Announcing new app: RTT2

[admin]

I think the easiest way to solve your problem is to configure a track length limit. For example you could configure to show always only the last 24 hours of your track. Please have a look at the instruction video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuINsdW0xS0

[Kremmen]

Just spotted this feedback area

1) Also - custom icon not showing
2) With a friends details box showing, touching the screen removes it. Sometimes I need to touch the screen to stop the screensaver.

Thanks for the best alternative to the old Google Lattitude

[admin]

Hi,
1.) Is this a permanent problem. Is the icon never displayed even if internet connection is working? Is only the ballon displayed?
2.) I cannot control this behaviour because it's provided by a Google library. But if you want to stop the screensaver you could use a different gesture instead of just to tap the screen. If you slide the details box should stay.

[happyplanet]

Hi,

I’ve been migrating over to RTT2 but still holding on to the original to compare the two. I have a request for you in RTT2. In the new version, the friends appear on the left side menu and, when you touch one of them you can do great things, like follow on map, show details, etc. You know this of course, ‘cause you designed it! Well, the new features of “Send message” and “Send to external app” are just great. Thanks. They are so great that I’d like it if you could add ourselves to the Friends list (or above it if that’s better for you).

Here’s why:

I’d like to be able to send a message to myself as a system loop test to make sure it’s working before sending to a friend (since there’s no real feedback that it went through but a short sending tone). Also, it’s kinda fun to type things and let my phone speak it in the computer voice with friends around. I may be weird, but I’d like to talk to myself as well as my friends.

With the “Send to external app” I’m currently sending my friend’s location to the app “AlpineQuest GPS Hiking” which immediately shows the location on Bing maps for me (which are sometimes better maps than Google in my area). It also offers several OpenStreetMap options, MapQuest, Mapnik, etc., each of which can grab my friends’ exported coordinates and display them full screen. A tap on the back button returns me to your app in progress. Very cool.

Guess what? I’d really like to do that with my current location, and I could if you had my listing in the side tab along with all my friends where tapping on my tab would bring up the same menu options.

Please consider adding this. It would be a nice enhancement.

One last thing….. Do you (or anyone else reading this) know of an app that would display a Google StreetView upon receiving sent coordinates from your app (like AlpineQuest does, but just for a quick look at the StreetView only)? The apps “MyStreetView”, “Street Explorer”, “Street Walker”, and yes, even the amazing “Instago” hold promise, but don’t quite do it….yet…..

If it wouldn’t be too hard to add, attaching “StreetView” to your menu of options would tickle me to no end. I can imagine the things I could say to my friend if I could be seeing what they are seeing in their immediate vicinity.

Glad to see you are excited about this app revision, and keeping it a work in process. Will be monitoring your blog for ideas and upcoming changes/enhancements.

[happyplanet]

Hi again,

Just in case you would be interested in adding "StreetView" as an additional menu option along with "Send to external app" and "Launch Google Navigation", you might get some development ideas from the app "StreetView List Free". That app appears to have a collection of location data and thumbnails sorted into categories, and when you click on one, you are offered Street Viewing options of the external apps "Maps" or "Street View" (at least that's what I get on my Galaxy S4). Now, I'm not a developer, but however they are triggering to send the location data out to those apps would probably work perfectly for you to send coordinate location for ourselves or our friends locations as well. Best of all, it's the official Google StreetView thing! The back button returns back to the original app as well, so we could observe StreetViews, come back, and look at new ones if we or our friends are on the move.

Oh, yea, on my last request to add ourselves to the friend list, if you do, could you make the item "Follow on map" automatically turn GPS on so it functions like the "Switch on GPS" option under the upper right menu list? Thanks!

[admin]

Hi,
I will a look at both (add "myself" to friends, and street view). In the mean time you can use the "send to external app" menu item and open with Google Maps. There long-click on the center and select the displayed entry at the bottom, and click "street view".

[happyplanet]

Thanks for looking into the suggestions I sent you. Got another request. I’d like to be able to toggle friend following on and off selectively (as in stopping when one friend arrives at a destination but continuing following others, all on the same map). Would it be possible to change “Follow on map” to “Start follow on map” and add below it “Stop follow on map” or "Start following" and "Stop following" for each friend’s menu listing? Thanks.

[happyplanet]

Hi,
I will a look at both (add "myself" to friends, and street view). In the mean time you can use the "send to external app" menu item and open with Google Maps. There long-click on the center and select the displayed entry at the bottom, and click "street view".

I tried the long-click on Google Maps and did indeed eventually get a full screen StreetView. Thanks for that trick. One-click-simple-access would be much better, but this works in a pinch. Just out of curiosity, I long-clicked on your maps and when I held a pin -- either a friend's or mine -- I was surprised to find it brings up the menu that I would otherwise have to call up from the left hand tab. Way faster! Great addition. The fact that most of the menu items are there for my own location pin means I can send my location to an external app or launch Google navigation. Yea!

I noticed the "Send a message" option is missing on my own pin, so if you could add that to the 'myself' long-click menu, I would have a quick way of doing the loop talk test I was describing earlier. Thanks again!

[happyplanet]

Hi again,

I hope I'm not overloading you with suggestions, but I have another one that parallels a slick feature in the app "GPS Tracks" from the iPhone side. It has to do with your implementation of the "Map size" option in the upper right drop down menu. Instead of (or in addition to) offering that method of changing the three levels of information across the top, could you make the center of the large white strip (the one with "Map" on the left and "Stop/Start" on the right) touch sensitive? If so, then could program it so when you touch that white area in the middle, the display would toggle from Normal to Large to Maximum and back to Normal? It would be way safer to use when driving, and faster, too. It makes for a fun Easter Egg discovery, too, for everyone who doesn't read about it on the blog. Kinda like the fun in discovering the full menu display with a long-click on a pin on your map. Thanks for thinking about this.

[admin]

Hi,
actually I'm not sure how Street View can be launched directly. Maybe I will integrate StreetView directly into the tracker.
I cannot add too many additional menu items - otherwise the menu will become confusing.
You cannot follow several users at the same time. And the tracker cannot switch between them either when the first is finished because the tracker simply does not know when the track is finished. This is no navigation tool. It's just a recording and broadcasting tool.