Our last Where To? update was the first update to go through Apple’s automated private API usage detector Craig Hockenberry noticed recently. No wonder, this tool found one match we introduced four updates ago and falsely didn’t consider as a problem. The method is named setNumberOfRows: and allows placing two buttons in an alert below each other instead of beside each other.

What was interesting though: Apple didn’t reject the update but just asked to resolve the issue at the next update. To me that’s a new spin to the whole App Store review debate and I must admit that I like the approach. Still, it’s debatable why such a useful functionality to create alert buttons with slightly longer labels is a private API. But leaving that aside I value Apple’s approach to solve those kind of minor issues in a low-key manner that doesn’t lead to silly resubmissions and loosing valuable time.

After all, it’s in Apple’s best interest to avoid burdening the review team the loads of resubmissions by giving the developer the time to fix the issue at the next update.

It’s been a while since the last Where To? update. Nevertheless, we think it was worth the wait! We’ve integrated a ton of new features in Where To? 2.5:

• Searching of categories and brands in a cool Spotlight-like interface
• Free search
• Customization (add and delete) of categories
• Search in contacts (address book)
• Food & Drink categories optionally grouped by region (Asian, European etc.)
• Get directions using Navigon MobileNavigator (App Store affiliate link)
• Center the search on the current location (configurable)
• Japanese localization
• VoiceOver support

Towards a more collaborative App Store ecosystem

So what’s the Navigon compatibility all about? — So far, we’ve seen quite a large number of high-quality apps that are specialized on a single task and aim to fulfil this single task exceptionally well. Navigon MobileNavigator is a perfect example of this strategy and it does a great job for turn-by-turn navigation. However, most of these App Store gems somehow live on a lonely island and don’t collaborate with each other. Some apps even try to incorporate more and more features just to cover everything by themselves. We feel this is the wrong way. We are a strong believer in an ecosystem where a collaboration of high-quality apps leads to a better value for customers. So we’re really glad that the guys at Navigon shared our vision and were extremely helpful in getting this collaboration going.

Of course, there are many customers who purchased other turn-by-turn apps or didn’t buy one so far. We made sure those customers don’t get a worse user experience by detecting whether MobileNavigator is installed and falling back to “Maps” if not. Furthermore, Navigon support is just the beginning. We’re very open to support more solutions in the future. So what turn-by-turn solutions are you using? Please let us know in the comments or via Twitter what vendors you’d like us to support!

Welcome Japan!

New in Where To? 2.5 also is the Japanese localization. We had to learn that Japanese is totally different from all western languages we support so far. So we’re more than excited to now support this interesting market. A big Thank-You goes to Masayuki Nii and Larry Staples who did a great job with localizing and beta-testing!

Where To? 2.5 is available for download in the App Store. It’s free for all Where To? 2.x customers.

When traveling internationally with your iPhone you want to avoid the exorbitant roaming charges using a local SIM card. First, you’ve to make sure, your iPhone is not SIM-locked – either factory SIM-lock-free or unlocked manually (no, I won’t go into the details).

Here is my experience how to get 3G data access in Italy. In Italy, there are four major operators: TIM, Vodafone, Wind and Three. Depending on your destination you might want to check the coverage first:

• TIM
• Vodafone
• Wind
• Tre

While Wind and Tre are a bit cheaper, I found TIM has the best 3G coverage. Getting a TIM SIM card is rather easy: TIM Stores are in every larger city.

The prepaid SIM card with 5€ credit costs 10€. National voice calls cost 30 cent/minute, SMS 15 cent, incoming calls are free. To buy the SIM card, TIM requires your ID or passport and an Italian postal address (just use an arbitrary address, they promised not to send mail to it).
On top of that a data option is needed, in this case Maxxi Internet 10 that gives you 50 MB/day at 10€/month. You receive an SMS if the 50 MB are reached. If you’re using more than 50 MB, you get another 30 MB for 1€/day. After this, traffic will be billed with 6€/MB!

Total investment: 20€

So the total investment is 20€ for the prepaid card including Internet access. Activation takes only a few minutes. To enable Internet access, open Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network and enter ibox.tim.it in the APN field. Leave user and password blank.

Extra tip: If you happen to swap SIM cards you have to enter the APN again.

The connection was rather reliable and fast. There’s only one caveat: If the maximum volume is reached, the warning SMS is not received instantaneously but with a 1-2 hours delay. So you can easily produce expensive overtraffic and eat up all the prepaid credit. When the credit is used up, the Internet access is disconnected and you’ll get a message that you’re not a subscriber of the data network. Internet access is restored the next day even if all the credit is used up.

Status Check

To check the balance and the activated plan, I found it useful to create a web password that still allows you to access the status when you’re back from the trip. To activate the web password, send a free SMS with TIM XXXXXXXXX to 49001 where the X are your new 8 digit (no characters allowed!) password. Then go to 119selfservice.tim.it and login with your phone number and password.

Other countries?

This blog post was inspired by Till Schadde’s coverage on US prepaid data access using T-Mobile. If you figured out how to get access in other countries, please let us know in the comments.

These are the changes of the new version:

• optimized point of interests search method
• doesn’t display points of interest that were marked for deletion
• adaptive distance to fetch new POIs on map movement
• displays a warning in detail view if entries have only approximate coordinates
• fixed a hang at startup that could occur in rare situations
• error alerts such as for missing internet connection are not repeated anymore
• added categories: smog check, playgrounds
• added brands: Germany: CashPool, Austria: Grocery chains
• optimized: English: landmarks, German: Train Stations, several Swiss categories

All Where To 2.x customers can download the update for free in the App Store.

Where To? 2.0.1 has been approved after 13 days. It comes with the following improvements:

• fixes an issue with reordering favorites
• added the full Dutch and Greek localization
• added beer gardens, hair salons, osteopaths, taquerias and car sharing (in most localizations)
• improved search quality for these German categories: Flughäfen, Friedhöfe, Schwimmbäder
• improved search quality for cash machines in the UK

Grab the update while it’s hot. It’s free for all Where To 2.x customers.

Today, Apple approved Where To 2.0. The new version greatly enhances the user experience by making use of several iPhone OS 3.0 features. It uses a built-in map to display the results right within the app. To find out more about a specific location, a call can be initiated or the homepage can be displayed using the integrated web viewer. Then, the user can get driving directions using maps, add the destination to his contacts or share it using email, SMS or the clipboard.

When I acquired Where To in December last year, I had a clear vision of how to evolve the app into an integrated location finder. While there are still more things to come in the future, we feel the 2.0 release is a great step towards that vision.

We also implemented a lot of thoughtful little details: When the user taps the locate-me button, the map auto-follows the current GPS position and auto-reloads new results while moving. If desired, the automatic screen lock is prevented.

Introductory & Upgrade Offer

When we transferred the app into our account, I promised we would work on a solution to sweeten the upgrade path for existing customers. Now, we’re delivering on that promise by reducing the price to 99¢ (US) until August 23. This is 66% off the original price and we feel the offer’s more than fair for existing customers given the multitude of new features.

While we had all our loyal existing customers in mind, the price cut is not limited to them. (The App Store does not support upgrade pricing as of now.) So it’s also a great opportunity for everybody to get hold of Where To at an unbeatable price!

All customers who bought Where To after June 23 get the update for free.

Update: Have a look on our upgrade notes for existing Where To customers, too.

Upcoming in an App Store near you.

Today, we finally transferred Where To? to our own iTunes account. From now on, the vendor name is not incorrectly stated as “Sophiestication Software” anymore. After more than 6 months of waiting for Apple (and after numerous discussions with various Apple folks) to resolve the issue of transferring an iPhone App in the App Store, we finally resorted to publishing Where To as a new app under our account and removing it from sale of Sophia’s account. This procedure unfortunately causes the purchaser history to be lost since Apple does not provide any buyer details to us.

Why not wait until the next version?
Good question. Obviously it would make perfect sense to wait with the transfer until the upcoming Where To 2.0 with exciting new functionality is out. Unfortunately, this was not an option because our contract with Sophia to use her iTunes vendor account expires by end of this month. Sophia was not willing to negotiate the expiration date. So we are in a position of either killing Where To completely or doing this. Clearly, this isn’t the way I prefer to do things because it’s against my understanding of respecting customers, but I simply had no choice in this situation, unfortunately.

What does this mean for me as a (potential) new customer?
New customers who purchase Where To from now on will automatically be eligible for a free upgrade to the upcoming Where To 2.0. Think of it as a grace period for a free upgrade that begins now.

What does this mean for me as an existing customer?
First, the existing version of Where To in the FutureTap account is exactly the same as the version in the “Sophiestication Software” account.
Second, we are working to offer a price-reduced upgrade path to version 2.0 for current Where To owners who purchased it from the seller tap tap tap or Sophiestication Software.
While we know this is surprising and nasty for you, we had to take this unevitable step at some time although we delayed it as much as possible. So depending on your purchase date, you received a whole lot of updates for free. Only the next major version will be a paid upgrade. Please subscribe to this blog and/or follow us on Twitter to stay informed.

You mentioned Where To 2.0. Will it be cool?
Absolutely! We integrated a ton of new features in Where To 2.0. Most requested, the map will be built-in leveraging iPhone OS 3.0. Switching apps is no longer necessary. Then, the results automatically update while moving. Overall we think it’ll be an amazing update that you’ll absolutely love! Follow us on Twitter to watch some sneak peeks from our labs soon and to be the 1st to know when it’s available!

Probably due to the upcoming iPhone OS 3.0 the approval took a bit longer (17 days) than usual. But finally by today, Where To 1.7.3 got approved. It comes with the following features and fixes:

• Added several new categories in Services (various construction contractors), Shopping and Emergency
• Improved German, Dutch and Greek localization and results quality
• Search is now in Italian for the canton of Ticino in Switzerland
• Search is now in Greek for Cyprus
• The Greek localization now also contains an alphabetical category index

All current owners of Where To? get the free update in the App Store.

Today, Where To? 1.7.2 featuring a Dutch localization was published in the App Store. Named “Waarheen?” in Dutch, Where To? finally comes to the Netherlands and Flanders in Belgium. As in the other countries, it includes a large number of local brands and the search terms are optimized for Dutch.

Kudos to Michiel Houtman, he made an amazing job with the Dutch localization.

Alongside the Dutch localization, Where To 1.7.2 adds some category and brand improvements.

All current owners of Where To? get the free update in the App Store.