ingenuity, you can even print them onto a mug or T-shirt.
Whether it is films, audio or extra explanatory notes, any file type can be integrated into the apps, forming a multimedia package that can complement the exhibitions.
Frank Tentler, a digital media adviser, predicts another development: augmented reality.
The concept involves real elements such as a painting or a sculpture being overlaid with a virtual environment.
Visitors can point their smartphone or tablet at a picture, take a photo and use an app to display notes, graphics or an animation in front of the picture.
The Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem, for example, has several apps that make use of augmented reality.
One program, the so-called AugmentiGuide, allows visitors to download a wealth of information about the city's historic buildings with their tablet computers.
There is also further information on the exhibitions, for example historical films, via QR codes, that can be scanned with a smart phone.
"Apps work differently to embedded media," says Thiemeyer. "They're going to fundamentally change educational work.
"As a digital accompaniment to an exhibition, they can solve the conflict between seeing and reading."
There used to be a conflict between posters with lots of text, which critics said spoiled the displays, and doing without text, which meant the visitors were left in the dark about what they were seeing.
An app now makes both possible, says Thiemeyer - "Lots of information without visual collateral damage."
But for a museum app to succeed, it needs a well-thought-out concept and a proper digital strategy, warns Tentler, adding that many museums are only starting out on digital technology. And, he adds, in some places, there is no desire to take on such changes.
Money is another problem, because developing apps means hiring expensive software contractors.
"Museum budgets are limited," says Schaluschke. "Locally funded museums are especially hard up."
So the digital revolution may be a while coming to some museums.
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