Show HN: I created an iPhone app for my wild nights out
If you want to have a look: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/last-night.../id466239544?ls=1&mt=8
I think many of us have had this experience already: when you go out, have a great night, a bit too many drinks too, and wake up the next morning wondering what happened exactly. Where did you go? Did you stay at the same bar all night long? What time did you come back? How?
I have been developing iPhone apps as a freelance developer for a year now and thought it was high time I tackled this problem with a personal app. After 3 weeks of intense work and testing I give you: Last Night...?
What does it do? Once launched, it records your location in the background every 60 seconds/70 meters and a bunch of details such as the time, speed, accuracy, battery level and exact latitude and longitude. These different locations are then displayed in a table view. Each of the elements are clickable and let you see: the location you selected on a map, the whole route you followed that day, and details on the location you selected.
And because people usually stay a long time at the same bar, I implemented a pause mode that is triggered automatically after staying 10 minutes at the same location and which uses radio towers to detect when you start moving again. This mode allows battery power saving, and the active mode restarts automatically after you move a few hundred meters. Of course if you want to stop monitoring your location for some reason or another and then start monitoring again, you can do so manually. As for your data, you can back it up by emailing it to yourself as an XML file.
Is it only for nights out? Of course not! If you're bad with directions this app can help you rediscover the brilliant hidden restaurant you stumbled upon, or show a friend where the shortcut you take is to get to the office, or check that you were respecting the speed limit if you're learning to drive. Possibilities are endless!
Did you test it? Of course! I can tell you it was very "interesting" to monitor where I went, stopped, and what time I came back from my night out in Nice's old city centre! I also used it to monitor at what time I left home, arrived at work, and where I hit the slowest traffic.
What's next? The next big step will be to include an option to let people turn off the pause mode. This way, they can monitor their movements more accurately if they don't mind using a bit more battery power. The next update will also include translations in Spanish, Catalan and German. And if I have time I will also include an option to change the speed from km/h to miles/h, as well as a bunch of other improvements I'm thinking about.