Chicago Offline Bike Map

Free day has arrived. Download now!

stevevance — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 06:59:27 -0500

The Chicago Bike Map app for iPhone is free all day Friday

Free day on Friday

stevevance — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 13:37:36 -0500

The Chicago Bike Map app will be free all day on Friday, September 7, in preparation for the Open Streets on State Street event on Saturday, September 8, 2012. The event, in the same location as last year, has been slightly expanded, with a car-free segment on Monroe Street straight to the Lakefront Trail. If you don’t want to wait, you can download the app now for 99 cents and get access to a bike map on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch that doesn’t require an internet connection. What’s new in the current version?

Updated map tiles to include the latest new bikeways*
New points of interest, including sports stadiums, parks, and bike Fixit stations (stands with tools to make minor repairs or adjustments, plus an air pump)
New crash resource page describes what to do if you get in a collision with an automobile (sponsored by Lawyer Jim Freeman)
Reorganized points of interest; now sorted by category
Increased contrast between CTA and Metra lines for better visibility

This is a reminder that the main site has moved to http://offlinebikemap.com.

* This update doesn’t include the buffered bike lane on Clark Street between North Avenue and Walton Street currently under construction; doesn’t include the buffered bike lane on Halsted Street between 69th and 75th Streets. These will be available in the next version.

Chicagoist features my app

stevevance — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 18:08:20 -0500

Chicagoist features my app

New web home for the Chicago Offline Bike Map

stevevance — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 12:41:22 -0500

New web home for the Chicago Offline Bike Map:

Please update your links, RSS feeds, and bookmarks. This Tumblr will be taken down by the end of July.

Amazon versus Google Play, app size limits

stevevance — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 00:34:59 -0500

While doing research on how to create an Android version of the app, I discovered some difficulty: the Google Play store only accepts apps up to 50 MB, but allows developers to extend that to 4 GB using the APK Expansion File method. I looked into that and saw that I would have to be linking in a couple other libraries, running lots of checks to see if the expansion files are downloaded, and find where on the device they’re saved, and some other stuff I didn’t have to do for the iTunes Store.

Then I thought, “Is there another way to distribute the app and bypass these difficulties?”

Amazon has an Android App Store. I’m currently looking into it, but their FAQ says they don’t have app file size limits. This could be good; I might be able to distribute my app via Amazon. It’s not the best method as users are required to go into the Android OS settings and allow “Unknown sources” and then install the “Amazon Appstore for Android” app. But, once that’s installed, the user can easily download and install any app in the Amazon app store.

Oops, forgot a buffered bike lane

stevevance — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 21:29:11 -0500

I forgot to classify the Wells Street bike lane from Chicago Avenue to the river as a buffered bike lane. That will be corrected in the version after v0.3 (currently awaiting approval).

In other news, though, I signed up for App Annie which tracks statistics. It says that of all the paid apps in the Reference category, the Chicago Offline Bike Map is ranked 385.

I bet a few more positive reviews and purchases could bump that up (there are two reviews now). I don’t want to prescribe how people should review apps, but the most helpful ones do this:

1. Describe what is good about the app, and what you like about the app.

2. Describe how you’ve used the app.

3. Suggest ways the app could improve.

Why I built the Offline Bike Map

stevevance — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 12:25:50 -0500

Originally posted on The Chainlink.

James BlackHeron said:

The biggest issue I have with Google Maps is the fact that they tend to be ridiculous when it comes to routing. It will not let you go even 10-feet worth of contra-flow on a 1-way street and this really makes some routing very difficult. I’ve resorted to just writing down loose instructions on paper with one of those old-fashioned hand writing implements as it is just easier much of the time.

The main “feature” of my app is that you don’t need the internet to use it. That was one of the motivating factors in making the app: I don’t have a data plan on my iPhone. The second motivating factor in making the app is that the printed bike map (and CDOT’s online version of it) show “recommended routes” and “marked shared lanes”. I don’t like these; they are not facilities. There’s a documented difference in the safety of streets with bike lanes and streets without (a lot of the difference has to do with the increased presence of cycling on streets with the bike lanes).

I created a map that only shows places where you get a bike lane, stripes on both sides (plus trails, where cars can’t be driven). And the color scheme was chosen so that the more dark green there is on a line, the safer it’s presumed to be:

Bike lanes are light green
Buffered bike lanes are light green with dashed dark green outline
Protected bike lanes are light green with solid dark green outline
Trails are dark green

I started Android development last night. There’s a hard road ahead in developing that. It has different difficulties compared to iOS development meaning I’ll have to learn a whole new way of developing apps.

v0.3 is awaiting iTunes Store approval (bug fixes, updated map).

Bugs squashed, bike lanes updated, v0.3 on its way

stevevance — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 20:51:26 -0500

I believe I’ve squashed all the bugs in v0.2. I just finished uploading v0.3 to the iTunes Store and got an email saying it’s “Waiting for Review”. I hope it doesn’t take 8 days this time.

In addition to bug fixing, I’ve updated the icons and launch images to reflect the green bikeway scheme. I’ve also updated the Elston Avenue and 55th Street bike lanes to reflect their new buffered and protected bike lane status.

So hopefully within a week iTunes will tell you there’s an update.

Another bug + Android on the way

stevevance — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 21:14:25 -0500

I found another bug today when I was testing out the app on my friend’s iPhone 4S. I opened the CTA page and tried to type in the name of a station. The page wasn’t having it. I tried it on the Metra page; same problem.

I didn’t recall this being an issue when I tested the app on my iPhone 3GS before uploading v0.2 to the iTunes Store, nor in the iPhone Simulator. So I tried it on my iPhone right there and BAM, same problem.

So after I fix the three bugs (well, one’s a map design bug), I will be working on releasing an Android version, targeting Fro Yo, 2.2. I just started looking into it today, reading PhoneGap’s getting started guide.

Android desire?

stevevance — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 07:24:12 -0500

A few people have emailed me asking for Android support. Okay, how many of you want it for the Chicago Offline Bike Map?

Somehow I was able to get the word out Friday and Saturday, as 101 people downloaded the Chicago...

stevevance — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 11:57:49 -0500

Somehow I was able to get the word out Friday and Saturday, as 101 people downloaded the Chicago Offline Bike Map. It’s back to $0.99, but I hope you enjoy using it and can recommend it to your friends. I am working on fixing the bugs for the next version, and I will update the map tiles with the latest bike lanes.

There’s something weird with the way Apple recognizes time zones: I set the free period to be all day Saturday (in all markets) but when a friend of mine went to download the app at 22:40 Central Time in the United States, it wasn’t free anymore.

For those who are interested, the markets downloaders came from yesterday were the following (ranked by frequency of download):

United States of America
China
Germany
Canada
Taiwan
Italy
Japan, Mexico, Thailand, Australia, Great Britain, Slovenia, Brasil, Russia, New Zealand, Hungary, Israel, Singapore (all with 1 download each)

Chicago Offline Bike Map is now free, all day Saturday

stevevance — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 01:18:33 -0500

Chicago Offline Bike Map is now free, all day Saturday:

Download it now. Then tell your friends about it the next day (it’ll be 99 cents after Saturday).

The Chicago Offline Bike Map will be free for 24 hours, on Saturday, July 7, 2012. If you like the...

stevevance — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 06:54:24 -0500

The Chicago Offline Bike Map will be free for 24 hours, on Saturday, July 7, 2012. If you like the app, tell your friends to download it. If you haven’t tried the app, this would be a great time to try it.

The next version, v0.3, will be released later in July. It will have the latest bike lanes (55th Street under construction right now), two bug fixes. I don’t plan to have any new features in this release. Please leave a comment with your ideas on how to improve the app.

Version 0.2 is now available in the iTunes App Store! It only...

stevevance — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 14:27:46 -0500

Version 0.2 is now available in the iTunes App Store! It only took Apple 8 days to start reviewing it and just a couple hours to finish the review. There are lots of new features, including finding your approximate location, train stations, and protected/buffered bike lanes.

Download or update now!

This version of the Chicago Offline Bike Map is now compatible with more devices. The first version was inadvertently set to work only on iOS devices with 5.0 and greater. The app should work with 3.0 and greater (it’s been tested on the highest version 4.0 operating system).

Unfortunately there are two bugs that I need to fix:

Bike lanes don’t appear on zoomed out map levels. Only the most protected bikeways appear at zoomed out map levels. This will be modified in version 0.3.
The Neighborhoods and Points of Interest pages won’t appear if you’ve already looked at the map before trying to open those pages. This is an easy fix and will be corrected in version 0.3.

Thank you for waiting two months! I wanted to have this done on the weekend of Cinco de Mayo, but I ran into many issues.

The v0.2 update is complete, has been uploaded, and now awaits Apple’s review for inclusion in...

stevevance — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 10:23:24 -0500

The v0.2 update is complete, has been uploaded, and now awaits Apple’s review for inclusion in the iTunes App Store. It won’t be immediately available upon approval, as I want to ready a marketing push for the app’s changes. I will announce it here when it’s available, although you will receive a notification from your iOS device or iTunes that a new version is ready to download and install.

Changes include:

Updated bikeway network (includes ALL of CDOT’s bike lanes installed in 2012 so far, except Wells Street’s “enhanced” marked shared lane)
New map tiles with new bikeway symbology
CTA and Metra lines and stations
228 neighborhoods (with text filter for easy searching)
New layout and design (using jQuery Mobile)

Hold up before next version can be published

stevevance — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 18:35:51 -0500

I’m waiting for the latest version of the bikeways data. If I’m going to spend a lot of time producing a new version I should probably have the latest locations of bike lanes in Chicago. There’ve been several installs of protected and buffered bike lanes since the last data dump in February 2012 (the version in the current app).

I asked the city two weeks ago for the data, which they will hopefully provide any day now on the data portal. (I’ve followed up, too, so I know they’re working on it.)

Here’s the proposed new bikeway color scheme for the...

stevevance — Mon, 21 May 2012 00:19:00 -0500

Here’s the proposed new bikeway color scheme for the Chicago Offline Bike Map.

Off-street trails and their access paths are dark green.

Bike lanes are light green.

Buffered and protected bike lanes are light green on the inside with dark green on the outside. This is because they are bike lanes but have added protections from cars (which off-street trails are free of). Think of the outline as like a layer of protection on the bike lane.

Marked-shared lanes (sharrows) are absent.

What do you think?

Setbacks but I'm still progressing

stevevance — Fri, 11 May 2012 01:24:55 -0500

I had a setback for a couple of days when I was modifying code to improve the function of the train station markers. I finally figured it out after taking a day-long break. I’ve got a lot more points of interest to add. Then finalize the new map tiles. And then publish. So now I’m looking to submit the revision to iTunes on Monday.

With the map tiles, I’m making them so the CTA and Metra lines appear only at the highest zoom level. At other zoom levels they crowd the map. I’m choosing to show them as map tiles instead of as map overlays because the overlay is controlled by JavaScript and I believe it will run more slowly. The train station markers already slow down the app slightly (which is why they are turned off by default and you can toggle them).

Sneak peak at the new home screen of Chicago Offline Bike Map...

stevevance — Tue, 01 May 2012 13:48:09 -0500

Sneak peak at the new home screen of Chicago Offline Bike Map v0.2.

Points of interest

stevevance — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 23:49:30 -0500

The points of interest are currently:

An assortment of 10 neighborhoods to help you zoom in faster (although there is a “find me” function)
Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum
Field Museum
Museum of Science and Industry
DuSable Museum
Harold Washington Cultural Center
Chicago Cultural Center
Museum of Contemporary Art
City Hall
Millennium Park Bike Station
Velodrome
Fixit station at SAIC’s Columbus Drive building
All CTA and Metra stations

I won’t add every suggestion. The POIs I just listed take up a lot of room on the home screen so if I add more, I’ll have to think about how users will navigate.

What points of interest should I add to the app?