Background Tracking - Never miss a marker - The app can now keep track of markers you pass, even when the app is in the background! We use the devices motion to conserve battery and only use your GPS when needed. 'Always Available' location services must be enabled to use background tracking and we suggest enabling 'Motion' services to ensure all day battery life. Since the app is offline first, your GPS and motion data never leave your device πAll configurable in the settings page.
Alerts & Push Notifications π - Added ability to receive push notifications whenever you pass a marker that hasn't previously been viewed, or been notified about. These can be toggled on/off in the settings page. These require push notification permissions to be enabled on your device. Similar to background tracking - these notifications come from the app, so your location data never leaves your device.
Simplified Main Menu - Changed saved to history and moved settings down to the lower left corner.
Toggle between Saved, Viewed and Passed markers
This is by far the largest update to the app yet! We've been hard at work fixing bugs, laying foundational groundwork for future features, and improving the speed and reliability of the application. This is a major step towards our official v1.0 release!
View & Save Markers - Whenever you click on 'Read More' the marker is automatically marked as 'viewed'. These show up as green pins on the map and allow you to keep track of markers you've already read. You can also save markers by clicking on the β€οΈin the full marker page. These will show up as red pins on the map. NOTE: While in beta, the data might be lost between app updates. Once we finish profiles, we plan on syncing your saved data on a server, so it can be restored - but till then, all data is saved on your device and might be lost between updates.
Expanded Filters - We've included a full-filter row, so you can easily filter by any category while filtering by viewed or saved markers.
View Missing, Removed, Damaged and Unreadable markers - The physical marker might not be there, but its history lives on π These will appear as yellow pins on the map - they are hidden by default, so be sure to turn them via the settings page!
Database Refresh β»οΈ - We've refreshed the database to sync up with the Historical Marker Database. Big shout out to their editors for making some huge changes in the past month
Improved speed and smoothness π₯
Fixed Accented Characters - Accented characters were naively being replaced with a single quote ' character. This has been resolved
Improved Copy & Formatting
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Ability to Filter Markers by Category - Click on a category icon, and see only markers with that category!
Search Update π - Search is more 'fuzzy' and forgiving and is now case insensitive.
Proper Onboarding & Permissions β¨ - Added a full onboarding flow and hold off permission requests until onboarding for improved UX
Fixed marker preview copy - no more wordsblendedtogether or random spa c i ng
Fixed missing 'Man Made' icon
App no longer freezes if location permissions are denied
Added infrastructure for future permissions and log in (Next version!)
βFull Markers List π - 100% of the markers in HMDB (Historical Marker Database) are now in the app! In the future, we will be continuing to improve the updating experience and reducing the overall app download size.
Settings β - Added an initial settings page with options to change the default map between standard and hybrid views.
Title & Subtitle - Added the title and subtitle to the full marker view
Improved Search π - Search now works a lot smoother, and with improved accuracy - we will be continuing to improve search with addresses, categories, etc.
Meta Info - Added a version marker in the app to show what version of the app is installed - in the lower left corner of the new navigation menu
Loading Improvements - The app now shows when the app is loading new markers in and when its complete.
Misc - Fixed close 'x' button when viewing full image
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Spoken Markers - Added the ability to have markers be spoken out-loud by hitting the play button in the full marker page.
Open External Maps - When clicking on the static map or long/lat, added the ability to open a marker in Apple Maps OR Google Maps.
Image Info - Images show the image title, description, author and when the image was taken
Distance Calculations - Fixed an issue where distances were calculated incorrectly for markers that were searched.
Static Map Updates - Fixed an issue with the static preview map's region not changing when new markers were selected.
Map Markers - Switched the map to limit the view to 200 markers, rather then by zoom level. You'll now see "Please Zoom In" if there are over 200 markers on the map.
Changed the default map - From the old hybrid to a city-road map. This increases contrast between markers, and the background. There will be a future enhancement to toggle between these via the settings page (to come at a later time).
Marker Source - Clicking on the marker source now opens the marker directly to the HMDB page which it was pulled from
The first release of Markers! We made the app as simple as possible to get a solid and stable release out!
Before developing our first release, these are the designs we came up with to use as blueprints for the app development.
