Sunday 29 August 2010

Project One: Wake Me At

I realized (thanks to zabdiel's comment on my first post) that I hadn't actually posted on what my first Android app was going to be (assuming you don't count my funky live wallpaper: maybe I'll put that up here some day, might be useful to someone).

It's intended for train travellers (but could have other uses). It's intended to be the electronic equivalent of hanging a sign round your neck saying "Please wake me when we get to Nuneaton", but getting your phone to wake you with an audible (or otherwise) alarm, using its GPS or other location services.

There appear to be apps like this for the iPhone, but I'm deliberately not investigating too much: I'm going to do it anyway as an exercise in learning Android developing, and if it's very different to the other available apps it might stand more of a chance of getting noticed.

Code can be found here:
   http://github.com/spookypeanut/Wake-Me-At

Current state of the app is that you can click a button, and it pops up a map with your current location marked with a (rather too large) X. Still very early days!

5 comments:

  1. I'm not sure I'd trust the location based services on my phone. I'd probably just set an alarm for a few minutes before my train is due in. I might get woken up earlier than I need to if the train is delayed, but at least there is no chance of my phone thinking I'm in Coventry, when I'm really in Nuneaton, and not waking me up at all.

    Hopefully you'll persuade me I'm wrong!

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  2. I totally see your point. But e.g. tube trains or buses don't have (reliable) arrival times.
    I've had very good experience with the location services: they're pretty accurate, certainly to within a few hundred metres, which is all this needs.
    Btw, your comment on my monetization post seems to have disappeared: did you remove it? I wanted to post a reply!

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  3. Hello.
    I congratulate you on your good work WakeMe@ app is the best of all of this class.
    I love it, even speak, I would translate it into Spanish.
    It is difficult to bring up the App on the Market, I think that helps add Tags as "Wakeup" "GPS" "Travel" "Navegation" "Trip" ...
    On the other hand, is very well scored.
    With my score has now got 5 stars, is the first time I see an app with this high score.

    Hopefully you'll
    Pedro Larrosa from Spain
    plizze@gmail.com

    Note: My Spanish is better than my poor English :)

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  4. Thank you for your feedback! I'll certainly look into how hard it would be to allow translations. I *think*, if everything is in a separate resource file (which I think it is), then it's very easy. And if you're willing to translate, then great!
    As for tags, there's no tag field when publishing an app in the market, which is annoying. I'll try to include them in the description :-)

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  5. Oh, and apologies for your comment disappearing: I have moderation turned on (so much comment spam otherwise), and only just realized that I didn't have it set up to email me when a comment needed moderation! I have now ;-)

    ReplyDelete