Apple has chosen Where To? as App of the Week in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The app is also being featured worldwide in different sections of the App Store. We’re absolutely thrilled!
This is a good time to say a big thank you to all of our fans! With your support you helped become Where To? the most successful location finder app on the App Store. Our latest update including business hours and more was received very well and we have more exciting features to share with you soon.
We’ve been working hard to bring out yet another great update for you. We’ve included a bunch of new features:
Google Earth (free) comes in handy when you’re looking at a hotel and wanna find out whether the surrounding looks nice. It appears as a selection when tapping “Open in Maps” and Google Earth is installed.
“The iPhone and iPad are real game changers in how I’m able to interact with the world. Great Apps like ‘Where To?’ support me in my daily life. One can easily look up points of interest and navigate to them almost like a sighted person.”
Philipp Stroh, visually impaired Where To? user
(Btw, I totally recommend reading Austin Seraphin’s highly emotional story about his first week with the iPhone.) In Where To? 3.7 we improved the VoiceOver support by speaking live direction and distance updates on the details page (“slight left, 200 yards”, “straight-ahead, 150 yards” and so on). Also, we’ve fixed an issue where the two-finger Z-gesture for “Back” wasn’t working. If you’re a user with visual disabilities, we’re eager to hear more feedback, particularly which apps you’re using to get walking directions.
Download Where To? 3.7 from the App Store. And please, don’t forget to rate the app, even if you’ve done that before. (As you may know, Apple resets the current rating with every update.) Better yet, take the time and write a review about how you’re making use of the app!
In the past, I described how to get affordable 3G access when traveling to Italy or Switzerland. Today, we’re continuing our little series with a tip how to get prepaid mobile Internet in Greece.
In Greece, there’re three carriers, Cosmote (coverage map), Vodafone (coverage map) and Wind (coverage map). The standard Internet access charge is 1 € per day (at all three carriers), plus the cost of the SIM card.
Foreigners can buy SIM cards in local stores, just bring your passport or ID. Be aware that many shops prefer to sell you more expensive bundles (e.g. with 3G USB sticks) stating they ran out of stock of naked prepaid SIM cards.
I went for a 20 € KartoInternet pack from a local Vodafone Store that includes 10 days of Internet access (so the SIM card runs at 10 €). The card is valid for 12 months after the last refill. It comes in standard SIM 
format. If you plan to use it in an iPhone 4 or iPad, cut it down to Micro SIM format (either manually, or using a Micro SIM cutter).
The maximum data volume for the 10 days is 3 GB. Check the online status page (link only working when logged on) to see how much data volume you’ve left. To fill up the account, you can purchase top-up vouchers in many supermarkets (they don’t offer the SIM cards!).
APN: web.session (blank username and password)
➜ All articles how to get 3G data access internationally
First of all, this update fixes a crashing bug that occurs under certain conditions on iOS 4.3. We also fixed another 21 bugs. But let’s talk about the new stuff in this release now.
We added a new favorites section at the top of category lists that allows for faster access of often used categories. This section also includes fav’ed brands, so you can save the extra step to select your favorite chain. Speaking of easier category access, I should also mention the feature to delete unneeded categories via the horizontal swipe gesture. It’s not new yet unknown to some users.
If you’re one of those users preferring ethnic grouping instead of alphabetic sorting for the “Food & Drink” category, you’ll appreciate the addition of “Any Restaurants” to the top of the Ethnics selection screen.
As you might know, Where To? was the first app of its kind to include interfaces to Navigon and TomTom. From the feedback we receive, you guys really love the combo of searching destinations in Where To?, then navigating to them using a full-fledged turn-by-turn navigation app. We also heard that many of you would like to use Where To? not only for navigating to points of interest but also to your contacts. Well – we heard you loud and clear. Now you can search for addresses and contacts right on the start screen using the search button without choosing a search category first.
Augmented RealityThe feedback we received about the recently introduced Where To? 3D update was overwhelming. Here are just two examples:
… this implementation of AR works well, and it has clearly been thought out.
– Mel Martin, TUAW
Now this is something that works practically and not so boring like the other traditional apps out there. There is no lag. There is no bug. Everything works perfect. Augmented Reality. Reinvented.
– Benna Iqbal, iEatApples
In this version we fixed some bugs in Where To? 3D and made the sounds a bit louder so they’re better noticeable when you’re out on the street. And if you’re already a lucky owner of an iPad 2, you can also enjoy Where To? 3D on it (in iPhone compatibility mode).
What’s your impression, how did we do implementing Augmented Reality? We’d really appreciate it of you rated Where To? or wrote a review on the App Store after you grabbed this new version.
Get it on the App Store.
We’ve been pretty busy the last months working on the next update of Where To? and I’m extremely delighted to introduce it to you today. The single feature we worked on so long is called Where To? 3D and it’s Augmented Reality as you’ve never seen it before. It works on iPhone 4 and 3GS running iOS 4.0 or later.
If you can’t wait, download the Where To? 3.5 update from the App Store and activate Where To? 3D by tapping the new eye-icon in the bottom toolbar. Where To? 3D is available via In App Purchase for $0.99 or your local currency equivalent. The purchase is valid for all your current and future devices under your iTunes account. A 30-day Trial mode lets you explore the new feature at no charge. Also check out the video with Kira on shopping tour in Munich with Where To? 3D.
If you’re interested in some background information, please continue reading to get the inside scoop on Where To? 3D’s creation and design ideas.
When we planned the feature, we looked at AR implementations currently available on the market. In our eyes, these implementations were all suffering from serious usability problems. So we said to ourselves: Let’s work on those issues and try to invent something new. What issues — or as I prefer: challenges – am I talking about?
Traditional Gyroscope
Everyone who had the joy to use an old-fashioned magnetic compass, probably made the experience that compasses are not very exact at times and more notably take some time until they converge on a direction. The same holds true for the iPhone’s integrated compass. This results in an operation where the displayed results lag behind the reality when turning the device in different directions.
Our solution: Making use of the gyroscope to achieve a much smoother and more responsive display. Unfortunately, the gyroscope is only available on iPhone 4. If you’re on a 3GS you’ll have to accept the small lag caused by the built-in compass.
Usability challenge #2: far and near POIsDepending on where you are (in a big city or in a rural area) and what you’re searching for, the results are in a very different distance. First of all, the distance is an important piece of information, so making all results the same size isn’t a good solution.
Our solution: First, results are displayed in a real 3D world and their size and stacking order depends on the distance. Then, you can zoom in and out using the gestures already known from the map: Double-tap to zoom in, two-finger-tap to zoom out, pinch for fine grained zooming. Zooming of course affects the camera picture as well.
This is a tricky one. In real life, in many cases results are nearby. They’re all in the center of the city, a mall or something similar. This results in their labels being at the same position and covering each other. Some implementations solve this by stacking the results vertically, forcing the user to look high into the sky to see what he wants.
Our solution: Where To? 3D explode™ 
— when you tap on any result covering another, they will be exploded in a way that allows to easily select the result you’re after. This works beautifully with 10, even 20 results next to each other. Tip: By tapping and holding, you can explode and select a point of interest in one easy procedure.
In tests with beta testers we found that most users intuitively hold their device in landscape orientation. Some are still preferring portrait and some are holding their device in all kinds of diagonal orientations.
Our solution: Either orientation is OK, the view automatically adapts. We’re automatically sliding away the top and bottom bars when you go landscape, so you’ll get an unlimited field of view to the sides. Finally, the displayed grid creates visual context and helps comparing distances.
These are just a a few of the many challenges we faced, and how we solved them. There are countless minor details such as the little radar displaying the currently shown points and the field of vision. I almost forgot the biggest challenge: How to achieve great performance and a maximum responsiveness? We spent considerable time optimizing the code and getting the most out of the hardware.
Overall, I think we might be a bit late to the AR game but we feel, the development effort was worthwhile and the results speak for themselves.
The team behind Where To? 3D comprises some new faces I’d like to introduce you shortly. First, Christian Lier developed most of the Where To? 3D code, especially the low-level OpenGL stuff. Then there’s Peter Breitling of plaincode who wrote the (surprisingly complex) code to combine the compass and gyro signals and agreed to let us use it in Where To? 3D. And finally, Josh Mobley created the subtle sound effects, particularly the intro sonar loop.
Already an “oldtimer” in our team is Wolfgang Bartelme who significantly influenced the Where To? look & feel since the very beginning in 2008 with his magic photoshopping hands.
I’m more than happy with the result we’ve achieved together and I’m really looking forward to working with this awesome team on even more great stuff for Where To? and a new app that’s coming down the pipe.
If you haven’t done yet, please download Where To? 3.5 on the App Store. As always, the update is free for all Where To? customers since 2.x. If you haven’t checked it out yet, we hope you’ll join the more than 300,000 users who already purchased the app.
I hope you’ll love the new Where To? 3D as much as we are. Be sure to let us know your feedback in the comments.
A while ago we described how to get affordable 3G access when traveling to Italy. Today, we continue this series with a report on Swiss prepaid data tariffs. In Switzerland there are three providers, Swisscom, Orange and sunrise. Swisscom has by far the best 3G coverage covering 93% of the population.
Luckily Swisscom also offers the most attractive prepaid card with data tariff. There are plenty of different prepaid options available. Two options are interesting for travelers who want to avoid monthly charges:
| NATEL easy liberty uno | NATEL Easy BeFree | |
| Data usage | CHF 1.–/MB, CHF 5.–/day max. | CHF 4.–/day flat when used |
| National calls: | CHF 0.80/h | CHF 3.–/day flat when used |
| SIM card (valid 24 months): | CHF 40.– | CHF 40.– |
There’s a “fair” use policy on data usage: After more than 2 GB/month the bandwidth will be throttled.
Incoming calls and SMS while logged into the home network are free as usual in Europe.
More details on the Swisscom website.
SIM cards can’t be ordered online in advance so make your plans to visit a Swisscom store. Swisscom stores can be found in every major city. Use Where To? (Shopping:Mobile Phones:Swisscom) or the Swisscom store finder to find the next one. To create the account, bring your passport or ID. The SIM card will be CHF 49.– including a CHF 9 .– prepaid credit. Even though it’s just a prepaid card, calculate 30 minutes for the paperwork. You’re essentially signing for a 24 months contract (without ongoing fees). So if you come back to Switzerland in less than 2 years, you can still use the account and save the CHF 40.– per SIM card.
When the credit is eaten up, you’ll be notified via SMS and you can top up the account online via credit card.
For iPad, Swisscom offers similarly priced data-only packages:
| Data usage: | 100 MB | 300 MB | 2 GB |
| Costs: | CHF 5.–/day | CHF 19.–/30 days | CHF 39.–/30 days |
| SIM card: | |||
Although iPad SIM cards can be purchased online, due to legal reasons, registration and activation of the SIM card has to be done in a Swisscom store.
Usually, the iPhone is auto-configured for the Swisscom network, so you don’t have to enter any APN settings. If the connection doesn’t come up, you can enter these manual settings:
| APN | gprs.swisscom.ch |
| Username | gprs |
| Password | gprs |
➜ All articles how to get 3G data access internationally
We thank all of you for a successful 2010 and wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous and happy 2011.
As a little surprise, we’ve included a hint to the next big update of Where To? in the screen shot. Spotted it? — @reply us on Twitter! The first five win a Where To? promo code (now usable worldwide). Make sure to follow us so we can DM you the code.
And no, we don’t reveal any further details just yet.
This update adds or improves the following:
Where To? 3.0.5 is now available for download on the App Store.
Let me explain. iPhone developers have access to crash reports provided by users via Apple’s backend system iTunes Connect. The number of crash reports shown for Where To? has always been minimal (around 1-3 reports per update). Nevertheless, in our last update we integrated the excellent CrashReporter framework QuincyKit by Andreas Linde & Landon Fuller. Much to our surprise we received quite a lot of reports (around 200 individual crashes for 20 different issues up until now). We compared this to the number of crashes reported by iTunes Connect: Zero.
It was really mind-blowing, especially since the issues found had been in Where To? since ages. Fortunately, we were able to fix the majority of issues and so we didn’t want to wait any longer to rollout these stability fixes. For any developer with a zero-crash-tolerance, I really recommend taking a look at the CrashReporter framework. Don’t be fooled by the small number of crashes shown in iTunes Connect!
This update adds or improves the following:
Where To? 3.0.4 is now available for download on the App Store.
Did you know? Ratings on the App Store are started freshly with every update. So if you like Where To?, please rate it with every update – it helps us tremendously. 
Thanks!
iPhone developers using Core Location in their apps sometimes have a hard time. To test their apps, they have to go outside and conduct real-world tests. Not the worst thing fitness-wise, at least if you’re using a bike-mount holder, but rather inconvenient if you wanna attach your iPhone to your laptop running Xcode.
The iPhone simulator so far was not a big help because it only sends location updates from your Mac using Wi-Fi positioning. To test apps like Where To? which update POIs while moving, it’s not a practical solution.
That’s the reason we wrote our own Core Location simulator and presented it for the first time at the Macoun 2010 conference in Frankfurt. FTLocationSimulator delivers fake location updates to the application. The Core Location part is pretty straight-forward, we basically replicate the CLLocationManager API. The MapKit integration for the blue UserLocation dot is a bit harder: Apparently, Core Location talks directly to MapKit to update the position of the UserLocation dot. So we had to reach into our bag of tricks: First, we determine the userLocation view and then we update their screen coordinates manually. As a side benefit, we nicely animate it as you can see in the video.
The waypoints for the location updates are taken from a KML file, in this case a route from Cupertino to San Francisco. You can use your own KML file by generating it with Google Earth (our KML “parser” is very basic and it’s not guaranteed to work with any KML file). If you watch the video closely, you’ll notice that the speed of the location updates varies. This is due to varying distances between waypoints on curvy or straight parts of the road. We currently don’t consider the distance between waypoints.
Integration of the code is easy and described in the Readme. At the moment, we don’t support advanced Core Location features such as speed, course, altitude, distance filtering and region monitoring. Also, our faked version of the UserLocation dot doesn’t have the nice halo GPS locating animation.
Nevertheless, we hope the code is useful for developers using Core Location in their apps. If you’re having feedback or wanna contribute to the project, we’re to glad to hear from you in the comments or on GitHub.