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Monday, May 25, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Life, the Universe and Everything (including bus stops)
If you take the bus all the time, free app tranSGuide is the bees knees. TranSGuide combines the plain vanilla bus guide with bus arrival times and is the local app I use most. What's nice, for lazy people like me, is that if you are at a bus stop, you can tap on the 'nearby' button and pull up the bus stop you're at to get bus arrivals. (Of course you can just walk over to the pole that has all the bus services to get the bus stop number, type it in and wait for the results, but that's like, you know, work.) TranSGuide also makes it easy to bookmark bus stops and bus services at a bus stop.
The app is so nicely done that it's hard to believe that this is the first iPhone app by the developers, local firm Line 42. I spoke to Aseem Tandon to find out about their experience developing tranSGuide and to ask the burning question on everyone's minds, namely "What the heck is Line 42?"
Tell us about Line 42. Who are you guys and what is your background?
Line 42 is a team of 3 techies - Abhaya, Srijon and Aseem. All 3 have a background in CS/IT and have studied at NUS at one time or the other. Having worked together for a few years, we decided to venture out on our own with our ideas for useful software products.
Why Line 42?
The number of times we have been asked this! '42', as you may have guessed, is from Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide. This is a piece of literature that all 3 of us thoroughly enjoyed (still do!) and are big admirers of. 'Line' relates to the lines of code that programmers write. Hence, Line 42. It had a buzz to it when we came up with it, but every time we explain it, it seems to get less interesting! By the way, it's not easy coming up with a company name!
What was the inspiration for tranSGuide?
We wanted to develop something simple for the iPhone to begin with. Location-aware mashup apps seemed an obvious first choice. When we checked the app store for similar apps, we didn't find them very user friendly. So we decide to build tranSGuide, hoping some people would find our take on a Singapore transport guide useful.
What difficulties did you encounter in developing it?
There weren't any major problems really. The platform was easy to learn and develop on, so no technical worries. The only problem was finishing it up and releasing it. With the other projects we had during the same time, the completion and release of tranSGuide got delayed by a couple of months.
What new features are you planning?
Right now tranSGuide is only a bus guide. Obvious additions would be information related to other modes of transport. A map view has been heavily demanded by the users, so that's another. Let's wait and see how the app evolves over the next few months.
Any chance of better integration between the bus service database and the bus arrivals timing?
Not sure what you mean by better integration here. We have had quite some feedback from users regarding improvements to the features and interface. The next few updates will reflect those and hopefully make the user experience even better.
You develop for a number of platforms. How would you compare the iPhone with the other platforms?
It is a very developer friendly platform. We were all new to Obj-C and Cocoa when we started work on tranSGuide, but with the easy-to-use dev tools and rich knowledge base that Apple has put together, it was quite easy to get up to speed with things.
Are you guys working on any other iPhone projects that you can talk about?
We are thinking of building a few more apps, they are in different stages of development. However, we are not limiting ourselves to building iPhone or mobile apps. There are other products that are in the pipeline as well. Can't say more about those right now.
Is there anything in the iPhone 3.0 OS that you plan to take advantage of in tranSGuide or other apps?
An obvious thing for tranSGuide would be to use the native map API to implement a map view. A great feature that 3.0 brings with it is the in-app purchase framework. This could be well exploited, specially by game developers. There are some ideas we have that could also leverage the P2P connectivity and the Push service. We expect better and more useful apps with 3.0.
Line 42 is a team of 3 techies - Abhaya, Srijon and Aseem. All 3 have a background in CS/IT and have studied at NUS at one time or the other. Having worked together for a few years, we decided to venture out on our own with our ideas for useful software products.
Why Line 42?
The number of times we have been asked this! '42', as you may have guessed, is from Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide. This is a piece of literature that all 3 of us thoroughly enjoyed (still do!) and are big admirers of. 'Line' relates to the lines of code that programmers write. Hence, Line 42. It had a buzz to it when we came up with it, but every time we explain it, it seems to get less interesting! By the way, it's not easy coming up with a company name!
What was the inspiration for tranSGuide?
We wanted to develop something simple for the iPhone to begin with. Location-aware mashup apps seemed an obvious first choice. When we checked the app store for similar apps, we didn't find them very user friendly. So we decide to build tranSGuide, hoping some people would find our take on a Singapore transport guide useful.
What difficulties did you encounter in developing it?
There weren't any major problems really. The platform was easy to learn and develop on, so no technical worries. The only problem was finishing it up and releasing it. With the other projects we had during the same time, the completion and release of tranSGuide got delayed by a couple of months.
What new features are you planning?
Right now tranSGuide is only a bus guide. Obvious additions would be information related to other modes of transport. A map view has been heavily demanded by the users, so that's another. Let's wait and see how the app evolves over the next few months.
Any chance of better integration between the bus service database and the bus arrivals timing?
Not sure what you mean by better integration here. We have had quite some feedback from users regarding improvements to the features and interface. The next few updates will reflect those and hopefully make the user experience even better.
You develop for a number of platforms. How would you compare the iPhone with the other platforms?
It is a very developer friendly platform. We were all new to Obj-C and Cocoa when we started work on tranSGuide, but with the easy-to-use dev tools and rich knowledge base that Apple has put together, it was quite easy to get up to speed with things.
Are you guys working on any other iPhone projects that you can talk about?
We are thinking of building a few more apps, they are in different stages of development. However, we are not limiting ourselves to building iPhone or mobile apps. There are other products that are in the pipeline as well. Can't say more about those right now.
Is there anything in the iPhone 3.0 OS that you plan to take advantage of in tranSGuide or other apps?
An obvious thing for tranSGuide would be to use the native map API to implement a map view. A great feature that 3.0 brings with it is the in-app purchase framework. This could be well exploited, specially by game developers. There are some ideas we have that could also leverage the P2P connectivity and the Push service. We expect better and more useful apps with 3.0.
Friday, May 22, 2009
i-Movies: Akan datang
Devoted users of web apps i-Movies and i-Roadmate will be glad to hear that these two useful apps will soon be online again. Developer Kelvin Wu terminated his old hosting service because it was too expensive. Says Kelvin: "The yearly fee of a dedicated box which I was using was more than enough to fill a 60L fuel tank with 98shell about 31 times."
Kelvin is now in the process of migrating his stuff to a friend's server and he estimates that the web apps will be back up by Sunday.
Looking forward to seeing it back online, Kelvin!
Update: Both web apps are now back online!
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Local app update - CineTouch and Maybank
CineTouch is the first native iPhone app (as opposed to web app) to actually provide movie screening times for cinemas from all the cinema chains in Singapore. What's nice is that the developer has dedicated this app to his wife. Nice touch! (tip of the hat to akash)
Maybank Singapore ATM and bank branch locator may be a mouthful, but it seems to be a useful app for people with Maybank accounts (like me). It will, among other things, tell you where the nearest branch or ATM is. It apparently also tells you how to get to nearby restaurants that Maybank has special deals with, though you will need to have buUuk installed. Interesting idea. I'll check it out and give you a quick review later.
Both CineTouch and Maybank are free.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Local app update - Singapore Maps
Here's an unusual new local app: Singapore Maps will allow you to download and store maps on your iPhone or iPod Touch for viewing offline. The app does not actually have any maps on it. Instead, it has links to maps that are currently online; you have to download the maps yourself. The optimistic developers of Singapore Maps are charging US$4.99 for this app.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Wherever you go, help is just a phone call away
If your job requires you to travel around the world all the time, you'll want to download Xsago's e!Call. It's a simple app that gives you the emergency numbers to call for different countries. E!Call is free and is produced by the people behind Foyage and the HungryGoWhere app.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Local app update - Park-a-Lot Lite {SG}
Use this app to view parking rates for cars and motorcycles. Search for carparks by name or category, or find carparks near you. Park-a-Lot Lite is free.
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