The screen shot here, currently shows the selection for ‘taking’ a bicycle.

For users on iOS4, you have the option to tell the app you are ‘About to ride, time me!’. This presents a screen of all the tariff levels, just tick the levels you want to be notified at, quit the app & start riding (even if you restart your iPhone or iPod Touch these are remembered). Cycle Deluxe will warn you 5 minutes (more for longer hire times) before your reach the end of each tariff boundary & tell you what the next one will will cost. You also have the option of choosing from a range of alert sounds.

I have also made the app universal, so it works natively on the iPad (using full screen & all orientations) as well as the iPhone & iPod touch.

Features:
• Map of cycle docking stations
• Real time bike numbers & spaces
• Journey plan
• Search
• Favourites

Will be in the App Store soon. In the meantime heres some screenshots…

iPhone:

iPad:

UPDATE 11 Aug 2010: Presselite have now changed their icons for London Tube & London Bus. I am guessing their London Tube for iPad icon will change soon too.

UPDATE 16 Aug 2010: The ‘London Tube for iPad’ icon has now also been changed by Presselite. Let’s hope this is the final run in I ever have with this company.

LONDON BUS
“London Bus is the original and top selling application for getting around London.”

LONDON TUBE
“London Tube is the original and top selling application for getting around London.”

London Bus is not a top selling application nor the original. Its current position in the charts is the result of copying my icon for Tube Deluxe and rigging the rating. In Presselite’s description they say London Bus is ‘comprehensive’; it covers 26 routes of very inner city London only (even then not all of them), there are more than 750 bus routes in London. London Journey Planner & my London Bus app were out well before Presselite released their comprehensive con.

Once again yet another prime example of Presselites stupidity, lying & deceiving tactics in the iTunes App Store.

Presselite’s London Bus application was released a few days ago (using a copy of my Tube Deluxe icon). You’ll notice a very strange anomaly in the rating. Upon release the app immediately has a 5 star rating? Presselite use no less than 7 iTunes accounts under their control to immediately give 5 star ratings to their apps as soon as they appear in the app store (i.e after approval). They don’t actually write a review, because then it’s to easy to spot the accounts with same reviewer names being used across all their apps. Instead, they just give it a 5 star rating (reviewer names are not shown for just giving a rating)

Presselite take advantage of the fact that you only see the average rating for the current version in the App Store. Many users buy based purely on the name, how the icon looks and the number of stars. Never reading any reviews of the current or past versions.

Digging deeper, in iTunes on the desktop you can really see what’s happening.

Presselites London Bus application is grossly & deliberately mis-described in the store. It has received a 1 & a half star average across all it’s versions. Nearly every user has given it 1 star (the lowest possible rating).

Presselite Expolit The New Versions Rating for London Bus

So does this tactic work? Yes it does. For a brief moment (several weeks plus) the application sells a lot more. Together with the rating being rigged & Presselite’s stealing of my icon their London Bus application went from well outside the top 20 in UK Travel & rocketed up to No.10 in a matter of days.

If you wish to complain about Presselites tactics, you can do this using your iPhone, using the App Store app, go to Presselites London Bus app, from the details screen tap ‘Report a Problem’.

It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, if this is the case then I am very flattered by Presselite. For years they ripped off the Official TfL logo when they had no rights to do so. Now they have decided to rip off mine instead. My application, London Tube Deluxe has used the same logo & icon since being released on 1st Jan 2009. On the 26th of July 2010 Presselite released an update to their application with a remarkably similar one don’t you think?

Perhaps TfL finally caught up with Presselite and got them to remove the logo? Or maybe instead of putting in the effort to make their product better it’s just easier to copy my logo in a feeble attempt to gain more sales and cause market confusion.

The old 'London Tube' icon

I have chronicled the behaviour of Presselite over the years. They have done everything from making false legal claims, fake reviews against my apps, fake reviews against compeditors and now this. They even lie in their press releases, as Fast Company found out when they reviewed one of Presselites Apps.

UPDATE: Now Presselite steal my icon for another one of their apps! London Bus.

This application too used to use the official TfL bus roundel. All developers are now prohibited from using any official TfL logo’s in their apps. Because Presselite had to change theirs, they’ve just decided to steal mine instead.

UPDATE: As expected, Presselite now use a copy of my icon for their iPad App too. This is a total of 3 Apps they have copied my icon for.

Breakfast TV also paid a visit, view Cashing in on Apple’s success.

• Map
Larger & more scalable map. Retina display version for those on an iPhone 4.

• Journey Planning
Many speed & journey planning improvements. I recommend setting ‘Show Alternatives’ to OFF. Setting ‘Show Alternatives’ to ON will give more journey plan variations than before.

• VoiceOver & Status
For the visually impaired, the whole application has been extensively tested with VoiceOver. The ordering of VoiceOver announcements has been improved. A new icon has been added to the top right of the Status Details screen. This will list the disrupted stations for any part or full line closure. These features have been implemented based on direct feedback from blind users. Thank you for your suggestions, please keep them coming so I can improve Tube Deluxe.

• Bug Fixes
Station geo-location fixes & other small bug fixes.

Someone recently put to me, Apple has pulled a “corporate con” on us all. This is a very interesting analysis, it’s the same criticism that was often levelled at Microsoft in their glorious days of Windows 95; remember after that came Windows ME, Windows 98, XP…then Vista. And don’t forget all those Office upgrades!

I am moving my apps to iOS4 for a number of reasons, mostly technical, but part of my reasoning is business based.

First let me describe my business. I essentially derive my income from new sales, I can not charge for upgrades (the iTunes store doesn’t allow it) and I also can not distribute separate OS supported versions of an app (a bad idea anyway). When a user has just walked out of the Apple store with in iPhone 4 in hand, they instantly expect any App they download will have optimised graphics for that device & take advantage of everything the OS has to offer. Users who have just upgraded to iOS4 (regardless of device) also expect the same.

Now for the technical. Technically, Yes I can deliver App binaries that to a degree are backwards compatible. Others in the store do this, why can’t I? Generally the other Apps in the store are doing the bare minimum (for now), adding fast app switching & providing retina display graphics. I am taking it much further, under the hood I am using Grand Central Dispatch & Blocks for fast & manageable multi threading. In the UI London Bus now allows for the dropping & moving of a pin on the map so you can visually plan your journey by location. I plan to add many other things that are only in iOS4, users on older versions literally would not be able access or use new features, they will miss out.

The bulk of ‘i’ devices Apple has produced can run iOS4, the upgrade is free. 90-95% of my existing user base accross all my apps are on a device that can run iOS4. For me to provide endless backwards compatibility is an effort that far outweighs the reward (remember my business model). True, not all devices get all the benefits of iOS4, but Apple has clearly explained this is the case, like myself, they too can not provide endless backwards compatibility. Why users suddenly feel cheated when this well known phenomena of our industry occurs is beyond me (such logic is rarely applied in other aspects of ones life). We all hate buying something, then 2 weeks later a newer, bigger, better, brighter, faster model comes out. But the 2nd generation 3G iPhones have been out for nearly 2 years now and they can run iOS4. The 3GS, released a year ago runs iOS4 flawlessly with all features enabled.

So I don’t really care about my users then? On the contrary, I care deeply! I want them to have the best experience possible; you may not want to upgrade your OS and that’s fine, it’s your choice. But there are thousands of others that do upgrade and want to take advantage of everything their device & OS has to offer.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jul/04/technology-software-iphone-app