Testing an Android app for social motorcycle rides

That would be great. I'd be very interested to hear how it goes if you use it at the AR.

Originally Posted by _Stretchie_

I've added a ride (I'm not doing it, it's just for test purposes) "Test - Devizes to Abergavenny" and put a route against it.

I've just downloaded it and added myself to this ride (as it showed up near me). I look forward to testing it out - I like apps like this

Not being able to run it from SD card is a big prob for me tho as my Wildfire S really struggles with memory...

Originally Posted by xena_wales

Not being able to run it from SD card is a big prob for me tho as my Wildfire S really struggles with memory...

I'll make a point of mentioning it in my write up under the future development part. The reason it's like that at the moment is that Android defaults to it when developing, and also that Android kills anything running on an SD card when the phone is plugged in to charge, so if you plug the phone in to charge on the bike it would kill the app and stop tracking. There might be a way around it of course, which is why I'll mention it.

Thanks for the feedback.

Is there any sort of quick-start / overview guide, like whether I need to map out a route before setting off, or if I can just use it as an ad-hoc tracker etc? I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out soon enough but I think an overview of the functionality would be helpful?

Originally Posted by xena_wales

Is there any sort of quick-start / overview guide, like whether I need to map out a route before setting off, or if I can just use it as an ad-hoc tracker etc? I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out soon enough but I think an overview of the functionality would be helpful?

There isn't, but that's intentional for a couple of reasons. The first is that most apps don't provide much if anything in the way of a guide, and the second that is hopefully it's intuitive and if not (which is entirely possible, and still a valid research finding) it should show up in the questionnaire results.

In order not to skew any results or invalidate the research I can't say much about how to use it, but I don't think it's too much for me to say that as long as you put in start and end points and times for a ride, you can then let it track you wherever you are. In theory you could put in fake start and end details just to let others see where you are on the map.

I've installed it - will have a play if I get chance

I had to uninstall mine, sorry, I just didn't have enough phone memory

Originally Posted by Steve_God

I've installed it - will have a play if I get chance

Thank you!

Originally Posted by xena_wales

I had to uninstall mine, sorry, I just didn't have enough phone memory

Thanks for trying anyway

I've spent 25 mins playing around with it today, and left some feedback via the feedback link. Will keep an eye on it and see if my thoughts on it change with more rides being added to it

[kaivalagi]

Hi, had a quick look, I guess the trouble is there are no rides there already so anyone using it for the first time would have to create a ride rather than just join one...if there was something to follow before taking the lead more would gain interest I am sure

I think for an app like this to be successful you could do a few things:

1. Have a website setup too to give more breath to the service, normally an app would come after a website has been active for a while and has a following
2. Maybe alter the functionality to also provide the ability to store and view ride routes without dates too, that way users could access the app, pick a registered ride route, view of the route and assign a date they want to ride it and notify everyone of that...
3. I'm in east anglia, 50 miles is not a big enough radius to catch all the riders I have joined with in the past, sometimes I'll ride for 70+ miles to meet up

Hope that helps

I'll try and play about with it some more and give any more feedback I can...if time permits