And there is no app for this

Steve Jobs like to say that there is an app for this. And i thought, he might be right having over 50.000 iPad apps and 400.000 iPhone apps in the app store.

My wife and I planned a motorcycle trip for the upcoming 4th of July weekend. She did build a route together and told me, we should on the way buy a map.I said "can't we use our phone or iPad?". She said we could but where we go is most likely no cellphone reception.

Furthermore my wife asked me to find motorcycle shops on the way of our trip.

So I decided to look for a map app which can download maps to your iPad, in case there is no Internet connection. And a map which allows to build a round trip with 10 stop points.

I was hoping to find an app where I can plan the trip and then add points of interests.

The idea was that I can build the trip see the route then search for motorcycle shops or restaurant and would see the ones which are nearby the route.

Searching for maps gave me thousand of results.



GPS search still almost 2000 apps.




Searching for route planner much less.


But most of them are city maps, and only a few route planner. I found one which seemed the thing need. A route planner where I can put in multiple stops.
I found one app which was free and allowed to save the map and did not require GPS.



Route4me is easy to use, however I did not find how I could save my trip and it has no function to search for nearby restaurant or other Points of Interests after the route is defined.
This app like, all other routing or GPS app, have interesting rating. Each app has a few good ratings and a few really bad ratings but nothing between. And when I am reading the comments then always the complains are the same, bad UI or hard to understand how to use. A lot of people are missing same function as I was looking for.

The iPad could be such a great map replacement but for some reason no company has yet understood to build a good map. Of course you can find maps for your iPad but mostly for cities. And there are 16 route planners with GPS with partly a lot of functions (the expensive ones) but non which can what I was looking for.

I think it is not asked too much to have an app to plan your trip and then to search within the trip for POI.

As sales person it might be critical not only to plan the faster trip but as well to plan up front where to get gas or to stop to eat.

Maybe there is an app for Europe, I understand that in America we don't use so much the car for long distance and searching a restaurant is easy. Just go off highway and there are tons of restaurants from Mc Donald to Wendy's.

Non of the map or routing applications could connect or import from a CRM or outlook to get the addresses to plan the trip, this means the user has to do twice the work.

Steve,
I have been disappointed. I really thought your are right, that there is an app for it.

I did end up to buy me a paper map and we will stop at a bike shop when we see one. Just the old fashion way. Maybe riding a bike does not fit into high-tech.


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Location:Spinning Wheel Ln,Brooksville,United States

What is next?

A good friend on mine and I discussed today what is already old what will be the new trend, to define what is old was easy but what will come was not.

The last few years social did dominate the Internet. Thousands of social platforms and apps came on the market. The famous ones are Facebook, twitter, linkedin, groupon and foursquare. All these social networks have in common that you suddenly connect with people you can't remember anymore or you don't know it is all about to be connected. As a result we have so many connections that the social gets too blur.

But social is now so common that it is not new anymore. Trying to do something new in social is still possible, but difficult to have a new break through. On the other hand, it is fascinating that many investors still invest in social start ups. Localization is almost old too but at least still open for more to come.

However there is a trend of new social networks which reduces the connections just to a few people who are truly your friends. I see this the next level in terms of social. Companies who are building networks, where we easily can have small groups of people and with no big effort allow to communicate and prioritize them combined with location recognition will get the next hype.

Shazam is to watch.
Shazam is a commercial mobile phone based music identification service, with its headquarters in London, England. The company was founded in 1999 by Chris Barton (now at Google), Philip Inghelbrecht, Dhiraj Mukherjee and Avery Wang.
Shazam uses a mobile phone's built-in microphone to gather a brief sample of music being played. An acoustic fingerprint is created based on the sample, and is compared against a central database for a match. If a match is found, information such as the artist, song title, and album are relayed back to the user. Relevant links to services such as iTunes, YouTube, or Zune are incorporated into some implementations of Shazam.

Shazam has a perfect recognition software, is is really pretty fast and accurate. But the really cool part is, that shazam can bring TV ads and e-commerce together. If Shazam would be able to be build in the major smart phones then it could get big verry big.

During a show you see an ad you really like, you can now either try to read in the ad the internet address (if you see it) or try to scan from 15 feet with your phone the QR code (if they show one) - good luck with this, or try to make a picture of the ad and use google goggles to get more info about the product shown on TV. Nothing of this works really well. But Shazam can listen to the ad and then display on your phone the relevant online ad with a buy now button. Shazam did already some experience with same SciFi shows. I tried it and it worked well.

Gadgets
In the gadget department are smart phones already old. Tablets are still on the growing market but nothing really innovative. All manufactures are trying to copy the iPad. Android and iOS are so look a like that even there is not much innovation.

NFC (near frequency communication) is surely the next big thing for electronic devices. It is not a new technology but still not build into many devices. In a few years we might see NFC not only in smart phones but in many other things like toaster or running shoes. NFC will get cheaper and wider communication radius.

Augmented reality is still on my top list. We are still not at the top of the cycle. A big breakthrough will come when the processors of the smart phones and tablets will double in speed and performance.

Another big favorite of mine is gesture as input device. The Microsoft kinect is a great beginning. I can see many great innovations in this area. I believe that we are able to buy 65inch TVs in a few years under $1000 with build in kinect similar
technology. We will then replace in our master bathroom the vanity mirrors with flat screens. They work like mirrors (because of build in cameras) or as windows with scenics coming from the cloud. If we then walk in front of the screen ,the scenic will move like if we move in front of window and look outside.

In 2013, most of the consumers will buy tablets instead of notebooks. Netbooks will be dead till then. But the really fascinating part is that we, the consumers, will have always multiple intelligent devices, even if each device can do everything we need.

I remember that my friend I and discussed that in 2010 we might have only one device to make a call, shoot picture, tape a video or to surf the internet. We have been partly right. Our iPhone can already do this, but we have been wrong at the same time. We believed everybody does want to have only one device. The reality is different. The reality is that most of the electronic devices will be able to do almost everything, but we still want to have multiple devices. The reason is the form factor. I even believe (as my friend), that there is still space a device in size between a smart phone an a table. Something around 6inches screen size.

The biggest trend will be the total integration of all of them. Apple started some of this by allowing to watch a movie which is streamed to the iPhone or to play a game on the iPad which was purchased on the iPhone. And now they are going further with their iCloud for music and documents.

However the inter connection is yet not even started. The next really big trend for us is the seamlessly switching between devices without any effort and data lost.

Imagine you take a FaceTime call on your iPhone, you then go in your office to your desktop with NFC the iMac could recognize that FaceTime is running on your iPhone and ask you if you want to switch to the iMac. You could then at the same time surf again on the iPhone or even take another call.

Or you are on the phone having an important conference call, at the same time you need to take your car to pick up your son from VPK.
In the future you would be able to have your conference call on your office phone, as soon you wave your iPhone over the office phone, the call will be directed to your iPhone. When you are in your car, the call gets directed to the build in phone in your car and the sound will be played over the build in stereo.

After you picked ip your son, you need to print a presentation. You drive to Fedex Kinko's. There you hold your phone to the printer and your selected document will print.

Computers are much easier to use than 15 years ago, but then we had one device. Today we have at least 2 if not even more. I am regularly using any given day 5 different "computers" (iPad, iPhone, AppleTV, iMac, Windows 7 notebook).

Apple, Google, dropbox and Amazon are helping us to move our data (music and documents) into the cloud which helps to get better our devices synced, but to be honest not yet did I find a system which worked very well and is at the same time easy to set up.

the cloud is a buzz today but nothing really new, however faster Internet connections, the cloud and wifi everywhere will bring us to the next level. I truly believe, that in a few years most of our smart devices don't have large memory for storing data. The apps will be thin clients that a smart phone only need to have a few gigs to run OS and the Thin clients. Surely memory gets cheaper and smaller, that I doubt the memory will be reduced on the devices, but I believe most of our data will be stored somewhere but not the device.

I am not the biggest fan of Google but Google will lead this. They have already a notebook which uses chrome as OS and everything you do is in the internet using their service. The notebook sucks, it sucks pretty bad but only because we don't have all the time internet and without Internet the notebook is useless. It is like having a 3 series BMW but no gas to run it.

Even if the notebook sucks, the philosophy behind is the future. As developers we need to think more in applications which are storing the data not local and to allow seamless integration to any other device if needed. If Google would extend the notebook to allow to work on a doc offline and as soon internet is available the data would go into the cloud would be great. And as I heard they are working on this. Apple's iCloud seems to promise this for some data types.

Another trend will be projectors. They are around since ever, but with augmented reality and better technology, they will get new places not just for presentations or as TV replacement.

When I talk about projectors then I actually mean screen less displaying. The windshield in cars will be your screen. Windows will be screens and every wall can be a screen. Maybe you choose your room color by clicking a button on your iPhone and your room is suddenly red. If you don't like it anymore then you can change your room color without painting the walls.

The future is closer as we think and when my son is 18, he will lough about my blog entry from today.

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Location:Spinning Wheel Ln,Brooksville,United States

Ever wonder what your spouse or daughter is doing? There is the iPhone for this

Somebody forwarded me an interesting URL.

http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/

Pete Warden and Alasdair Allan, a pair of security researchers, have made a discovery about Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) popular iPhone and iPad devices. According to an in depth study they performed, Apple not only tracks its iPhone and iPad users' every move, but it stores that information in a local file.




Pete Warden made his code public on his website. You can download on your Mac either the app, the source code or an HTML page to run.

Installing the app is just two clicks away. Unzip the file and run the app.
As you can see I am not a big traveller. Stored Data goes back till the first iOs 4 came out. Hitting the play button will show you your movement since then.

However some points might be off, as far as the researcher can tell, the location is determined by triangulating against the nearest cell-phone towers. This isn’t as accurate as GPS, but presumably takes less power. In some cases it can get very confused and temporarily think you’re several miles from your actual location, but these tend to be intermittent glitches.

The grey circles are showing the cell towers used to calculate your position which is in red.



As a father or husband I could control where my family has been. You can zoom to see the actual street address. If you use their open source code, you can overlay the data over google maps to get satellite images.

To be clear, the data is (so far we know) only stored on your phone and on your computer. Nobody besides the person who has the iPhone will get the data for now.

If you don't want that anybody can access your data from your computer you should set your Apple to encrypted backup.

However, according to Mr. Warden, they were not able to find a similar file on Androids, but google might transmit the data directly to their server. The same Apple might do.

There is no agreement between the user and Apple to store this data, however the user agrees on data share when installing iTunes. If you don't agree you can't install iTunes.

iTunes Terms and Conditions:
....Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device. This location data is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services. For example, we may share geographic location with application providers when you opt in to their location services.

For some people this goes much too far into their privacy rights, but I doubt Apple will get trouble, hence this data is not shared with anybody.

Make sure you don't take your iPhone with you, when you rob a bank. It could get expensive if the police get access to your phone.

Maybe this file is really only defined as a black box similar to the black box in an aircraft. In case you are charged for a crime the police could proof you have been at the crime scene for given day and time.

Are there other reasons for Apple to store the information locally? Sure but it is not clear for what. If they want to store it for marketing or advertisement, why not sending this data to their database?

A law might be the answer. As far I know neither Apple or any other company is allowed to store your movements in a centralized DB with your name or device number and then to share the info for advertisement.

However, if it is saved on your device then it is within the laws. Apple could extend their iAds to be able to read out your positioning file and then serve related ads to your past movements. You might get as an user to opt out for this. I know it is a stretch.

More likely that Apple planned to have an app on your device where you can see all your movement history or to include for the next iTunes version a parental control to see what our kids are doing.

Another possibility would be that Apple target this feature for companies. More and more companies moving away from blackberry.
As a CEO I might be interested to see where my employees are on a business trip.

Maybe it was something Apple did build into the iOS when they were testing new phones to see where the best reception is. This file could be helpful for statistics.
We might hear an apology that this was an accident and the person who was in charge got fired (sounds like google and the wifi info they accidentally collected).

First I thought it is cool to see where I have been since June 2010, but then I realized that it is reality that Apple could always know where i have been.

Imagine we would start to use our phone to pay instead using our credit card?

Apple would not only know where I have been, but as well how much I spend at any location in the world.

Whenever I will win in the lottery, then I would develop an app which would encrypt all location information with only two keys. The master key for all phones and then a key only the owner of the phone knows.
The app basically would disable GPS transmit and would fool the cell towers about the location (or so). I think I could get millions of people to buy my app just because of this.

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Forget Facebook, Twitter and Groupon - geocaching is the real thing

We all hear about Facebook, twitter and Groupon how great these social networks are, and how much their possible market value is from 2bln to 50bln depending which one we look into it. But do they really any good for us? Groupon saves us money, but the rest?

However there is one of the older social networks which is totally underestimated. And i have to admit i did it as well. I am talking about geocaching.com. I heard about this few years ago but did not keep it on my radar till recently. I did read two months ago an article in NYTimes about geocaching and then a few weeks ago from my boss that he does geocaching, after i asked him why did he buy a GPS device.
But the real catch was when my brother in law came to visit us and told us that he is geocaching as well. We tried it out and now i am a member and my whole family enjoys it.

What is geocaching?
You sign up at geocaching. There you input your street address and then you can see were caches are hidden close to your location. A cache is a container which has at least a log paper that people who find the cache can write their handle and date down.
Some container are bigger and have items in there which the player can exchange with another item with same or higher value. The website gives you only the coordinates of the cache and some tips (sometimes only a riddle which you have to solve to get the coordinates). The user takes his smart phone or GPS device and inputs these coordinates. New GPS devices have already a geocaching plugin. Smart phones like iPhone have apps to download. The app at the iPhone costs $9.99 but which is a good investment.




With the app you search for caches and report if you found one, upload images and write logs.
The website has some more functions. To be a member is free, however if you donate $30 for a year you can get some more statistics.
There are 10 different types of caches.



Really interesting are the rare trackables or travel bugs. If you find one you can take it and put it in another cache. On the website you can see from where it traveled. My brother in law found one which did travel from Washington down to Florida.
The caches can be located in a street sign, under a fake stone, in a a fake screw or anywhere in the woods or walls. Mostly the caches are on public property but not in national parks. The website will tell you for each cache how hard it is to find and how hard it is to get there. Many of them have a piece of paper which explains why this item is hidden in case somebody finds it who does not play geocaching.
In the region we live, which is in the woods, are within 10 miles at least 500 caches. I walked at many by without knowing there is a cache hidden. It is a fun social game for the whole family. After a while you will see same handles finding the same cache like you and you start to send these people notes. There are even big caching events with over 500 people coming together.






Geocaching.com is claiming that there are over 1.2 Million caches world wide and 4 million players (did i mention that my brother in law lives in South Korea and plays geocaching there?).
The most players are in the US (it started here) and in Germany (Germans love the nature).
This is the first and only true social network which combines online and offline in a perfect way.
A perfect game for the whole family.
I don't have yet a GPS device and use only my iPhone which is, depending where i am, only 8 to 32 feet exact.
Good GPS devices can be exact as 3 feet which can be very important to find a cache.
We did find at the weekend 16 caches but had no luck with one, which we searched over hours till it got dark. Some caches you can only find when it is dark because they might have some special night color on it. For some you need to be a scuba diver to get to them. I even did hear that one is on the way to the space station.

I believe in a few years there will be more than 50,000,000 players world wide. And guess what, the company which is running geocaching is pretty small. Only 30 employees and a lot of volunteers.

Right now the company makes approx. $30 million in revenue, which is $1 million per employee. This is higher than Facebook, twitter or Groupon does.

Geocaching is very anal that their game is not used for commercial purposes. Brands are not allowed to hid caches and to reward players.

How did i come up with the revenue number?

Geocaching is claiming to have 4 million players, i assume 25% of the registered players are paying $30 a year (low enough that a lot would do to get more service). Which gives us around $30 million. Then there is the merchandise part. You can buy containers for your caches, pins, bugs, trackables, etc. Average price assumption is $6 and maybe 800.00 items sold (I bought an item and the invoice number was pretty high).
This is another $4.8 million over a few years.
The iPhone app has very high rating and over 3200 people did rate the app. Usually 5 to 10 % of people are rating. This gives us approx. 30.000 downloads or $300k gross revenue (minus Apple share).



There we go, the revenue will be somewhere between $25 and 32 million.

If this company gets some investment and the player community is growing then we have a new big social network. With some investment I could see special sub sites for brands to do their own geocaching game through geocaching.com

History of geocaching from wikipedia:

Geocaching is similar to the 150-year-old game letterboxing, which uses clues and references to landmarks embedded in stories. Geocaching was conceived shortly after the removal of Selective Availability from GPS on May 1, 2000, because the improved accuracy[2] of the system allowed for a small container to be specifically placed and located. The first documented placement of a GPS-located cache took place on May 3, 2000, by Dave Ulmer of Beavercreek, Oregon.[3] The location was posted on the Usenet newsgroup sci.geo.satellite-nav[4] as 45°17.460′N 122°24.800′W. By May 6, 2000, it had been found twice and logged once (by Mike Teague of Vancouver, Washington). According to Dave Ulmer's message, the original stash was a black plastic bucket buried most of the way in the ground and contained software, videos books, food, money, and a slingshot.

Jeremy Irish a web developer from Seattle moved the idea into a website called geocaching.com in 2000, which is now the biggest geocaching website.
Please read the full history of geocaching at http://www.geocaching.com/about/history.aspx

I love geocaching. Thank you Jeremy and your team.

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