New Biking Android App

AndyCr15

AndyCr15

AndyCr15

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Joined
28 Apr 2011
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Barnet, London
Over the last couple of months I've been learning to program. I've made a couple of Android apps so far and now I'm moving on to a biking app.

My vision of it is it will be useful for ride outs. You make a group with your fellow riders and for a set amount of time you can all see where each other are. (Well, those that have Android phones will) I was thinking there would be a group chat and a big red emergency button, for a worst case scenario. (Not entirely sure what this will do, definitely give notifications to the others, possible text someone and maybe show results for nearest hospitals or mechanics.)

At the moment it just has 'Biker hotspots' built into a favourites list and also all UK tracks, both listed by what's nearest to your location at the time.

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I'm looking for a few things, hence the post.

1) Ideas for what else could go into it. (Remembering I'm quite the noob, so might not have a clue how to do lots of things)

2) More Biker Hotspot areas. I do have a few more than are in the screenshot now, but still only around 9.

3) Alpha/Beta testers. I am only just starting the app and my knowledge is still really limited, so progress could be slow, but at the same time, I'm sinking quite a lot of time into my coding at the moment. At this point I have no idea how to share locations and such, but having said that, a lot of things I didn't know how to do, turned out to be quite easy when I got that far in my courses!

If you can help with any of the three above requests, please let me know.

At present I set the app to be £1.99, but mainly only because if you start free, there's apparently no going back. I can start paid and go to ad driven (quite likely) if I prefer. I guess I need to decide before I take it out of beta.

For now, I have sale set to start tomorrow so it would be free for 7 days. By request, I can send invite links.
 
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Yeah, good ideas. Hadn't thought of the rating of places.

I was hoping for a way to automate searching through POI, such as Hospitals or garages, but it might need to be user driven. Maybe a 'submit info' type thing and when there are at least 2 (or more) matching submissions, it gets added. Again, I'd love to automate that, don't know how likely it is.
 
Diddums said:
Ride recording might be good as well as fuel consumption. You could also add a weather system, dunno how you'd link to a weather site though. Maybe a maintenance diary?
Click to expand...

Awesome idea with the weather. Really just a rain warning would probably be enough? Well, maybe just basic weather for the next few hours. I think I can do that with what I know now... maybe... it's relatively easy to read weather info from sites offering it up.

Fuel consumption is another great idea! Again, fairly simple logging miles, litres and price. A few bits of maths to keep a running total of miles and mpg. I can definitely do that with what I know now.

Route recording/logging is a bit harder.

Maintenance log/diary fairly easy I think. Maybe MOT and service reminders too?

Jeez, you've just given me about a months work!!! I love it though :) Thanks.
 
Kreeeee said:
Don't record average speed or time on the logging.
Click to expand...

No, of course.

Diddums said:
Download Fuelly for some inspiration on the fuel side. As for ride tracking, pretty sure GPS can do that? I honestly have no clue, just thinking out loud.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I use Fuelly. I did have a quick look to see if they have an API. Lots of talk of one, but it doesn't look like it. I would have just had my app link in to Fuelly.

So the link is - https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.androidandyuk.bikersbestfriend It's free this week, but I think you need to let me know your gmail address, so I can add you to testing.

I know there's not much there now, but if you get it now, as it grows, you could give me feedback :)
 
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Fueling added, although I'll need to adjust it as the next thing I want to put in is adding bikes (plural) and you'll need to be able to log different things to each bike. Shouldn't be too hard.

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Weather is also added, in a simple form at the bottom of the page. At the moment it just shows London, but the API allows it by Latitude/Longitude and that should be quite simple to add in.

I was thinking of using a lookup service when you add a bike. Enter your reg and it populates info. Would be quite cool, but will cost 10p per lookup. I know that's nothing, but I think £100 is the first batch price. Don't know it's worth it when the user can easily enter the info themselves...

Oh, and the adding an apostrohpy looks to be harder than I thought! As you can see, the main page it worked, but as I edit some other xml, it just gives me errors. Must be possible, but I guess I need to find the right format of it.
 
I would say it's fairly functional now. I'd appreciate anyone fancies giving it a go and giving some feedback - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.androidandyuk.bikersbestfriend

I would say, if you use it at this point, there's a reasonable chance you might need to reset data with an update, if I add something that needs saving through the application being killed. I think I have it mostly in there now though.

Aside the rideout element, I only really need to implement the MOT and service reminders, but would love some more ideas of what could be added.
 
Yeah, funnily enough I'd thought about tyre pressures and owner manuals myself yesterday. I think it could be quite tricky to match up whatever bike the user enters to the manual, unless you're picking your own bike out from a list, rather than entering details.

I did wonder about a 'Buying' section. It could link/search popular buying sites and have a vehicle look up option, but this would cost me money. For £120 I could get 2000 vehicle look ups. Maybe with enough users to use 2000 lookups I'm covering my costs, or maybe I force the user through a full screen advert for each look up? This section could also have a hints and tips/things to look out for when buying second hand.
 
If always thought, if it did contact someone automatically you would have a 30 send timer to cancel it, for occasions like dropping your phone. I hadn't intend to go the automatic route though, just notify your riding group.

Thanks for the other comments. Maybe I'll trim down the ads. They've never really bothered me, aside the ones that take over your whole screen.
 
Thanks, can you see the app here - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.androidandyuk.bikersbestfriend

I think I've now set it to open beta (or alpha).

I've not done much to it for about a week, was just finishing off my other app. I've recently started work on the MOT and Service dates and reminders, probably just if you open the app, you'll get one reminder if within a month of your MOT or Service. At some point I'll perhaps learn how to send the reminder without the app being opened.

**EDIT** I've also removed some of the ads, but I might not have recompiled and submitted recently, so it might happen in my next update.
 
Great, thanks. I've been working on it this afternoon. I'll try and release an update this evening, so maybe wait for that to come through :)
 
Well that took longer than I thought! Update has been submitted, so should come through in an hour or two.

You can now change dates of fuel and maintenance logs though and it will warn you when getting close to MOT or Service time.

It makes fairly simple guesses at next MOT or Service time, based upon when your last log with an MOT or Service checked was. (Generally a year on from the last)
 
Thanks for installing :) Hmm, I can't get mine to crash doing that on my phone? So you have the keyboard up, typing in the reg, but then tap MOT due date and it crashes? Does it do this every time?

If you enter the reg, back out to main menu or forward to maintenance (this is when it saves bike details) and then set MOT, is it fine?

The only crash I've noticed on my Pixel XL is sometimes opening the app. Oddly, I then open it again and it's fine. Doesn't happen in my emulator, so harder to debug.

Please do give feedback though. I've put a few hours into making it look a little nicer the last couple of days and I'm quite pleased with it at the moment :)

Do you get any other crashes? I'm thinking of posting about it in one or two biker groups/forums I'm in, to get more testers, but would like to know if there are any other crashes first. I've used it a bit and it seems stable enough.
 
The other ones aren't clickable. Est Milage is worked out once you've entered a mileage either at a fuel log or maintenance log. It keeps track of how many miles you then do (through your fuel logs). MPG comes from your fuel logs and maintenance costs come from maintenance logs.

What version of Android is your OP3? I can only assume it's my date picker needs a newer version of Android? But usually it wouldn't let you install if I have something that you can't use.

The whole dates thing is annoying as I think it needs Nougat. That'll cut down on users! I'll have to look into a different way for earlier versions to enter the date. Nice catch. Thanks.
 
Oh. That's odd. It should work fine then?

I wouldn't particularly expect anyone to go to this trouble, but if you fancy having a tinker, you could try and get me a logcat. Like I say, don't worry if it's a pain, but if you've used adb before, it would be helpful to send me what happens when it crashes :) (This is also a good guide, but a bit old, so maybe find new file versions :) )

**EDIT** How about tapping the date when adding a fuel log or maintenance log? I assume that crashes it too?
 
No worries. I've just released an update which I think will prompt you to mail me the logcats on crash, or by pressing a button on the main menu. We'll see if that works :)
 
Unfortunately you do. For now. As you might see, I'm new to all this and just merrily added libraries as and when it said I needed them, not really thinking about ways around the ones that need newer API's. I think the use of dates and calendars is the issue, needing API 24 (Nougat 7.0).

I'll try and have a look tonight at how deep the need is and I'll post here with an update later.

I've just released another update to the Store, which should log in Google's own Firebase the crash code, so Loopy, once updated, please feel free to make it crash :) Thanks.
 
Ha ha, great, thanks. Tbh, wait for the update I just submitted as the calendar function is now handled by a different library. Maybe it will help? (I'm aware I don't want to be pushing through too many updates, but this is quite a big one...)

I feel like I made some great progress, even just in the last two hours. Not only did I iron out a couple of bugs that had been... bugging me, but I've now made the app work all the way back to Lollipop! So instead of just 7% of users, it's available to around 70%! (Sorry @ClownShoes if I just took your reason for an update away!)

I'll take a quick nosy now for your crash log, but maybe wait an hour or so for the update to come though and try again.

**EDIT** I can see a few crash logs that look to point to the code I changed just now, so lets hope the new code works better :)
 
Thanks. This crash reporting is very useful. Already squashed a couple more bugs, thanks for the help guys :)

I wont do an update just yet though, will wait to see what else comes through.
 
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