Social – Page 6 – ɔimoɈɒ

Ten Apps I Want…

Ten Apps that I’d like to see on the iPhone. I’m also suggesting names for these. To be honest, I’d like to pull together a team to build them but that seems to be a lot more difficult than I’d hoped. If anyone wants to call me and work with me to pull together funding, … Continue reading “Ten Apps I Want…”

MeetFreak/TrendSeek
Helps people find each other by abusing Twitter trends and trying to suck Location Data in there. This is a lot easier now that Twitter is supporting GeoTags. So, let us see a map of trends? People are talking about #RED, where are they talking about it? Let us see every tweet with the Trend on a map that we can see. Then you’re more likely to be able to congregate with people
Multitool
Uses the five tabs along the bottom to give you a view of
1) IMAP account
2) Web Browser
3) Twitter
4) Mapper
5) Converter/Calculator
Redirects all http:// and mailto: seen inside the app, to the app and not outside so doesn’t launch Safari or Mail. A lot of this is kinda redundant when we have decent clients for much of this inside Safari. But some offline caching is a big deal for those of us who tend not to be inside the city centres where you can get decent 3G.

Verifriend, Reputato
This is an online reputation profiler. Yes, it’s going to be a popularity contest but essentially it all depends on trust. Adding your rating to someone is not something to be done lightly. In some ways it needs to be a trust engine – and it can be as simple as giving a trust rating to a new friend based on the trust ratings that others have provided. There needs to be some sort of anonymity (maybe like the reviews process on iTunes you only get a rating when a certain number of reviews have been processed) but unlike FaceBook it should provide that extra level of security.

Director
Allows me to text directions to someone who asks me on the street. In plain text. Or Bluetooth them. Or even just email them. Or something. Or magic them straight into their brain. Any of these things would be fine. Just so I don’t have to try to explain the directions to someone.
REDACTED
This one was so good, someone asked me to take it down. 🙂 Suffice to say it was AR related.
Tweet16
Twitter lists are all very well but they don’t solve th problem I have. I follow about 1000 people but there’s probably less than 150 or so (that magic Dunbar number) whom I regularly interact with. There’s probably only 10% of those whom I really want to pay attention to. I’d like a Twitter client that shows me my timeline, my mentions, my DMs and finally, my Tweet16 – 16 people from whom I see all of their public messages rather than not seeing the ones who are at people I don’t follow.
Plannity
So, I fill in all of this information into my calendar and that includes times and dates and, most crucially, locations of my meetings. Why hasn’t there been a social app that runs via Exchange/Outlook, on iPhone, iCal and other formats which takes this location information, munges it up with my social network and allows me to see when I can grab lunch with friends or when I’m in the same town as someone I like. I think that Tripit is meant to do this and today I read about Plancast which promises to do something about this. But this is a hot topic, guys. Location is the big thing for 2009/2010.
Echelon (or TwitterBug)
I mentioned this a week ago – a cool idea for Twitter and other social networks which again uses location. So – get this – all of your messages are geotagged, or if not now, a lot of them will be. So, Echelon ‘listens’ in for anything said in an area rather than things said about trends or by your friends. The default set is seeing tweets which are in your immediate area – the killer part though is being able to drop a ‘bug’ (for bug, read ‘pin’) on a map and be able to sample the Tweets going through that area and the surrounding radius. So, in effect, you’ve dropped a Twitter Bug somewhere and you’re able to listen in. The Freemium version could monitor one location, the PayFor version could monitor several. ( ECHELON is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UK-USA Security Agreement (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States)

The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception
Perfect for the Sandbagger or Spook among us, this is a recently published book derived from an official manual. As most of them are small pictorial sessions, they’re ripe for viewing on the iPhone, turning the iPhone into the ultimate tradecraft manual. You can see clips from the book on Gizmodo. So scan it, make it searchable so you can quickly flick through and find the perfect tradecraft for the perfect moment.
Pollenator
For public debates, a simple push notification which opens the app and gives you a simple couple of choices accompanied with text, audio or video. Push one, it’s recorded (with time, place, ID, IMEI and whatever other data you have collected and after a certain amount of time, the poll times out. Poll answers should be “Yes”, “No” or “Whatever”. If you choose to ignore or “Whatever” it, then you’re counted as an abstention. I’d love to see this app running and see visualisations of what it could bring in terms of demographics, location and other meta data. I sat with Stuart and Phil (and with PJ on the end of a Skype call) one evening and we mocked up some stuff for this based on Stuarts idea of “Pirates versus Ninjas”. But the actual implementation could have led to entirely other applications.

Polls widget from Google Wave

I’d love to see all of these on my iPhone. Id love to talk more about these apps to people who are interested. I’d love even more to be involved in the group/company/whatever that was going to make some of these.

Please comment if they inspired you or if you’re working on something similar.

All I needed to know about games…

…I learned from writing my own. Lewis Pulsipher at GameCareerGuide writes that All I Really Needed to Know About Games I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons He has some core points which apply to any game but especially one which involves multiple users (a Massively Multiplayer Online Game) for example. As a designer: You don’t … Continue reading “All I needed to know about games…”

…I learned from writing my own.

Lewis Pulsipher at GameCareerGuide writes that All I Really Needed to Know About Games I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons

He has some core points which apply to any game but especially one which involves multiple users (a Massively Multiplayer Online Game) for example.

As a designer:
You don’t need high-level technology to make an “immersive” game.
For human/psychological games (as opposed to computer-mediated challenge games), players enjoy the journey, not the destination.
Some people like to be told stories; others like to make their own.
The objective is to make the players think their characters are going to die, not to kill them.
We all like to improve.
User-generated content enriches a game immensely. (In this case, adventures, monsters, classes, etc.)

Lewis continues:
As a player:
It’s more fun with more than one person.
Cooperation is required for survival.
Think before you leap.
Get organized!
Don’t run headlong where you’ve never been.
Keep track of the stuff you’ve got; otherwise you may forget something that could save your butt.
Always have a viable “Plan B”.
Always have a way out.
Don’t depend on luck!

If your game can take into account all of the above points then you’re well on your way to developing a game that I’d like to play. Nintendo shows us that we don’t need the most cutting edge graphics to make a game that truly involves the players – in fact – the cartoony lack of realism in the games on the Wii platform serve to make it more memorable rather than less when compared to the Hi-Def Not-Quite-Realism that you find on the PS3 and XBOX.

For myself, the ‘fun’ in the game has always been in the story and there is some pseudo-theory around this, the concepts of ‘gamist‘, ‘simulationist‘ and ‘narrativist‘. I identify with the latter category, being more interested in the story, in the interactions and in the ‘soft’ outcomes. In contrast, a simulationist will strive to have the most realistic ‘reality modelling’ experience possible. They might enjoy Call of Duty more than Left4Dead or Halo because the content is ‘realistic’. Zombies and aliens, despite being fun, are not real. Lastly, the gamist is in it for the game. For the challenge, for the achievements and perhaps even competitively for the win. There’s nothing wrong with being in a category and it doesn’t make what you enjoy into BadWrongFun and it’s perfectly possible to jump between categories depending on the game itself. For example, while playing “Infamous”, I was in it for the story and I found “Prototype” to be an unenjoyable button-masher aimed at Gamists but when playing any first person shooter against other humans, I tend to be a determined gamist, it’s all about the challenge and all about the winning. Similarly I want a racing game to have realistic drift physics even if the content is all about superfast floating flying machines armed with missiles and if I die, I just come back to life. It’s a joint gamist/simulationist experience for me.

Games are more fun when you’re not alone and I find the co-operative balance of games like Left4Dead to be immensely compelling because it’s the first game I’ve ever played which must be played cooperatively. Yes, there’s a certain mechanics to making sure you have the right equipment and you know the way in a game like that but similarly the ‘chaos’ introduced by other humans in the game is just the very reason I play – especially as they, through communication, can add unobvious twists to the game itself (like playing Call of Duty using only knives or Left4Dead using only pistols). My love of the story means my motivation to have the right equipment and ensure effective communication with the team is entirely because there’s nothing more frustrating than having to play the same ‘level’ again and again due to the mechanics of a game being poorly thought out. I’ve experienced this mostly with console games which require you to have twitch fingers as well as intimate knowledge of which button has a circle and which has a triangle. The fact this ‘out of game’ knowledge is required, completely jolts me out of immersion in the plot and reminds me I’m mashing buttons on a game controller.

An aside to this is the necessity of controlling player character death. There’s nothing more frustrating than your character dying because her avatar edged a pixel over some mathematical value which dictates whether the character stands or falls. At least, again in Left4Dead, some designers have thought about this. It’s not perfect but it beats the extremes of either falling when your pixels are 51% past the border or being able to stand in mid air because one of your pixels is still touching the edge of the cliff. Always err on the side of playability – as it says above, your job is to inspire the fear of character death in the players, not set out to actually kill them. Don’t punish the player for the poor edge detection algorithm in your game engine or for touching something that doesn’t look dangerous in your description or image.

Don’t miss the point about user-generated content. Some companies see Open Source as being a method of saving on developer time or a political statement designed to attract a certain demographic. I have long been of the opinion that you should let people make up their own stories. Being too restrictive here means there’s no Harry Potter RPG and there are only videogames for the franchise which permit a very limited range of activity. The potential content is controlled, closed, censored and choked. Chairman Mao Zedong of China said:

“Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land.”

before doing his own controlling, closing, censoring and choking.

Whether or not you think he was using this to entice dissidents out of hiding is not what I’m here to debate but what I will say is that this school of thought is pretty much responsible for Twitter and Youtube. What can be more fun than seeing your creation being used in new and innovative ways. Back a hundred years ago in 1996 when I produced my first book, I loved seeing that someone has written extra content or modified my rules – because it meant they read them. I was often asked to explain my design decisions and why several rules were labelled as ‘optional’ and entertained by someone else’s take, someone else’s story using the background and content I had originated.

I’d love to hear some opinions on what is your favourite game and why. Do you identify most with Gamist, Narrativist or Simulationist (also labelled Narratology and Ludology in Aphra Kerr’s book: The Business and Culture of Digital Games.)

Muni WiFi: escape the Dialup Dark Ages

A few years ago I approached Belfast City Council with the idea of my company putting a large chunk of cash into a Meraki WIFI mesh which would then provide free WiFi to Cathedral Quarter. Cathedral Quarter was and still is plagued by having historic cobbled streets which prevent the laying of new lines – but for my business it was an opportunity. If Belfast City Council would pay for two or three ADSL lines in some buildings, we would sink a heap of capital into the network hardware and handle all of the installations. What would we get out of it? A bit of advertising to the Creative Centre of Belfast. That’s all we wanted. The response we got back was that the area already had BTOpenZone, which, if you investigate is notable for it’s absence in the area.

Undeterred I believe that Belfast needs a free-to-access Municipal Wi-Fi network.

There are providers around but the cost and subscription burden of many providers (and lack of basic interoperability, never mind poor user interfaces for mobile travellers) makes the current WiFi subscription set up to be a very unsatisfactory experience for the average traveller.

Belfast allegedly attracted 800,000 people for the Tall Ships event recently.

“Around 800,000 people crowded to the city’s docks for the biggest event ever staged on the island of Ireland. This included 100,000 holiday-makers who visited the city especially for the event – and 250,000 people believed to have watched the magnificent Parade of Sail out of Belfast Lough.”

(Doing the maths: This means there were 200,000 per day. Which means 10,000 per hour or so during the four days the Tall Ships were here. I call bullshit but hey).

Either way – there were thousands of people present and over 1000 crew from those ships. Would a free WiFi service have been useful to them? Of course. Last time I travelled to the US, I had to pay nearly Â£1000 in data and voice roaming charges and my next trip will likely be as bad if not worse. It is essential to the Tourism economy in Northern Ireland that we have a tourist-friendly environment. Rather than the tourist not using voice or data services (or worse, spending hundreds of pounds on roaming data paid to their home carrier), we should be providing that service free of charge and permitting them to use Skype or other voice services to call home. We need to build Northern Ireland as a progressive traveller-friendly destination.

Recently in the news, San Francisco is pioneering with Solar-Powered WiFi bus stops.

By 2013, San Francisco is planning to construct 360 new Muni bus stops that’ll further the causes of both solar power and blanketed Wi-Fi at the same time.

and Toyota created a bit of a news story with their new Prius advertising campaign:

Toyota planted five 18-foot tall “solar flowers” in Boston’s Prudential Plaza and provided free Wi-Fi and electricity that was “partially powered” by the solar panels attached to the petals and stem.

Think of where the roaming charges go. This money is not being used to build the Northern Ireland economy, they’re not being used to upgrade our infrastructure, build our schools or assist local business. The money goes somewhere else.

So, lets unwire Belfast. Let’s break the stranglehold on communications held by the mobile carriers where they can charge Â£6 per megabyte downloaded or uploaded which, frankly, drags us back to the dialup dark ages.

AR

Augmented Reality is kinda hot right now and despite some detractors who may wonder at the utility of it, I reckon it’s only going to get hotter. The utility of AR for advertising is the first issue to overcome. Layar Layar is an app on Google Android for overlaying information onto the camera. In the … Continue reading “AR”

Augmented Reality is kinda hot right now and despite some detractors who may wonder at the utility of it, I reckon it’s only going to get hotter.

The utility of AR for advertising is the first issue to overcome.

Layar
Layar is an app on Google Android for overlaying information onto the camera. In the demo, they show off the ability of overlay property search details onto the camera view – useful if you’re looking for a house in a particular region.

ARToolkit on iPhone
This is an app for generating augmented reality objects using QR-type codes. These codes can be translated into 3D objects which can, to a degree, be manipulated. They can be viewed from any angle. ARToolkit is an app for developing these virtual objects.

Nearest Tube
Does for iPhone and London Tube stations what Layar was doing for properrty searches.

For the Military
Military uses for Augmented Reality have been evident in just about every movie ever since we could do computer graphics. The earliest that I remember is actually the scene in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi when they were discussing the Battle over Endor. But here’s a military use which seems modern and practical.

Ahrrrr!
There’s also been a Zombie Shooter Game called Ahrrrr! which uses a AR-map and a camera-equipped MID to visualise objects and integrate them into the game. It’s not the best demo because I think it would kill my back but it’s interesting in the interplay between AR-objects (buildings, zombies) and real objects (candies).

ARvertising
ARG Advertising is going to be prevalent but I think it may not be as pervasive as we fear. Unless AR-detection is built into goggles or these magazines provide their own app or adopt a platform, these AR-objects will never be seen.

There is a danger of AR becoming an argument of ‘have versus have-not’ but this is no different to the argument of a decade ago with the Internet or of previous arguments of colour televisions and the move from radio to television.

The opportunity I see for augmented (layered) reality is in the telling of stories and the playing of games – especially in Alternate Reality Games. Being able to finagle a game into your everyday life – imagine being involved in a True Lies or Who Dares Wins style plot while going about your daily business.

Nike+

One of the things about this sort of tech is that it needs explained to people. Like the compass in the new iPhone. Most people weren’t impressed until it was explained that the compass might as well be a sensor attached to the person’s head – it shows the way they are looking, and using … Continue reading “Nike+”

The fact that the iPhone 3.0 software finally brings in accessories means that we’re a hop-skip-jump away from clip-on gamepads and other devices which will turn our iPhones into the mobile computing powerhouses that a lot of us expected the Newton to be.

And speaking of hopping, skipping and jumping, I thought this was quite cool…

In a stance that’s uncommon for a company that has historically relied on patented technology like its Air cushioning system, Nike seems to be genuinely excited to see these tools sprout up. After all, the more apps out there, the more Nike+ gear the company can sell. “The more we can open up Nike+, the better,” says Stefan Olander, who oversees digital content for the Nike+ site. “The only reason to close it out is because you actually don’t believe that you have a strong enough product for others to want to take it and do good things with it.” So far, Nike hasn’t officially released a software kit to allow developers to hook directly into Nike+, but that’s likely to come.

The Nike+ is an established device that takes impact data from your footfalls, turning the average walk or run into a game where you’re the player, the coach and the referee – a game where the goal is to reduce your times and up your distances. By doing so, of course, you do exercise.

My interest is where the Nike+ can be taken after this. Can it be used as an additional activator? For instance, in a game, can a certain number of foot stamps be taken as a directive? How can the application of footfalls, momentum, speed be applied to augmented reality?

Edu 2.0

Today I was lucky enough to attend the University of Ulster Computing and Mathematics Away Day – my role to represent Digital Circle and give the faculty staff an update on some of the exciting things we’re doing in mobile – starting with the iPhone initiative. One of the other talks was about Web 2.0, … Continue reading “Edu 2.0”

One of the other talks was about Web 2.0, a suitably nebulous subject which was, for this talk, defined as “The Art of Listening, Learning and Sharing” which, up front, seems to be entirely suitable for a progressive university.

The issue for universities of the future is the fact that the average 11 year old has a higher “digital literacy” than the average lecturer in a university. This obviously colours what new students will expect from a university when they attend. They will likely expect interaction from their lecturer as a “peer” in some networks and yet not desire it in others. Few students may be happy with their Lecturers being a “Facebook friend” with the expectation that the difference in the culture hierarchy will mean it affects their relationship during classes. If a lecturer follows you on Twitter, he or she may see that you’re not impressed with the latest assignment and have decided to go out to Shine instead. That’s bound to be damaging.

Donald Clark mentioned formal higher education last week during his talks at the InvestNI IP Seminars. He referenced that you can download many lectures from eminent educators on YouTube, or from iTunes U. He claimed that classical classroom teaching is a horrid way to learn and that educators should be prepared to put their teaching material online. He also suggested that those who refuse to do so are perhaps insecure about the quality of their content?

This does not mean that lecturers are redundant as according to the talk today, students believe they are paying for face to face interaction with lecturers.

What does a “digital native” expect then?

When I went to university I had pretty much zero experience of computers. Sure – I had a Spectrum 10 years earlier but that wasn’t exactly inspiring. After my second year, we were presented with UNIX-based terminals in the Open Access Centres. This began my love of networked systems. I learned what I wanted (and learned more about that than what I was being taught). We had email but never interacted with university staff except to be told off for using the systems for accessing a MUD or MUSH which were the precursors of chat rooms to a degree (and arguably a precursor of Second Life). We had an instant messenger app called “zwrite” and we could use “talk” from the command line as well. And among our little cliques, we had the best fun.

These days, the new intake into the university will consist of people who have grown up with wikipedia, with chat rooms, with email, with instant messengers. They’re used to trusting the information sources they find online, they’re extremely competent at finding sources of information and sharing that information via social bookmarking or other online tools. They expect to have access to networks like Twitter or Facebook and are immediately suspicious or resentful of regimes which restrict that access. They’ll be able to circumvent those restrictions either through hacks distributed via their social network or by just using their phones (each individually more than a hundred times more capable than the computers I first used in the Open Access Centre). They’ll expect their assessment and course materials to be available online.

What’s more interesting is what access and interaction they expect from their lecturers. They’ll expect email. But what about blogs? Twitter? Facebook? SMS? Would they give their mobile number to their lecturer?

We didn’t have these problems…

The Cocoa Cooking Class

This came out of two ideas I had. The first was Code4Pizza – the idea that people, in order to learn, would be willing to spend their time coding for open source projects. I still think this idea is a winner for getting younger folk involved but as an evening class, it fills in many … Continue reading “The Cocoa Cooking Class”

This came out of two ideas I had.

The first was Code4Pizza – the idea that people, in order to learn, would be willing to spend their time coding for open source projects. I still think this idea is a winner for getting younger folk involved but as an evening class, it fills in many gaps present in the current market for young and really smart folk who want to use computers for more than FaceBook and MySpace.

The second was Tuesday Night Cocoa – something the lads up at Mac-Sys were doing – on a Tuesday evening when the Enterprise Park was open late, they would gang together and learn Cocoa from the books, helping each other through tough problems.

So, the Cocoa Cooking Class was born.

First off, I’m not even sure if Tuesday night is the best sort of time for something like this but it’s catchy, sosumi.

The Background:
Due to my organising of DevDays and generally being loud about the iPhone, I’m inundated with people wanting to learn how to do stuff on the iPhone. How to write applications and generally take part in the gold rush that is the iPhone. I’m working my way through the books but as my time is ‘expensive’ (in so far as as it’s really bloody hard to find ‘free’ time), I’m thinking I need to formalise something in this respect. My idea is that an experienced developer guides a workgroup on a weekly or biweekly basis through an application specification, design and build. The workgroup then owns that app and can do whatever they want with it. I’ve spoken to an experienced developer about it and he’s on board, details yet to be discussed. It’s unreasonable to expect him to dedicate this time for free so we have to take that into account and allow for him to help people ‘online’ in a forum or via email. Holding it on a Tuesday night might make sense but the idea is to get someone who knows what they’re talking about to come in and spend time instructing people and get paid to do it. If it’s not worth the money then we stop paying them and we hack it together on our own time. We even have the option of varying our instructors.

The Pitch:
Take one room with enough seating for 11 people.
Fill with 10 or so eager would-be application developers. Do not over-fill.
Add in one seasoned instructor. Mix for twenty minutes.
Establish base level of capability and break the people into 3-5 groups.
Distribute skills liberally through the groups to attempt to maintain consistency.
Start to build projects, one for each group for 90 minutes.
Break for 15 minutes to check consistency and share experiences.
Return to the room and continue to build knowledge for a further hour.
Stop activity and get each workgroup to show and tell for 5 minutes each.
Rinse and repeat weekly or bi-weekly.

To cover costs, everyone hands the instructor a Â£20 note. This covers room hire, instructor time and during the week support. That’s a reasonable night out.

Reasoning:
It’s my belief that this will create multiple opportunities for Mac and iPhone developers in the province. It will provide a collaborative approach to building applications with some real potential for IP creation and future revenue generation. Mix this with XCake and other initatives and we’ve got something to talk about. Would be even better if we could get some sort of funding for it (or even just a free room somewhere for the evenings).

What do you think?

Legacy: The App Store meme

Back in the day, one of the biggest reasons given to me about “staying with Windows PCs” is the software. Some folk, even those who ripped off their software, didn’t want to switch to a Mac because of their legacy of software they’d collected on their PC. As if the months of trialware and cruft … Continue reading “Legacy: The App Store meme”

Back in the day, one of the biggest reasons given to me about “staying with Windows PCs” is the software. Some folk, even those who ripped off their software, didn’t want to switch to a Mac because of their legacy of software they’d collected on their PC. As if the months of trialware and cruft they’d deposited on the hard drive actually made it harder to switch.

In comparison, the quality of software on Windows is the prime reason for me to pursue the Mac. Look at Twitter clients for example – one of the most vibrant and competitive niches on the Mac is pretty much dead on Windows – the only concession being to AIR apps which, being cross platform, are not quite as good looking, not quite as integrated, not quite as well performing but at least there’s competition.

This meme has almost died due to the fact that people are realising that on the desktop the browser is the most important piece of software and the browser market has probably never been more competitive: Safari, Chrome, Opera, Firefox and Internet Explorer.

On Mobile however, there’s not been the same meme due to the disparity of platforms, the inability of moving software from mobile to mobile, the lack of a frontrunner in the market.

Well, guess what, there is now. I took this picture outside the Apple Store in San Francisco.

Look at the amount of window space given over to Apps and look at the space given to the iPhone. Apple knows that Apps are going to be the key to success, the key to attracting and retaining customers.

Apple recently posted that over a billion apps have been downloaded from the AppStore. Some folk are reporting 700 000 downloads in six weeks (Flight Control) and if you’re like me and you’ve recently downloaded more than 100 apps from the AppStore, then you’re looking at a heap of apps that won’t move to Android, that won’t move to the Pre and that won’t move to the Blackberry. Even with just free apps, it’s a significant investment and may prove difficult for some people to stomach. There are some people who don’t download apps on their iPhones – there are some people who have iPhones and just use them to call people and surf the web. These people don’t matter. The AppStore is now a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Take this morning – I downloaded Myst for iPhone. More than 700 MB of images and data for Â£3.49. That’s not going to transfer anywhere if I choose a different platform. Neither will Fieldrunners, LightBike, Galcon or any of the other apps I use to while away the time in long queues. It’s not going to replace iSSH, Byline which are daily use apps or oust Twitterfon or Tweetie because there’s nothing I can see on the other platforms which even comes close.

Is it a bad thing that I now have a legacy of software that I don’t want to let go? Is this the real strategy for the App Store?

Hostel Hero – shout out for a great little app!

Jason Morris, an ex-colleague of mine from $BIG_COMPANY, has released his latest app to the iTunes App Store. It’s called Hostel Hero – and pretty much delivers everything I would have wanted for budget accommodation when travelling. For those of us attending WWDC in June this year, it may prove to be very cost effective … Continue reading “Hostel Hero – shout out for a great little app!”

For those of us attending WWDC in June this year, it may prove to be very cost effective as well as useful for the traveller. It works on iPhone and iPod touch and caches data for thousands of hotels and hostels across the world and integrates it with Phone, Email and Google Maps. The caching of the data means it works great for offline viewing – pretty essential for backpackers and travellers not wishing to pay up to Â£6 a megabyte for data (and I’ve griped about roaming charges before!). You can also book your room from within the app as well as view photos of the accommodation.

Did I mention it’s free?

The app has had some excellent reviews already and has recently joined my arsenal of apps on my iPhone due to my current increase in travel plans. You can view the Press Release, a guided tour and the demo video at the Hostel Hero web site.

Jason is also the man behind PlayTripper – another essential app for the frequent traveller or long-term backpacker. I’m guessing he’s passionate about the subject matter, had the skills and intent and developed something he would use. Perfect formula for a great app.

Over 3G, the downloads are a little slow due to the amount of data involved so it’s clever to use WiFi for those bits – and the download progress bar is misleading – it finished before hitting 1% even on 3G. The UI is also a little plain – using Apple’s standard widgets and it could do with a bit of colour and design I think. The main subject of DevDays last week was the application of design to software where it crosses with User Experience. The table views are also very long due to the amount of countries, cities involved and a side-picker like the Address Book would be a big advantage here. There are no luxury hotels listed – no Marriots or Hiltons – and that I’ll take as a negative rather than a positive – it’s great for the cash-conscious traveller but this could appeal to a wider audience with a bit of buy-in from the big names too. The app is consciously designed for the budget traveller so I guess I’m being picky – it’s still a hundred times better than hitting Google for budget accommodation.

I’d be much more inclined to use this for myself (work travel) rather than use it to book a getaway for me and the wife (leisure travel) – that’s the only caveat I would add. I’d also like a bit more information, maybe some filters, for locations that might be kid-friendly. I know that’s a little bit of an oxymoron for budget travel but when I travel it’s more likely to be with kids. Even just for finding hotels and hostels around Ireland and Northern Ireland – it’s already proved it’s worth to me.

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