Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: GPS + Calendar + Traffic = always on time

needtobounce.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 36 posts

Re: Show HN: GPS + Calendar + Traffic = always on time

#11

Post by eggbrain »

My thoughts on your website (not the app, jonschwartz already covered that)

1) Nothing in (or favicon) [Looks like you have since added a title!]

2) I chuckled once I realized your app Bounce, used Unbounce as its landing page tool.

2a) That being said, I'd switch off Unbounce as quickly as possible. Unbounce free gives you only a 200 unique visitor limit, so the minute you might want to start using the A/B testing and other data (when you have a lot of traffic), you get kicked off.

3) You need a video to show this off -- before I download an app I want to know what it looks like, how it works, things like that. I know the android market link shows off a few pictures, but I think you should also have them on your website as well.

Re: Show HN: GPS + Calendar + Traffic = always on time

#12

Post by Adaptive »

jonschwartz wrote: post #2

Couple of quick thoughts after installing: 1) It appears to be continuously getting GPS data. That will kill my battery. Dead battery = I'm late anyway I may need to uninstall until this is fixed. 2) I don't need to be reminded of everything on every calendar I have access to. Have it so I can select which calendar I need to bounce for. 3) Along the same lines of 2, allow me to ignore specific events. I subscribe to…

Yeah, the GPS thing is surprising. My understanding of Android development is limited but doesn't Location Manager allow for cell/wifi location detection? I'd really like to see this with GPS as an optional or last resort fallback.

For instance, I'm here in my office and have no GPS coverage and bounce is stumped.

Neat idea, needs better execution, looking foward to updates.

EDIT: One other point of feedback. I have an appointment at the Panama Hotel in Seattle. That appointment shows up in Calendar and maps figured out the location without a problem, but Bounce thinks I'm going to Panama. The republic. Is there any way to pull this from Maps?

Re: Show HN: GPS + Calendar + Traffic = always on time

#13

Post by justinwi »

schiffern wrote: post #4

Great concept. I would love to see a video demonstration on the landing page. How easy is it to use? How much data entry does it take? How does it determine where my calendar events are geographically? What if I put "Building 51, Room 4115"? Can it learn where that is? As I said, it's a great concept. I just need a little more before I take the plunge.

Good call. We'll start working on a video shortly.

We use some rudimentary location lookup APIs now, but hope to improve them going forward. We should have place lookups soon (e.g. starbucks, etc.) but places that don't show up on Google maps searches probably won't work.

Thanks for the feedback.

Re: Show HN: GPS + Calendar + Traffic = always on time

#14

Post by justinwi »

Adaptive wrote: post #12
jonschwartz wrote: post #2

Couple of quick thoughts after installing: 1) It appears to be continuously getting GPS data. That will kill my battery. Dead battery = I'm late anyway I may need to uninstall until this is fixed. 2) I don't need to be reminded of everything on every calendar I have access to. Have it so I can select which calendar I need to bounce for. 3) Along the same lines of 2, allow me to ignore specific events. I subscribe to…

Yeah, the GPS thing is surprising. My understanding of Android development is limited but doesn't Location Manager allow for cell/wifi location detection? I'd really like to see this with GPS as an optional or last resort fallback. For instance, I'm here in my office and have no GPS coverage and bounce is stumped. Neat idea, needs better execution, looking foward to updates. EDIT: One other point of feedback. I have…

Thanks for the feedback. It should get your location from the network if GPS isn't working. Will look into it.

Yeah, place lookups are really rough now - that's really high on our priority list. Forthcoming version versions will be much better.

Thanks again.

Re: Show HN: GPS + Calendar + Traffic = always on time

#15

Post by justinwi »

eggbrain wrote: post #11

My thoughts on your website (not the app, jonschwartz already covered that) 1) Nothing in (or favicon) [Looks like you have since added a title!] 2) I chuckled once I realized your app Bounce, used Unbounce as its landing page tool. 2a) That being said, I'd switch off Unbounce as quickly as possible. Unbounce free gives you only a 200 unique visitor limit, so the minute you might want to start using the A/B testing a…

Thanks a ton for the issue. Fixed. Video forthcoming!

Re unbounce, yeah we'll build our own site shortly.

Thanks again!

Re: Show HN: GPS + Calendar + Traffic = always on time

#16

Post by jonschwartz »

justinwi wrote: post #10
jonschwartz wrote: post #2

Couple of quick thoughts after installing: 1) It appears to be continuously getting GPS data. That will kill my battery. Dead battery = I'm late anyway I may need to uninstall until this is fixed. 2) I don't need to be reminded of everything on every calendar I have access to. Have it so I can select which calendar I need to bounce for. 3) Along the same lines of 2, allow me to ignore specific events. I subscribe to…

Big thanks for the feedback Jon. 1. Bounce doesn't actually (at least it isn't supposed to) use your GPS all the time. It should poll for updates every 30 minutes until it gets closer to when you need to leave, then we ask for updates the closer we get to your "Bounce time." 2. Yeah, we'll make it smarter so you can customize which events it notifies you for and which it doesn't. Thanks again.

Sure thing.

1) Hmmm is there some sort of timeout if it can't get the location via GPS? I'm in a room with no sky view so it can't effectively get the location via GPS. It seems to me like it never gives up if it can't find the location (maybe I'm wrong, that's just a guess).

2) It'll be way more awesome when you can do that.

Keep up the good work!

Re: Show HN: GPS + Calendar + Traffic = always on time

#17

Post by Adaptive »

justinwi wrote: post #14
Adaptive wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the GPS thing is surprising. My understanding of Android development is limited but doesn't Location Manager allow for cell/wifi location detection? I'd really like to see this with GPS as an optional or last resort fallback. For instance, I'm here in my office and have no GPS coverage and bounce is stumped. Neat idea, needs better execution, looking foward to updates. EDIT: One other point of feedback. I have…

Thanks for the feedback. It should get your location from the network if GPS isn't working. Will look into it. Yeah, place lookups are really rough now - that's really high on our priority list. Forthcoming version versions will be much better. Thanks again.

Props for dealing with the feedback in this thread so quickly and sorry for turning HN into a low fidelity bug tracker. I promise to submit future bug reports in a more useful manner.

Fwiw, folks, this is staying on my phone. One of the great things about the android marketplace is I can expect this will be updated sooner rather than later.

Re: Show HN: GPS + Calendar + Traffic = always on time

#18

Post by justinwi »

jonschwartz wrote: post #16
justinwi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big thanks for the feedback Jon. 1. Bounce doesn't actually (at least it isn't supposed to) use your GPS all the time. It should poll for updates every 30 minutes until it gets closer to when you need to leave, then we ask for updates the closer we get to your "Bounce time." 2. Yeah, we'll make it smarter so you can customize which events it notifies you for and which it doesn't. Thanks again.

Sure thing. 1) Hmmm is there some sort of timeout if it can't get the location via GPS? I'm in a room with no sky view so it can't effectively get the location via GPS. It seems to me like it never gives up if it can't find the location (maybe I'm wrong, that's just a guess). 2) It'll be way more awesome when you can do that. Keep up the good work!

We'll try it out in a place where we can't get a GPS signal make it better. Thanks again.

Re: Show HN: GPS + Calendar + Traffic = always on time

#20

Post by ynniv »

Thought of this one a while ago. Some of my thoughts:

- How will you know where I am? It would be expensive to run my phone's GPS continuously to figure this out.

- My car might not be immediately available. The time it takes to get to the car will have little or nothing to do with my GPS distance from it.

- Parking can take a significant amount of time.

- Traffic estimates are often wrong, sometimes greatly underestimating travel time. Being late is much worse than being early, but this is appointment dependent.

Looking forward to more details!

Post reply on HN