I am going to be bringing the offline planner back?

No.

Are you £^&*@!©? insane, can you not read the 1 star reviews?!
Sanity is debatable, but I can certainly read the reviews & have done so. My wife gave up reading them years ago; she has seen first hand the 8 months plus of solid effort that has gone into Tube Deluxe, the reviews upset her too much. I am OK with brutal (but constructive) criticism, for those who have worked with me I can be very blunt when it comes to pursuing apps & solutions that shine.

1 star reviews are not always a true picture of the value & quality of an app. There is little incentive to leave to leave good reviews, but every incentive to leave ‘punishing’ 1 star reviews when one does not like a particular change (more on that soon). Of course one could say, well that is just a convenient line to pull out when you want to put your head in the sand & not listen to users. Not true. I do listen users. And the previous planner had its issues too.

Damned if I do, damned if I don’t
Besides the app store, I get a lot of email. I try my best to respond to it all but between that, my corporate life & house renovation it’s not always timely or possible. I have had many a dissatisfied email when the offline planner did not work for someone; one person even wanted me to refund an entire days go-karting because they missed a train connection due to a line closure that did not get reflected in the app at the time.

The app was stagnating. The time & effort to implement even minor improvements in the offline engine was going to be enormous. To keep up with the constant closures (and ability to successfully route around them) Tube Deluxe required updates. Implementing a process to keep these changes in sync (by way of updating the directed path graph that the routing algorithm uses) could have been a solution. But then still no guarantee one would update such changes or that they could even get the changes (i.e they are underground). We are right back where we started with the same problems.

Contrary to what someone reviewers think, I am not out to ruin their lives and take their first born whilst charging them 69p for the privilege. When compared to my other app London Travel Deluxe & the feed back I have received over the years I sincerely believe that Tube Deluxe is better off with an online journey planner, the TfL one.

45% of the Tube is Underground
Yes, I am well aware that a large and central part of the Tube Network is underground and has no cellular network signal to speak of. I have spent 5 years of my life using the Tube on an almost daily basis and can conform there is indeed no network signal down there. This will eventually change as Wi-Fi access is rolled out across the Underground, but this is not why I adopted the online planner, although having Wi-Fi access at stations will be immensely beneficial.

Journey plans you have previously made in Tube Deluxe 6 are automatically saved & are always available offline (i.e underground) in Plan > History. No internet connection required.

Journey Planning
What we are fundamentally getting down to here is how people or more specifically how some people ‘expect’ to use the app and for those expectations to always be met. Let us examine a couple of scenarios…

I am at Chancery Lane station and we all just got kicked off because the line has gone part suspended ahead. Even though the old version of Tube Deluxe could give you a plan underground, because you would not have received those status updates yet it will offer no logical or possible alternative. You are left to go above ground and then armed with new status updates decide which station you should actually journey plan from, is it Holborn or Farringdon? Totally dependant on where you are going, but you’ll have to work this out yourself. It might even be faster to take a bus to another Underground station or perhaps a train from Farringdon.

I am travelling from Queensway to London City Airport, WTF! With suitcases in tow…Tube Deluxe just told me to take the Central from Queensway to Bank then the DLR. I get there & Queensway is closed due to overrunning engineering works. The old version of tube Deluxe could never account for station closures like this. Many a time it blissfully sent people to very temporary station closures. I am not making this up, because this is exactly what happened last week when Queensway was closed in morning rush hour due to overrunning engineering works. The new version of Tube Deluxe seamlessly accounted for this and suggested credible alternative journey plans. TfL have teams of people ensuring that real-time disruptions are reflected in their journey planner.

At first glade, looks like the journey planner has got this well wrong. The Central goes to Queensbury, why is it telling me to get out Lancaster Gate?

Here's why, at the time this plan was made Queensbury station was closed. This is the power of the online planner, it's always up to date.

There are a small subset of users that use or want to use the app exclusively underground, they get to the station, descend, then plan. Most of the time it’s all good, they do not encounter the scenarios described above. I no longer support this use case, does it really justify an entire review of the app of 1 star? It’s hardly objective is it? I have been accused of hubris for now telling people how they should use the app to get around London. Planning before you depart can save you a world of pain & time wasting getting you to where you want to go with the minimum of fuss; TfL heavily promote that you pre-plan your journey are they just as arrogant too?

Besides the Olympics the London has years upon years of planned & unplanned disruptions ahead, added capacity is almost immediately consumed and the network is in a constant state of flux. Behind the scenes, journey planning is actually an extremely complex business. I don’t expect people to understand the intricacies of directed path greedy routing algorithms or scheduled interchanges vs crossing service interchanges, but Tube Deluxe does. If one can take that leap of faith; there’s no stopping you easily, quickly & accurately getting to all manner of random places in Greater London.

Pros vs Cons
Lets say you take my advice on board. There is one use case where the old app could give you a journey plan and new can not; that is when you are underground, getting kicked off a train because of a closure whilst in transit and you can take another line. I have no simple answer or defence other than when you consider the rare times this happens (and you can easily take another logical line) the pros of having a far more complete, reliable & powerful journey planner far outweigh the con of requiring an internet connection to get that journey plan.

I just want a simple planner!
Some have mentioned in reviews that they just want a simple planner & miss the clear itinerary line with changes and that Tube Deluxe is no longer what they paid for. Tube Deluxe still does what it has always promised to do but admittedly for some it’s not as simple as it once was, others love the richer journey plans (that are also better for people with visual impairments too). Again another thing I weighed up against benefits of being more accurate; the line itinerary design does not work when it comes to displaying multi-modal journey plans with potential service alternatives for each leg. Apps may not be everything you want forever.

I can not please everyone
As the saying goes…you can please some people some of the time, but not all people all of the time. Prior to version 6, one review I read said I should have been removed from the app store for my lack of updates (in particular the map), then I do an update and a get 1 stars for the changes people dislike without any thought to the 1 months development work I put in for all the other features. Tube Deluxe has 150,000 active users, gets launched 50,000 times a day, has sold nearly half million copies and has done 1 million in update downloads. Haters have got to hate, but the way some reviews are written you’d swear they think they are the only person using the app. Some people are indoctrinated in the youtube comment culture and enjoy leaving self-gratifying 1 star reviews without a care or thought that a human being on the other side actually put a lot of work & thought into what they are supposed to be ‘reviewing’. Here’s the part I loathe about app store reviews, I as a developer have no right of reply feature, many reviews are not reviews, they are complaints or support issues.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not against one star reviews, however they should at least be objective & constructive. Some just simply leave 1 star reviews in protest, fair enough, vote noted.

Just as a I can not please everyone, I certainly don’t expect all to agree with me, time will tell as whether I made a good product decision or not. But for the time being I can tell you, the online journey planner is here to stay.

Q&A (please note some of this is repeated from my previous posting)

Q. Will you make the older version available under another name? Or something? I want the offline planner back!
A. I have no plans to do this. Releasing another version puts me back in the same support problem I have now and also continues the pain I see every week relating to the offline planner…stations closing, network disruptions, nuances in opening times, exits only, entry only, surprise! I am not stopping here…the list goes on.

Q. Why don’t you keep the offline planner and then switch based on network availability?
A. This is something I deeply contemplated and I have previously written about the merging of Tube Deluxe & Travel Deluxe (formerly London Bus)http://mbarclay.net/2009/08/08/will-i-merge-deluxe-london-bus/

I am still of the same opinion that trying to wield these engines together is more trouble than is worth, you get back into the same old situation and limitations of the existing app. As you become used to the online planner (I hit current location almost by default when starting a plan) you’ll find that many of your planning requirements are not Underground station to Underground station. Or that’s it’s simply easier to use current location & a postcode, especially when travelling to an unfamiliar area and have no idea of the closest station, this a great way to find out how much walking there is or how close you can get using the Tube.

More often than not the planner will simply not be able to give you a plan.

Q. Why can’t you show journey plans using the line colours like you had before?
A. Journey plans may take in more than just the Tube e.g buses, trains & river services, potentially with a choice of multiple services (i.e different bus routes to the same stop). The line view design does not work well for this. The way journey plans are displayed now are also better for people with visual impairments, I even provided more enhance views to make it work better with VoiceOver.

Q. Why can I not get the highlight circles (show on map) on the map for a journey plan?
A. Essentially the same answer as above.

Q. Why don’t you do some big download thing, so the app will still work offline.
A. To big, complex & slow. There are over 20 million possible combinations when you consider all services across Greater London. The iPhone is not the place to be doing those calculations.

I am taking Tube Deluxe in a new direction, essentially all the best features of London Travel Deluxe, Tube Deluxe and some new ones are being merged into one single glorious application. I have thought about this for over 5 months, toyed with UI’s, demo code, feature sets and asked what others think. It may not be to everyone’s liking but there are some fundamental changes in version 6…

iPad
Tube Deluxe is now native on the iPad with an optimised UI and will support the iPad 3 retina display.

Journey Planning
The existing offline journey planner in Tube Deluxe is getting dropped. I believe it has seen out it’s greater usefulness. For those familiar with Travel Deluxe, you’ll see it’s exactly the same interface & engine (powered by TfL’s real-time journey planner). The offline engine has so many limitations that the inconvenience of not being able to get a journey plan without an internet connection is far out weighed by the benefits of being able to integrate directly into the TfL engine (I could fill an entire blog posting on this alone). Plans are then saved in History so you can easily refer to them when underground.

Maps
The non-zone map has been dropped and the zonal one is in it’s place. Finally bowed to user pressure & requests on that one I have also included all line maps (these are the same as the ones you see in carriages), the extended oyster rail stations, DLR, DLR rail connections, Overground & Tramlink maps. I have put a development system & process in place so that map updates are quicker for me to get out (users will be the judge & jury on that the next time the map changes).

Closures
Weekend closures have been broken out into their own section, redeveloped and renamed to ‘Closures’. The interface is that of the familiar status one that has been loved by users for nearly 4 years. You can also look up planned closures by date (up to 28 days in advance).

Timetables
Timetables have been around in both Tube & Travel Deluxe for sometime but were buried in maps or other accessory buttons. Timetables are now in their own section and you can look up the scheduled times for all Underground stations and virtually every other rail station, bus & tram stop in Greater London.

Routes
750+ bus route details are included, a very popular feature from Travel Deluxe.

So much more…
UI & VoiceOver enhancements, bug fixes and a plethora of new & redeveloped code.

Some anticipated Q&A…

Q. What will happen to London Travel Deluxe?
A. It will be discontinued once a location bug fix (presently with Apple) has been released. The app will still work for those that want to keep it. But I will not be releasing any further updates to it.

Q. What about Tube Deluxe Pro?
A. Essentially the same answer as above, it will be discontinued. I am focusing my scarce time on having one good universal (iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad) travel app for Greater London.

Q. What about NextBuses?
A. That’s staying and I am working on the next version of this. To incorporate real-time data for London buses.

Q. What about real-time bus information? Will this be in Tube Deluxe?
A. Yes. But will be in a future version & maybe a separate app.

Q. Will you make the older version available under another name? Or something? I want the offline planner back!
A. Sorry, I have no plans to do this. Releasing another version puts me back in the same support problem I have now and also continues the pain I see every week relating to the offline planner…stations closing, network disruptions, nuances in opening times, exits only, entry only, surprise! I am not stopping here…the list goes on.

Q. Why don’t you keep the offline planner and then switch based on network availability?
A. This is something I deeply contemplated and I have previously written about the merging of Tube Deluxe & Travel Deluxe (formerly London Bus) http://mbarclay.net/2009/08/08/will-i-merge-deluxe-london-bus/

I am still of the same opinion that trying to wield these engines together is more trouble than is worth, you get back into the same old situation and limitations of the existing app. As you become used to the online planner (I hit current location almost by default when starting a plan) you’ll find that many of your planning requirements are not Underground station to Underground station. Or that’s it’s simply easier to use current location & a postcode, especially when travelling to an unfamiliar area and have no idea of the closest station, this a great way to find out how much walking there is or how close you can get using the Tube.

More often than not the planner will simply not be able to give you a plan.

It has been mentioned that some prefer to plan on the platform once Underground. This is something I strongly discourage, taking a minute to check before descending into the Tube can save you a world of torment. Or plan it lightning fast on your Wi-Fi before leaving the house/work and use the History section.

But…but…I always know the stations I am travelling between & they are on the Underground. Well if you know this and you still must insist on planning this offline, do you really need the app to give you a journey plan? We are getting into diminishing use cases here.

OK what about iPod touch users? How are you going to explain your way out of this? I am not, iPod touch users make up a few percent of the user base (the app is of course fully functioning on Wi-Fi for them). At the end of the day this is a product decision, and I could be proved wrong with taking the app in this direction (I do worry about it’s size, about 32Mb, thus can not be downloaded over a cellular connection), but there are other apps out there that do have offline planners.

Q. I purchased Travel Deluxe & do not have Tube Deluxe, why are you punishing me?
A. Eventually Travel Deluxe along with Tube Deluxe Pro will be removed from the app store and will no longer be available for download or updates. It was a tough call as whether I put all efforts into Tube or Travel Deluxe; Tube Deluxe was on the scene first & more people have it, and in many cases both. I am sorry I can not continue all apps but unfortunately I have limited time & due to the complexity of the apps updates were definitely starting to slip.

Tube Deluxe 6 is in the final stages of testing…big changes afoot, more on this next week.

2 star review for NextBuses for not working on iOS5

1 star review for Agant's UK Train Times not working in iOS5

I’m not out to demonise individuals, which is why I have blanked out the user names. However, I do want to highlight why leaving reviews like this is utterly misguided and what it means to install beta releases of iOS.

Firstly. The review system is not for leaving bug or support related questions, for example, ‘How do I add a favourite?’ or ‘Your app just crashes’. Users are much better off emailing the developer in question so they can help resolve the problem. By all means if they don’t respond, tell people in reviews. All too often I see support issues in the review system. Developers have no way whatsoever to respond to these, both sides loose out when support problems end up as 1 star reviews. Dev’s get a bad rep & have no idea how to reproduce the problem and the user still has no way to resolve the issue.

Secondly. I can understand users are very eager to get their hands on the latest & greatest iOS shown off at WWDC. So they sign up for developer accounts for £59…with a few clicks, an alternative restore through iTunes, voilà, latest iOS is installed on your shinny iPhone. Problem is, this is beta software and there’s a very good reason it’s called beta software. It’s not finished.

Downloading & installing beta versions of iOS is akin to moving into a near-new house with missing windows, no carpet & some furnishing. In other words, it’s a building site. If you don’t understand this distinction, then you have no business installing it. You may not even be able to roll back to a prior iOS because of the firmware (software written directly to internal chip-sets) updates that will occur. You could brick your phone.

Right now…iOS5 eats battery life, transition animations need optimisation and many applications (including Apple ones) will crash. Through no fault of the developer, some third party apps will not work at all, we are not clairvoyant. There is no point in dev’s releasing fixes for these issues yet because this is just beta 1, there could be 6 or more beta rounds to go. All the while these problems will be ironed out (by Apple, dev’s or both), altered or maybe even others introduced. The end goal of this process is to release a stable iOS, along with working & performant applications that we are all happy with.

Update: Gary from A4cwsn does a through & impartial review of Red The Robot (video)

I very rarely accept joint venture proposals; but sometimes the people you meet, the idea & content is just so compelling, it far outweighs the mine field of JV’s.

Red helps out with some programming.

Red The Robot® from IGS is a character that motivates and encourages children (3+) on every level to get involved with phonics, sounds & reading through simple cards & stories. It’s a reasonably straight forward application focused squarely on the task at hand; having fun & learning. Definitely a case of less is more.

The app plays sounds and asks questions, “Can you find a picture that fits this sound” (Fire engine sound plays) is just one of the many examples & learning aspects in the product. It lends itself particularly well to the iPad.

This is just the beginning for Red The Robot on iOS, more cards, stories, apps & updates are planned.

You didn't heed the deprecation warning correctly did you?

My recent update of Tube Status unleashed some savage reviews & angry users and I was at a loss to explain why it had all gone horribly wrong for some but not others. Turns out I’d been tripped up by the simple deprecation of static property in the iAds framework…I am now in deprecation purgatory whilst the fixed version is in approval again (update: Apple turned the approval around in less than 24 hours, very impressive!).

iAds was introduced in iOS4 and later updated in iOS4.2, probably for iPad. The property

ADBannerContentSizeIdentifier320x50

was introduced in iOS4 then quickly deprecated in 4.2, being replaced by

ADBannerContentSizeIdentifierPortrait

All very pedestrian and makes perfect sense. I had decided that Tube Status would move to iOS4 for a number of reasons, but because I am not completely evil I also decided the minimum iOS version you could run Tube Status 3.0 on would be iOS4.0. I set the Base SDK = iOS4.2 and the iOS Deployment Target = 4.0.

At some point during development, playing around with the deployment target I discovered ADBannerContentSizeIdentifier320x50 was now a deprecated property.

No worries, quick read of the docs confirmed this and in my case the property to use now is ADBannerContentSizeIdentifierPortrait, find, replace move on to something more interesting. Spot the problem? For users on iOS4.0 & 4.1 I have just introduced a property for them that literally doesn’t exist in the iAds framework they have installed, result is an ugly crash. I must be stupid yes? Maybe, but stupidity aside one is not warned of this potential problem in Xcode, remember my build settings:

Base SDK = iOS4.2

iOS Deployment Target = 4.0

iOS4 & 4.1 users were angry

And I have used ADBannerContentSizeIdentifierPortrait (a version 4.2 property). As far as Xcode is concerned it doesn’t seem to evaluate starting properties against your minimum deployment target (irrespective of whether the framework is weak linked or not). No warning is given.

The moral of the story is that had I tested on any 4.0 or 4.1 device I would have discovered the problem well before shipping. 20 other people also tested before release and it flew through Apples approval process as well. Which goes to show how easy something like this can slip through and why testing on the minimum & latest deployment target is a must.

1. On the device
2. In iTunes

ON THE DEVICE

Go to “Settings > General > About > Version“. This is the main “Settings” (grey icon with cogs) app on your home screen.

IN ITUNES
Plug the device into iTunes. Select it and from the “Summary” screen you will see the current ‘Software Version’ installed. Click ‘Check for Update‘ to upgrade your device to the next available software version (iOS).

Tube Status now includes the latest real-time departure boards that TfL recently made available on Microsoft’s Azure cloud service. In fact all of my other apps showing departure boards (Tube Deluxe & Tube Boards) have been moved across to this web service, they have been happily hammering the service with 100′s of thousands of requests a day. More departures are also available, I now show departures into the next 30 minutes for tube stations.

Some screenshots…

Although the TrackerNet feed came online about 6 months ago and had to be promptly shut down due to load. These problems have been well & truly solved now; Microsoft have dropped in an industrial strength cache in front of the operational systems and you can now easily access all this data for free.

I am told this is just the beginning. The system is modular, TfL plan to bring a full blown Journey Planning API online next year as well. Who know’s maybe iBus will follow on from this too? But no firm announcements on that yet.

This is ground breaking for open data & public transport in the UK & very forward thinking of TfL. Now that the data will be easy to access, we can expect to see some creative & useful applications across many devices & the web.

I think there’s a lot the dev community can contribute back too, for example interesting data sets & other services.

(P.S You need to to sign up as a developer to get access to the feeds)