Can anyone suggest a program which will talk me round a pre-planned route?
I currently do a lot of hiking, and use memory-map to plan out my route before I leave the house, and can compare my location at any time on my phone. I'm now looking to start cycling a bit, and it would be nice to be able to leave my phone in my pocket, and be told left and right etc.
A fair amount of this will be off-road, which rules out all road navigation software.
It doesnt matter if the app supports maps or not, just that it will take a route in some format such as gpx or mmo, and give out verbal instructions which are practically useable.
Thanks in advance.
I've found Run.GPS which seems a very good package, but not very user friendly. I'm going to try the 2 week trial, but would still be interested in hearing other suggestions.
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UPDATE: I've decided to discontinue my work on Catena, the project is too heavily reliant on community, and the time investment required to make it successful was several magnitudes higher than what I could offer. If anyone is interested in continuing this project let me know.
If you're interested in any of my other projects check out my site at: http://www.creepybit.co.uk
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Catena is an anonymous and location based instant chat client. The main purpose of Catena is to give you an anonymous outlet for calling out to others in your local area and meeting new people, without the burden of identity. Catena lets you chat in a typical instant chat environment, but also lets you post semi-permanent messages on a shared map, for the whole world to see!
Catena is free, there are no user accounts or signing up. The instant you install Catena you are able to chat. For those who need an identity, either to maintain a conversation or single yourself out for others, there is a type of disposable user name that you can change as often as you want. There are also chatroom like tags you can use that make your messages private and only viewable to others with the same tag.
You can find Catena on the Google Play store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Creepy+Bit
I also have a website up with more info at: http://creepybit.co.uk
I started development on this app when I couldn't find an anonymous alternative. I'm a single developer working in my spare time around work, but I'm currently still managing to push out almost daily updates. Catena is currently in Alpha stage, meaning I'm still adding and changing features, and I'm still modifying the server equipment.
I'd really appreciate it if you guys could give this app a go. Catena has been live for a week and I currently have around thirty users. The users I have thus far have given me really great feedback, and I think with some more hard work down the way I can make this a really great app that people will love.
I have similar idea for Android app. This is good idea, but when not enough people have this app, this is not good working. I wish you more and more downloads!
Sounds awesome. This sounds like the Love Section on Craigslist where people say, "Oh I saw this sexy woman at Walmart. Hope to see you again".
It would be great to leave messages up for like a day and be able to show your GPS route. That way, at the end of the day, you could retrace your day and see if anyone left you a note. Like, "To the hot guy sitting at the bar in the blue collared shirt. I think I love you".
I always wanted a personal area chat room.
It could also be used for marketing such as "Burgers tonight are top notch!". Perhaps if things take off, you could sell extended comments that last longer.
I haven't used it yet, but how would this program handle a single place with lots of chatter? Is it a single point on the map that links to a chat room style interface? 1 map point per comment would create clutter. In my mind, a single comment would just be a dot on the map which would open for dialogue. You'd also probably want to allow accessing ANY of those locations on the fly. So if I want to go get dinner at Red Lobster downtown, I can find the location on the map and read the comments left there. Perhaps someone says, "4 hour wait @ 7pm". Or actually having the ability to ask someone that is physically there to put your name on the list, haha.
I can see SO many possibilities for this.
So perhaps you can only START a chat based off your location but you can join ANY. Also it might be a good idea to be able to disable GPS in case someone is at their home and doesn't want anyone to know where they presently are (can't start a convo but can join one). You don't want to hear about how crazies are killing girls using your app. lol
[UPDATE]
I would do away with broadcast messages. Obviously they just annoying and childish. I would just show the dots to let you know there is a comment there, to open up the local chat for that dot. In the future, I would make the broadcasts a paid ad type thing. Like $20 a day... which is super cheap. Even right now, I could broadcast a business and 30 people would instantly see it.
As the app gets more popular, the map will get flooded with broadcasts and you'll be unable to even see the map. Icons should scale with the map. It's ok right now, but again, things may get crowded. You might also think about playing with the idea of making the icons semi-transparent so you can see the underlying map.
At this point I'm unsure how to even find other local chats; if it is even possible at all. All I see from the map are the broadcasts.
I just want to be able to create a chatroom at my GPS location and be able to have others leave comments. Right now, I see several broadcasts, but I can't chat with them. One was about a guy speeding. It would be fun to be able to go in that chat and leave a message like, "There is a guy going slow" or "That was me!"
player911 said:
Sounds awesome. This sounds like the Love Section on Craigslist where people say, "Oh I saw this sexy woman at Walmart. Hope to see you again".
It would be great to leave messages up for like a day and be able to show your GPS route. That way, at the end of the day, you could retrace your day and see if anyone left you a note. Like, "To the hot guy sitting at the bar in the blue collared shirt. I think I love you".
I always wanted a personal area chat room.
It could also be used for marketing such as "Burgers tonight are top notch!". Perhaps if things take off, you could sell extended comments that last longer.
I haven't used it yet, but how would this program handle a single place with lots of chatter? Is it a single point on the map that links to a chat room style interface? 1 map point per comment would create clutter. In my mind, a single comment would just be a dot on the map which would open for dialogue. You'd also probably want to allow accessing ANY of those locations on the fly. So if I want to go get dinner at Red Lobster downtown, I can find the location on the map and read the comments left there. Perhaps someone says, "4 hour wait @ 7pm". Or actually having the ability to ask someone that is physically there to put your name on the list, haha.
I can see SO many possibilities for this.
So perhaps you can only START a chat based off your location but you can join ANY. Also it might be a good idea to be able to disable GPS in case someone is at their home and doesn't want anyone to know where they presently are (can't start a convo but can join one). You don't want to hear about how crazies are killing girls using your app. lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some nice ideas, I'll let you discover it but it's basically the world is just one huge chat room, but you filter the messages you receive by range. So it ends up being a digital "everyone shouts and you choose how far you listen" kind of thing.
If a small area gets really popular and you can't hold a conversation then there are things called Hash Tags. They're basically a short keyword you filter your messages by and it's sort of like joining a chat room. For example I could apply the hash tag "Crime" (like in the screenshot), and it basically means I only see messages from other people with "Crime" and they are the only ones that see my messages.
For the map I'm currently in the process of implementing an upvote system. Messages on the map (I call them Broadcasts) will expire after a certain period, that period is shorter depending on how busy the area is, you can extend the life of a broadcast by 'Bumping' it.
I'd love to add new stuff as I go along. But as it's been said, the key thing I'm lacking is users.
Ahhh I see about the "how far you listen" type range thing. Thats fun and all... but really hinders the usefulness.... well let me think, no I guess it wouldn't if you simply picked a restaurant and did a Spoof Location from that area. I would change that and label it as something like, "Chat from here" or something. Also need to intregrate the map better. Maybe have that as the initial screen that users see. It is a pretty map and looks fantastic. Opening the app to just see an empty chat is a let down. I would initially start zoomed out so you can see the surrounding areas and users online. Tap = popup "Chat from Here" button.
Also a slider for chat radius that displays as a blue circle around your location. Having to go into settings to set a number is kind of awkward.
Focus on the map and let users pop in and out of chat as will based on their location.
Broadcasts expiring based on how busy the area is, is a good idea. I had no idea about the bumping. "Bumping" a thread, I get it... but I when I bumped the broadcasts, it didn't do anything. Maybe just a simple vote system like "Was this helpful: -1 and +1". Because honestly most of those broadcasts are retarded. Peeing on the benches? Smelly Town? Sand Vaginas? The community needs to be able to down vote and get rid of those messages as badly as they need to up vote. Regardless of votes, Broadcasts should still naturally go away after a set time. Like broadcasts = 1 hour with 1 day max.
Also the hash tags, perhaps make it more user friendly... such as a button for "Create a Group" or "Join a Group".
player911 said:
Ahhh I see about the "how far you listen" type range thing. Thats fun and all... but really hinders the usefulness.... well let me think, no I guess it wouldn't if you simply picked a restaurant and did a Spoof Location from that area. I would change that and label it as something like, "Chat from here" or something. Also need to intregrate the map better. Maybe have that as the initial screen that users see. It is a pretty map and looks fantastic. Opening the app to just see an empty chat is a let down. I would initially start zoomed out so you can see the surrounding areas and users online. Tap = popup "Chat from Here" button.
Also a slider for chat radius that displays as a blue circle around your location. Having to go into settings to set a number is kind of awkward.
Focus on the map and let users pop in and out of chat as will based on their location.
Broadcasts expiring based on how busy the area is, is a good idea. I had no idea about the bumping. "Bumping" a thread, I get it... but I when I bumped the broadcasts, it didn't do anything. Maybe just a simple vote system like "Was this helpful: -1 and +1". Because honestly most of those broadcasts are retarded. Peeing on the benches? Smelly Town? Sand Vaginas? The community needs to be able to down vote and get rid of those messages as badly as they need to up vote. Regardless of votes, Broadcasts should still naturally go away after a set time. Like broadcasts = 1 hour with 1 day max.
Also the hash tags, perhaps make it more user friendly... such as a button for "Create a Group" or "Join a Group".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is good stuff, I'd love to implement most of this. I'm very close to starting the up vote system so I'm not sure how I'll be doing it yet but I definitely plan to have down voting. Or at least a report button! Thanks for the post!
Love the idea but u might wanna look into integrating facebook n g+ somehow.
Sent from my SK17i using xda app-developers app
I agree, you need users and you should use social network to get them automatically
How about adding video chat for the devices with front camera?
What kind of social network integration would you want? Something like when you post a broadcast you get to share it on your wall? I'd be tempted to do something like that down the line.
Video chat would be hard because my server bandwidth would struggle to keep up, but I could certainly try adding an easy way to connect to other users and enter some sort of skype room or something.
I just uploaded version 31, this has the new upvoting and downvoting system. I called it Bump and Report just to be edgy and different (you love it), but the basic functionality is there. By default a Broadcast needs 10 reports to disappear, but the more it's bumped the more reports it'll take.
I'll see how it goes, there's room for lots of changes but it'll be server-side so I can do it over time in small increments.
Also, Yesterday evening I cleared the Broadcast database, which wiped out the whole map of Broadcasts. Clean slate now but it's looking rather barebones.
This weekend I'm possibly upgrading my servers again. You shouldn't notice any downtime though.
This is great! This has so much potential!
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
great
Omg this is so cool The location spoofing is a great idea. I hope that you are aware that your app is unique and there is a lot of potential in it
Keep up the great work
Thanks guys
My current plan is going to be to add private messaging and some changes to client-server communication to fight spam (in anticipation). Is there anything else you guys feel should be added before I start the Beta phase? Once we're in Beta I'm going to be much more conservative with adding new features so now is the time to make a case. I'll consider practically anything.
This looks like it could be interesting.
Will keep an eye on it.
Hey guys, today I found out I'd apparently taken out server time synchronization at some point in the past. That's fixed now so there shouldn't be any odd problems with message order anymore. You might find that your messages appear in odd places but that's because your clock is offset from the servers time (not blaming you obviously, but I can't really fix that).
Version 32 is up, it includes some new stuff:
- haptic feedback on message receipt
- you can now disable the lingering tray icon
- Cast Range now defaults at 100,000km, I'll keep it like this until we reach a release version
Nice I see you are working on this really hard. Thats not a bad thing I'm looking forward for the private messaging feature
[APP][4.0+] "CMX" Crowd.mx -- chat and leave notes where you are... anonymously!
Hello XDA!
I'd like to present crowd.mx or CMX as we've started calling it. It's a location based anonymous chat / note dropping app. We've been working on it for some time and we think it's really cool and would like to share it with the community here at XDA.
CMX has 3 simple functions one on each tab:
[Tab 1] CMX connects you in a chat room with the nearest CMX users. We literally mean nearest. If it's late at night and nobody is on, it will get people from all over the world for you to chat with. If you're at a concert with a lot of users nearby or on at a busy time, you will only see chat that's happening nearby. You have your own personal 'chat sphere' that re-sizes itself for you to have people to talk with. That way, there will always be someone on for you to chat with. If you want to talk more privately, like most chat apps, you can select users and send them private messages.
We think Tab 1 is really frickin cool.
[Tab 2] If you like Tab 1, this tab is even cooler. Here you can leave public notes at different locations. The notes persist at that spot and can be seen in a 100m radius around where you dropped it. You can have a group meet you on top of Mt. Everest and have a private conversation there. You can leave a suggestion at a restaurant *in* the restaurant for people who eat there later. You could announce to your neighbors that you have a BBQ coming up. You don't just have to leave public notes, we even allow you to leave hidden notes which are only visible to the user you selected... even if that user is yourself. You could drop a note with your locker number over your locker or leave love notes for your wife. There are a lot of crazy interesting things you can do with this. Like many social apps, this aspect of our app really needs lots of users to be cool. That's why we made Tab 1... to keep you entertained in the mean time!
[Tab 3] This tab has two purposes. It mainly functions to let you control where you are. So if there's a major event going on somewhere in the world, you can go there and chat directly with the people there.
This tab also serves as a place where you can 'make an announcement.' Announcements are a premium service that you have to pay for. They're kinda like the big-brother to the notes in Tab 2. You can choose what radius you want them to be seen within and they will re-broadcast themselves to people chatting in the area.
Finally,
We've worked really hard to make this service as anonymous as we can. There's no login. No usernames. No facebook. No anything. You can get on and start chatting/dropping notes right away.
We welcome you to come join us in the chat, drop silly notes around town, and give us feedback so we can keep working to make this app cooler and more fun for everyone.
Where do I get the APP?
Search the play store for: "CMX"
XDA-Beta Key: cheerios
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mx.crowd.monster.mini
====================================================================================
More Questions for the curious:
Q: Who made the app?
A: Myself and a friend, both of us recent physics phds... novice app developers!
Q: Where did the app come from?
A: A few years ago, we had a vision for a news app that would let the people report the news around them. While finishing our degrees, we worked on the infrastructure for the app in our spare time. Along the way, we came up with some pretty cool algorithms for indexing information by geography and other stuff. After we graduated, we set out to make that news app, but it was too big! So we looked at all the cool stuff we made for the backend and decided use it in a social app instead. So here's that app! We hope it's the first of many apps.
Q: What do you mean by anonymous?
A: Well, we really mean that we're committed to trying not to save or collect info from you. BUT, we have also taken extra measures to encrypt transmissions, encrypt data in the database, and discard information as soon as we don't need it. We'll continually work to improve on these as we get more experience. If CMX sees any success, we hope to hire experts far more proficient than us! If you're interested in more information about our security measures, we invite you to read our technical description on our message board. You can find the link in the playstore or in the app.
Q: Can I post anything?
A: Well, our hosting service does not allow porn. So you can 'report' people who have posted porn. And we can ban people who have posted porn. Also, we have protections in place to protect us from bot-spam.
Q: How can you ban someone for posting porn, if you don't track them?!
A: It's complicated. You should probably read the technical description mentioned in the anonymous section.
Q: How long will the app be in Beta?
A: Uhh, tough question!
Q: Why does it not show all the chat from when I was last on?
A: The messages sent to the Chat tab are *NOT* stored on our servers. They are redirected to the clients within range. So if your client loses its connection to our servers, you will not receive those chats. If your phone gets low on resources, it may close the service. We chose to do this to further protect people's identity.
Thanks! I hope you enjoy it.
-Foolish John
Whoa, this sounds really cool! It sounds awesome to be able to go to a certain place and see a note about a review or recommendation for the place you're in
Ngo93 said:
Whoa, this sounds really cool! It sounds awesome to be able to go to a certain place and see a note about a review or recommendation for the place you're in
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks NGO,
I definitely agree with you!
We're in the process of planning a crypto-currency scavenger hunt to have fun with some of the location aware features for our early users. So hopefully, there will be a fun activity for people trying the app out in the near future.
MUCH CURRENCY! :highfive:
Shamelessly bumping to find more interested users!
I like the idea. Hopefully lots of users will pick it up too!
baddesthad said:
I like the idea. Hopefully lots of users will pick it up too!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seriously... *hint* *hint!*
Seriously - we get a lot of people saying they love the idea but they just wish more people were on.
If you really think the idea is cool, keep the app open and check in on it and join the chat every once in a while. It'll naturally get more busy as people do that.
And it won't be too long before there are enough people to start enjoying some of the cooler aspects of it.
-John
FoolishJohn said:
Seriously - we get a lot of people saying they love the idea but they just wish more people were on.
If you really think the idea is cool, keep the app open and check in on it and join the chat every once in a while. It'll naturally get more busy as people do that.
And it won't be too long before there are enough people to start enjoying some of the cooler aspects of it.
-John
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been on to test it out before. The chat tab seemed lively. Leaving notes at specific locations is the most interesting feature for me.
Sent from my GT-N7105 using XDA Premium HD app
Good afternoon again, XDA!
Hey guys,
We are a small team of android developers that had a cool idea of a reminder app which we have released to the market some time ago.
The app called 'NeverForget Reminder' and the idea is simple: A solution to forgetting stuff when you leave your home(or your current location). There are tons of situations when this app may be useful. A classic example is when you leave your home at the morning to your job, you surely need to take with you some stuff such as your bag, wallet, keys, etc.. NeverForget's Reminder purpose is to make sure you won't forget any of it again. Another example is when you visit your friends house and you brought with you some stuff, when leaving it, the last thing you want is to forget that stuff at your friends home. NeverForget will remind you to take it when you leave that place.
One of our main goals was to make the app as simple as possible, so there is one main button. Click it to start the reminder. And when you will leave your current place, the app will start a loud alarm. There are additional options available such as setting the alarm name or taking a photo of the stuff you need to take.
After thinking of this idea, we have searched a lot and could not find any solutions to that common problem. After deeper search we understood why is that. There is NO way to determine device's location inside a building, for these days. GPS does not working inside closed places, and that was our biggest issue that we successfully overcame with NeverForget.
Basically what we do is rely on WiFi networks around you. Then we make calculations to determine when you getting away from that network and when you do, a load alarm starts with a reminder. If no WiFi networks around you, GPS service is required.
The app is FREE to use and available at Google Play.
We would appreciate your feedback and hope you will try out our app - NeverForget Reminder.
For any questions you can send us an email to: [email protected]
Link to Google Play page:
play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.neverforget
Thanks.