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Show HN: Build live location sharing in your app with HyperTrack

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Re: Show HN: Build live location sharing in your app with HyperTrack

#31
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Maps and other map APIs are great for visuals, routes and ETAs. Where they lack is generating a battery efficient accurate location stream and mapping that to your app's workflow. Plus, map APIs are priced on the basis of number of API calls or views, both of which can lead to unpredictable cost for such a feature. For a more detailed analysis, check out our blog post: https://blog.hypertrack.com/2017/04/23/bu…

This is pretty cool - https://blog.hypertrack.com/2017/04/18/pitfalls-using-locati... Is there something in the protocol that makes it more efficient?

I'm guessing you're referring to MQTT. With smaller packet sizes it's more battery efficient than HTTP if you're making continuous network requests. Great comparison post here: http://stephendnicholas.com/posts/power-profiling-mqtt-vs-ht...

Re: Show HN: Build live location sharing in your app with HyperTrack

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its 4 cents per action. An action here is one trip which would involve multiple updates. Doesn't seem that expensive.

Right. I use doordash all the time, and pay $5 - $10 for delivery. It gives me occasional status updates on my delivery, but no real time tracking. I'd love to see this in doordash, and if it costs them $0.04 from the $5 fee it seems like a no brainer. Same for so many other similar services.

IIRC, doordash used to provide a live map a couple years back. I'm guessing they have all the data and could share it again if they desired. Presumably they have some product reason for not offering it.

Re: Show HN: Build live location sharing in your app with HyperTrack

#34
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have several large scale businesses that are paid customers and find it cheaper to use us, than build it in-house. It's about the cost of an engineer, and that's a fraction of what they will incur, ongoing operating costs notwithstanding

Businesses for whom location tracking is critical process component and not a good to have such as logistic companies or lets say food/medicine delivery companies who also already have an app deployed with their end agents, the additional cost for them to get location tracking and reporting integrated in their mobile apps is trivial and also there is no technical moat as is there in lets say messaging or SMS APIs ( l…

"... the additional cost for them to get location tracking and reporting integrated in their mobile apps is trivial..."

As a professional developer I would say that its not trivial, at least not cheap to develop. Theoretically all problems you know how to solve are trivial. Professionally you know that developing a solution that is flexible, reliable, supportable, extendible, user friendly and maintainable takes time, expertise and money to develop.

Re: Show HN: Build live location sharing in your app with HyperTrack

#36
post #17

Pricing looks way too expensive to me even for small to medium scale usage. And if my business cross the medium scale , then why wouldn't i really build it inhouse. Seem like a classic case of product looking for problem.

We have several large scale businesses that are paid customers and find it cheaper to use us, than build it in-house. It's about the cost of an engineer, and that's a fraction of what they will incur, ongoing operating costs notwithstanding

To what extent do you promise your customers that their clients' data will be both well secured and remain private?

Providing a middleman with this kind of information is a little too much trust for me to think in terms of cents per action.

Spying-as-a-Service, haha!

Re: Show HN: Build live location sharing in your app with HyperTrack

#37
post #35
post #33

What value does this add which Glympse or PathShare already don't provide?

APIs! HyperTrack is built to integrate into your existing product experience and workflows.

What do you mean by API?

Both Glympse and PathShare have fairly elaborate set of APIs on iOS and Android. Not sure I understand the distinction.

Re: Show HN: Build live location sharing in your app with HyperTrack

#38
post #37
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

APIs! HyperTrack is built to integrate into your existing product experience and workflows.

What do you mean by API? Both Glympse and PathShare have fairly elaborate set of APIs on iOS and Android. Not sure I understand the distinction.

My bad, I should have been clearer. Both Glympse and Pathshare are great products and have APIs, but their approach is not developer first. For example, Glympse has guidelines for developers to showcase Glympse branding[1], something I personally as a developer don't appreciate, especially when some of the views are consumer facing. Or the fact that Pathshare's SDKs[2] haven't been updated in more than a year, even though their app has had multiple updates recently. As a developer tool, we focus on enabling developers to build location features in their apps, with the latest and greatest of our product running silently in the background.

[1] https://developer.glympse.com/docs/core/guidelines [2] https://github.com/freshbits/pathshare-sdk-ios

Re: Show HN: Build live location sharing in your app with HyperTrack

#39
post #38
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by API? Both Glympse and PathShare have fairly elaborate set of APIs on iOS and Android. Not sure I understand the distinction.

My bad, I should have been clearer. Both Glympse and Pathshare are great products and have APIs, but their approach is not developer first. For example, Glympse has guidelines for developers to showcase Glympse branding[1], something I personally as a developer don't appreciate, especially when some of the views are consumer facing. Or the fact that Pathshare's SDKs[2] haven't been updated in more than a year, even t…

Thanks. Good luck!

Re: Show HN: Build live location sharing in your app with HyperTrack

#40

Pricing looks way too expensive to me even for small to medium scale usage. And if my business cross the medium scale , then why wouldn't i really build it inhouse. Seem like a classic case of product looking for problem.

Interesting I developed very similar application please take a look at this app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spacetime
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