PROJECTS
ADV Speedo
iTunes App Store Link
ADV Speedo has been our primary project of late. This app arose out of need. During a recent motorcycle trip, we discovered that no app clearly met the need of providing the adventure traveler a simple speedometer that would be easily visible both day and night and would provide the adventurer the ability to make all setting changes while wearing gloves. Another issue often experienced by adventurers is screens that "flip" during rough use. ADV Speedo solves all of these problems. The screen rotation is locked to prevent the odd "flip" during use, and all changes that a user might want to make can be made with simple gesturers directly on the screen without ANY menus or buttons. Simple. That's what we wanted with ADV Speedo, and that's what the app delivers.
The interface of the app uses no menus that could distract the user or be difficult to set while in use. Instead, the app uses simple “gestures” on the screen to make all app adjustments. The gestures used in the app are:
— Swipe right in the middle of the display to change background colors.
— Swipe left on the display to exchange foreground and background colors.
— Swipe down to lower screen brightness.
— Swipe up to increase screen brightness.
— Press and hold to switch between US and Metric readouts.
— Tap three times to reset the odometer to zero.
— Place two fingers down and "twist" to flip the screen upside down.
We considered screen brightness a safety issue and felt it important to give the user the ability to adjust the screen brightness from within the app. We've done this within the app so that you don't have to dig through the phone’s system settings to make needed adjustments. The device’s brightness is recorded when the user enters ADV Speedo, and that entry brightness is returned when the user either backgrounds or terminates the app. Within the app, you simply swipe up or down to lower the screen brightness while the app is in use.
We also designed ADV Speedo so that it could be used for navigation day or night. With simple left and right swipes, you can change background colors or switch between foreground and background colors that best fit your current needs. The black background is much easier to see in the dark and, when used in combination with the screen brightness adjustments, provides the user with a broad range of light settings to allow the app to adapt to the user’s needs day or night.
Applications that are designed to support all device orientations (portrait and landscape) have a tendency to “flip” the display when the phone is used in very rough terrain. We coded ADV Speedo to display only in landscape mode both for safety reason and to avoid the random screen “flip” while in use. We added a “twirl” gesture (two fingers down on the screen, and “twist”) to allow the flipping of the display into the opposite landscape display mode. Once the display is flipped to the other landscape orientation, ADV Speedo then locks the display in that landscape setting.
We have added an odometer to ADV Speedo for those adventurers who need a basic mileage readout. Tapping three times on the screen will reset the odometer to zero. The odometer stops calculating mileage when the app is terminated, but it will continue to record mileage when the app is backgrounded. This background mileage recording can be useful when you simply want to record the distance traveled without otherwise using the display.
When you background or terminate ADV Speedo, all user settings are recorded. These are restored when you launch the app again. The screen colors you were last using come right back, and the odometer is set back to the stored accumulated mileage value.
In all, we are very happy with how ADV Speedo turned out, and we hope that you will be equally excited about using it.