I would like to invite you to try it out, it is a free download from the iTunes AppStore. Write a review, discuss the future in a Google Group Discussion and be happy using it

All future information and posts will be found on our new webpage for any projects Alex and I are going to do: buzzworks.de. He wrote a very nice introduction on the buzzworks.de blog, you should definately check it out!

I hope you’ll enjoy WorldView as much as I do coding it and also enjoy buzzworks.de.
This blog is going to be more non-locations-worldview-development-specific related again in the future, hopefully it will still be interesting for you to stop by from time to time.

Say welcome to WorldView

WorldView has been written from scratch, allowing more speed and much more functionality. It is like the YouTube application for webcams. And it has just been sent to Apple in its first flavour, the free edition, providing you access to thousands of webcams using the gorgeous service of http://webcams.travel!

The application is now also hosted on a new domain: buzzworks.de. So go there and check it out. Let’s hope the app review process will not take very long. Go Apple Go!

Pssst … hey … coding on WorldView Live has already begun….

This video is showing the upcoming free version of my first iPhone App. It will be available in the AppStore as soon as a new name is found (Locations is sadly already taken by another app) and I am happy with the quality of the app. The app will be available in English, German and French. Webcam images are provided by the great http://webcams.travel/ web service!

Watch the video after the jump.

Once this version is release, I will begin developing a “Live Edition”, which will also enable you to see live images, video stream (M-JPEG) if available, add your own webcam URLs and hopefully many more features

This is just a small teaser, more to come…

Stay tuned…

All the future versions will be provided on the AppStore (if they will get approved by Apple). Development is going on, to be a little more precise it is a complete rewrite. Completely redesigned iPhone App, completely new Server backend (yes, Locations is running its own server app for e.g. the search functionality), and completely new Administration Tool for the Server backend. So developing Locations is not a small task from the startup. Because of this I teamed up with a friend of mine and Locations will be “branded” under this new team instead of my name. More to be announced when it is time.

Feature wise we got a lot of new things to come up with. We are working very hard to give you the ultimate Webcam Viewer application for the iPhone with some fancy new ideas based on location based services topic. We hope we can implement them. In the past I got lots of requests to support live streaming webcams: Motion-JPEG support will be coming! Made it work just yesterday

Do you have ideas you would love to get implemented? Feel free to write a comment!

See you all soon on the other side again…

Use the search feature in Locations and type “Basel” to find the stadium webcam. Enjoy!

What is planned?

These are some of the features that might get implemented:

• Based on Apple SDK
• CoverFlow Support
• Image Rotation and Zooming
• Preview on Search
• Search webcams near your current location
• Sort your favorite webcams into groups or browse them in a flat list
• and some more as a surprise

What feature would you like to get implemented?

Anything important missing? What is important for you when using Locations? Any hints, ideas and wishes are welcome. Please use the comments below and help making Locations also your application!

Apple iPhone SDK?

iPhone-Ticker.de is currently doing a small survey with german iPhone developers asking them 4 questions about the iPhone SDK. See what they asked and what I answered here (in german!). The other short interviews on there are also worth it!

Locations

What does that mean for Locations? Well, I will for sure develop a version using the official SDK. But currently the SDK doesn’t provide me enough to start. But it is looking very very promissing! For me at least.

What have I been doing all the time?

Where is the next locations version? Nowhere near. Why not? Because all I did is experimenting with Coverflow (yes, it will be included) and device rotation and scaling (yes, this will be added too). But when? When it is ready!

But what am I doing right now?

I am working on another project which should be finished very soon. What is it? <whispering>Shh! Can’t tell you. Shh!</whispering> But after that one there will be time for Locations again! But when? Don’t you ever stop asking? When it is ready

Some boring numbers at last

The latest version 0.3.1 of Locations has been downloaded about 109.000 times so far. Locations users have been called the integrated search engine 644.000 times since 1st february. Got dozens of positive feedback mails. Thank you!

Locations 0.3.1 is available in STE repository which is part of the community sources available by default when installing the Installer.app. Please support Ste by donating for his hard work. Since I bought an iPod Touch especially for testing purposes, donations would also be very much appreciated!

Thank you and enjoy

Update: Sadly there are some (new) known issues with this release:

• [new]: Main “Locations” list view is too short, the last location is only visible by half
• [known but detected only now]: Search does not show any results, if the user switched on another search result page with a previous search
• [new]: Massimo reported that adding more than 7 locations manually will result in the following message: “not pointing to a valid image” (not able to confirm that one yet). Just got another report that the issue is solved after the iPod rebooted.
• [known]: Scrolling too much (in my case 99 times) in the widescreen mode crashes the app

This is in the air:

• Compatible with iPhone >= 1.0.2 (tested 1.0.2 and 1.1.3), same should go for the iPod touch
• Enhanced User Interface (e.g. smooth scrolling, but don’t scroll too fast!)
• Auto update webcam images on startup
• Save an image, send it via eMail or set it as wallpaper
• Preview a webcam in search
• Page through the search results
• Search webcams near your current location! (Might require you to run LocateMe once after each reboot before using this feature in Locations). Thanks to Erica, Saurik and Hisper!
• Performance enhancements (first run after update will take some time though!)
• lots of minor bug fixes
• A big thanks goes to three60guy for lots of testing (with 1.0.2 firmware)!

The new version 0.3.0 is available via Installer.app on STE’s repository (Thank you STE for your work and support!). Please donate to him and also to the developers of iPhone applications you use (even mine). Thank you.

Now, wanna see it? Check out the video after the break and lets here what you think in the comments…

Update: Some users seem to have issues with this release. Mostly iPod Touch 1.1.3 users, one iPhone 1.1.3 user so far. I updated my own iPhone to use ZiPhone with 1.1.3 to have a somewhat identical system to most people out there. But I cannot find anything yet. Whoever has SSH access and wants to help (instant messenger needed!), drop a note. Thank you!

Update 2: Thanks to Kai I was able to run a view test builds on an iPod Touch 1.1.3. But sadly with no result so far. I am getting segmentation fault errors out of nowhere and wasn’t able to find the reason so far. One thing I found out is, when not using threads the app was able to go further, but this is no solution since I need threads in lots of places.
Another problem found is, that if the app works and you scroll a lot (really lot) in widescreen mode, at one point the app crashes. Again, wasn’t able to find the reason yet.
I am hoping for a decent development environment from Apple with debugging possibilities…