First of all, let's keep in mind, that not all people have a GPS of the
accessible kind, or a cellphone with such capabilities. My guess is,, that
for these, Chip is trying to make a solution that will cover a "market". And
his idea is really good. Unfortunately, at the moment the app only accepts
addresses in the USA, so I haven't given it a try myself, as of yet.
True enough, very few people would find it of interest to carry around a
whole computer, just to get walking directions. Specially so, did they not
have a car, and have to walk around, carrying five grocery-bags, handling a
cane or guidedog, trying to figure why we don't have as many arms as do the
octapus. :) You will not be able to operate a computer on the go, if for no
other reasons, at least due to weather conditions. Try bringing out your
laptop, in the middle of a heavily traficated road, and when the wind blows
20 miles an hour, along with a pouring rain. Then see, how much longer you
are the lucky owner of a laptop. Smile. As such, the solution Chip is
creating, is of little interest. And there does exist solutions out there,
that are far better alternatives for this, although they are also far more
expensive.
On the other hand, I really like the idea of Chip's. For those who cannot
afford one of the accessible solutions, and still wants to peek around in
their immediate surroundings. You likely bring your computer, when you are
going to a conference. And there you are, sitting in the hotelroom in the
evening, wondering where you could best get yourself an ice cream.
Or, you are at home, wondering how complicated it would be, to go a given
place in the other end of your city. Yes, you could pick up the phone, and
ask your friend to take you there. Yet, if now it is quite complicated to
get there, it might take half an hour, and your friend thought he would just
pop by and give you ten minutes of help. Maybe you did not even know, what
stores would be in your nearby location.
Or, like me, you are planning to move to another city. You don't know
anything about the city. But you know, you will need public transportation
quite frequently, and you definitely want to pick up some groceries once a
week. By the help of Chip's app, you can enter the address of your potential
new apartment, and immediately get an idea of what is around there. Others
could glance at the map, but you will never get that chance. Yet here, you
have your chance, without spending a cent. After looking at the results, you
deicde, this apartment is in the category "too complicated for me", and call
the land-lord telling him. Or, you realize, it is only half ablock away from
your friend's place, and has a shopping mall just next to you. True, if you
had called the land-lord, he would gladly have informed you of the mall
being next-door. But that would not really have given you too much of info,
would it. After all, a mall can be anything from a handful small stores,
selling cloths for kids, and offering you a movie rental place. Or it could
be, the biggest mall in 150 miles distance, offering yu everything you
want, by far. With the help of the app Chip here is developing, you can
perform all this browsing, without even going there.
Or, what if you are planning to go for a vacation trip - this yera, all on
your own. Your friends learn where you want to go, and they keep telling you
all that you need see and do, when you come to this and that place. You tell
them, that it might be fun to go this museum, visit that tourist attraction,
try out the local restaurant and so forth. Only thing is, you don't know if
you can make it, walking there. Have you ever tried this? And did your
friends tell you: "Oh, that is really no problem. It is just round the
corner, or it is right across the street." Coming there, you realize that to
get to the corner they talked about, you have to walk 2.5 miles. And the
restaurant sure is right across the street, but the street shows up to be
the very trans-country highway, with a warning sign, clearly stating "no
pedestriants". Your friends tell you things, the way a sighted person acts,
or the way they manage from behind the wheel of their car. But none of that
will help you much. Using the "Walking directions" from Chip's app, you can
well plan your vacation trip, even long time in advance. You can even
decide, in which hotel you want to stay, since you can find the hotel that
has the better amount of facilities for shopping, eating and transportation
nearby. Here again, you would let the term "nearby", mean easily accessed
from a pedestriant's viewpoint. And you could even determine if you want to
go for a bit of a walk to get there, or if you only want hotels with
everything within three hundred yards distance.
True, if you are the lucky owner of an accessible GPS solution, or have a
GPS and Cellphone solution, none of this is new to you. Likely, you are
already doing all of this. Yet, for many a user, this is no real
alternative. Hence, Chip has kindly an idea that will help those of us, who
did not find the money for investing in an expensive solution. Yep, we could
go to Google's wesite, pulling out all these instructions manually. Though I
have never tried, my guess is, it is not really all that easy. The little I
have operated Google, I have a feeling they are complicated, and pretty
visual in their presentation on the web. Yet here, Chip has constructed a
totally accessible interface, for getting hold of your instructions.
Though I have a few suggestions for Chip to consider, in the further
development of the app, I clearly see it could be useful in numerous of my
personal activities, along with a number of cases for other users. Since he
clearly states, that the app does not work outside the USA at the moment, I
just did not give it all a try, at this point. So most of my suggestions,
will have to be left alone, until I can try it out locally. One suggestion
would still be, to have let the user make a set of sound files, each holding
their individual direction. You then could drop it all, onto your portable
mp3-player, and get the instructions read out to you, right from the depth
of your pocket. I will get in touch with Chip directly, and labor a bit more
on this, and other suggestions. :)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Katherine Moss" <[email protected]>
To: "Chip Orange" <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 5:02 PM
Subject: RE: seeking help in designing and testing a location-based app
I'm just trying to figure out where it would be of interest since most
people don't have their laptops out in the car, or at least I don't usually
since my phone can do the same thing. But I'm willing to help test it if
you would like.
-----Original Message-----
From: Chip Orange [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 8:26 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: seeking help in designing and testing a location-based app
Hi all,
I've started to develop an app which is location-based. It makes it easy to
get directions from Google maps (including mass transit trips), finding
businesses and other establishment near to something, (by name or by
keyword), and keeping your own database of important points. It also
optionally interfaces with a GPS receiver, and should remind you of items as
you come near to them (location-based reminders instead of date/time ones).
I'm not sure what features should be in this app, and so rather than looking
for beta testers, I'm looking for folks who wish to test out the app as it
is at the moment, and could help me envision what features are needed; and
given what it does do, how could it do those things better? This is
especially important to me as I don't have a lot of time to work on it, and
so would like to come close to what's useful to everyone right from the
start.
Below is the little descriptive bit I've written for the help at the moment:
Beta Software!
This app is very very beta; it's being distributed to ask the
opinions/suggestions of others as to how it might be designed better, what
features would be most useful if included, etc. It's not at the stage where
I'm concerned about flushing out every little bug (yet).
This app requires the shared object app named "GPS" to be installed. If it
isn't present the app will offer to download and install it for you. You
should allow this to happen. The GPS app can interface with a GPS receiver,
but one is not required. The GPS app however is still needed even if you do
not have a GPS receiver connected, as it provides support location-based
programming.
This app will eventually allow you to create and edit two databases: one of
points of interest (using GPS coordinates), and the other of reminders
related to specific points in your points of interest database.
Add points to the app's points of interest database (either from your
current GPS location or from an address), and then you can add reminders to
the app's reminders database which are linked to the points.
One of the expected features of this app will be if you have a connected GPS
receiver, when you come within the specified range of a point which has a
reminder, the app will take the specified action (play a sound, speak a
message, etc.).
(this functionality is not currently working in this beta).
This app also gives you access to some of the Google+, Google Places, and
Google Maps features such as showing you near-by places to a location,
showing you places based on searching criteria, and access to Google Maps
directions for driving, walking, or using mass transit to get from one
location to another. The locations can be addresses you enter or points in
your POI database, or some location near-by to one of these.
The "Get Directions" feature of this app is the one which is likely to
function the best at the moment. It does require an internet connection to
use.. This functionality is available via the menu items of the Apps menu
for this app.
Some of the other app features do require that the app knows your current
location; if you aren't using a GPS receiver, then right now you need to be
running Windows 7 or later and you need to go into the control panel and
enter your current address (via the "Location and Other Sensors" choice; and
then choose "default location"). I'll add a way to store your default
address in the app's .ini soon.
If you are using XP, you can still experience some of the functionality; you
can add a point, and when its address is fully specified in the dialog, you
can make use of a command-button in the dialog to see "near-by places", but
you will not be able to use the "Search near-by" app menu choice.
If you'd like to hear me demo it as it is, you can download an mp3 demo from
the link below:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11745142/rmw.mp3
If after hearing this you'd like to try it out and help with suggestions for
design, you can download the app from:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11745142/Remind_Me_Where.wepm
It's all open source and contains many examples of interacting with web
sites using XML, and keeping data in large access databases, as well as
utilizing GPS coordinates for any developer who'd like such examples.
Please let me know if you try it, and what you think as to what it needs
(even if what you think is that it's not for you after all).
Thanks.
Chip
[email protected]
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