GeoUpdater and PinPoint is now Longitude

We renamed our iPhone Geo app from GeoUpdater (boring) to Longitude.

Longitude is an iPhone app that finds your current location emails a map image of your current location. It is available on the iTunes AppStore (check it out here).

Hey, is that not already available in the standard Map app on the iPhone? Not quite! The Map app can only email a link to a google map. Longitude includes an image of the map in the email. We find that more user friendly and hope you will too.

PinPoint Me New Style Map Emailer for iPhone

jTribe has submitted a new iPhone app to the AppStore. "PinPoint Me" is part of the firepin application family. This little helper application sends a Google Map Image as an email attachment. 

Based on user feedback we re-designed the app to offer a larger map and still offer the simple "two-button" approach.

Enough talk. Here are the screen shots. If you like it please stay tuned and we will announce here once Apple has approved PinPoint Me for sales in the AppStore.
  

Getting started with PinPoint for the iPhone Address Finder

This video demonstrates PinPoint for the iPhone.

PinPoint - A simple way to send someone your current location

PinPoint is the latest addition to the FirePin family currently now on the Android platform.


It is a simple way to send someone your current location.

- PinPoint finds your current location and shows you on a map



- You select an email address from your contact list

- They receive your approximate address and a map which they can click to take them to google maps

Get it now from the Android Market Place!

An iPhone 3G app that is different

jTribe has finished its first iPhone application. It's called FirePin and is a simple iPhone app that allows a user to track trips. 

We have chosen a minimalist approach and tried to avoid things that we found annoying on other iPhone apps.

Yes it is yet another tracking app. But this one is different. This is not a hard core GPS tracking system. It is about letting other people know where you are on a trip. Sharing and protection were the key design goals of the app.

Introducing our "no sign-up"approach

When the iPhone came out I ended up with 5 new user accounts on the Internet and stopped using apps that ask me to sign-up. Our app does not required the user to sign-up. Install and use it straight away.

"no sign-up" and still protected

The location data that is send to our FirePin location store is kept anonymous. It is impossible (even for us) to conclude who has submitted locations.

Power to the iPhone user

The user can manage and control all data from the iPhone. 

1. Creating new trips, 
   
2. sharing trips with friends and family, 
   
3. accessing trip history and 
   
4. displaying trips in the iPhone Map application.

However, access through  a non-iPhone web browser is also possible and supported and offers some more advanced feature such as post-editing trips interactively in our integrated Google Maps application. 

We are using it too

The jTribe folks (who are owners of an iPhone) are using FirePin too. Our first-time users thought: "Why should I use this app?" But then we found heaps of useful things we could do with it and it became kind of addictive. 

Things to do with FirePin

1. Letting our partners know how far we away from home.
2. Sharing our holiday trips.
3. Letting coworkers know how far we away (when stuck in traffic and running late for a meeting).
4. Record outdoor activities such as running, bike riding, hiking (not swimming).
5. Mark a fishing trip and keep it for later reference.
6. Share a trip with family members so they can track you on your way to a family gathering.
   

We hope that other iPhone users find it as useful as we do.

Ah yes, and it's actually free!

Yahoo Fire Eagle vs Google Location API

Yahoo's fire eagle is bringing some movement into the location-based application and platform space. Long anticipated I got my Fire Eagle login today. So I could not wait trying it and playing around with location-based applications.

So far I was exclusively using Google Maps and Google APIs to do location tracking and Map visualization. Google Maps for mobile has it spot on in terms of providing a map of your current location. Install the app, hit a button and BAM you have a map.

I guess I have to rethink. Fire Eagle seems to go into the right direction. Although the applications that work with Fire Eagle are limited. The apps I checked out are Zonetag on my Nokia N95 and Firebot on twitter .

Unfortunately, both apps did not impress me.

Zonetag is updating my location in Fire Eagle. But when I check my location on my Fire Eagle account it is very rough (telling me that I am in Australia - yeah Australia is LAAARGE where the hell am I exactly)

Firebot on twitter was disabled due to some IM problems in twitter.

I guess Fire Eagle needs to improve its data and accuracy before it useful (in Australia).
Happy to hear from other users on the globe how Fire Eagle works for them.