[APP] Bingle Maps -[R]- 10 Mar 2011 -[U]- 04 Sep 2011 -[V]- 1.5

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Bingle Maps

Bingle Maps is a free map application that aims at providing better user experience than the native Bing Maps that comes with Windows Phone 7 devices. The final target is to achieve a user experience that is equivalent or even better than the Google Maps app in iPhone and Android.

Current Version: 1.5
This version has several performance optimization. There's up to 30% performance boost under heavy operations in the maps screen.
This is the last WP 7.0 release of Bingle Maps. The next version will come in WP 7.1 flavour which supports many of the new features of Mango, such as multi-tasking.

Getting Bingle Maps

1. You can download the latest stable version here via Zune Desktop Software.

Using Bingle Maps

Bingle Maps is a full featured map application. In addition to many normal map features that you would expect, here are some tips that you may find useful:

• Tap your current location to drop a pin.
• Hold on anywhere else on the map to drop as many pins as you like.
• Hold on a pin to move it.
• When editing a pin, tap the name "my pin" on top to personalize it.
• You can also search on the map just like the native Bing Maps.
• Quickly navigate between pins, search results and route points via "Layers".
• Send your pins to others via SMS or email.
• Synchronize your pins via DropBox.
• You can switch between Google Maps and Bing Maps.

Your feedback

Your feedbacks on Bingle Maps are extremely welcome. They are the most valuable source for future improvements of this app. Please don't be shy to leave comments. After all, this app is for you and you have your voice to shape it up.

There's also a poll in my app page to collect information about the most desirable feature for later versions.



Source: http://codifying.wordpress.com/binglemaps/

Version History

1.5- 04 Sep 2011

• Up to 30% performance improvement.
• Google Maps auto suggestion for search and finding directions.

1.4- 25 Jun 2011

• Fixed itinerary section in layers page.

1.3 - 21 Jun 2011

• Routes and itineraries are now auto saved so that you don't loss them when you exit the app.
• Walking mode support for finding directions.
• Fixed a bug that prevents moving pins.

1.2 - 15 Jun 2011

• Fixed the crash when you exit the app in the pin details page and come back.
• Enabled bitmap cache for all push pins on the map. This allows hardware acceleration on all these pins and can significantly improve map pan performance when there are many pins in the visible area.

1.2 beta - 12 Jun 2011

• Google Maps search and address lookup integration.
• Address and geographical coordinates (longitude and latitude) in the pin details page are now copyable.
• Search result now uses the business name instead of "my search".
• The Layers page now has color tags to the left of each item.
• Some memory management optimization, this fixed a few occasional runtime level crashes.
• Other bug fixes according to the error reports received.
• Error report now contains the page url of the exception, and again, thanks a million times for sending in the error reports

1.1 - 10 May 2011

• The "me" button now auto follows your current location when you move.
• Improved gesture detection to prevent accidental pin drop/lift.
• Fixed a DropBox bug that may prevent users from syncing for the first time.
• Improved location service accuracy.
• Added settings for distance unit and prevent screen lock.
• Some other bug fixes.

1.0 - 5 May 2011

• Google map source integration.
• Enabled satellite view for both Bing map source and Google map source.
• Fixed a bug that always fails the DropBox sync.
• Fixed a bug that crashes the app when accessing to the edit page of a search result pin.
• Re-written touch gesture logic to improve touch responsiveness.
• Added a little search icon to the top right corner for search result pins – easier to distinguish from personal pins.
• Added setting option to switch location service on and off.
• Added about page.

0.9.4.1 - 26 Apr 2011

• Fixed a bug that the app warns for incompatible save data on start up even if there's no previously saved data on the phone.
• Optimized memory consumption for communication between the phone and Bing Maps services.

0.9.4 - 25 Apr 2011

• Added DropBox synchronization for personal pins. Manual synchronization only for the moment. Please let me know if you think automatic sync is really necessary.
• Added Layers page that allows list browsing and quick navigating between pins, search results, and itineraries.
• Added the ability to send your pins and search results to others via SMS or email.
• Added settings page where you can adjust a few things.
• Bug fixes for possible crashes when getting current location and while dragging a pin (thanks to the ppl who sent in error reports ).
• Adjusted pin expanding behavior to improve some usage issues.

0.9.2 - 16 Mar 2011

• Added itinerary for routing. Look for the "car" icon on the bottom bar to bring up itinerary when you have a route on map. Tap on each itinerary item to move to the relevant location on map.
• Added tap on current location to drop personal pin feature.
• Added error reporting via email. When an unexpected error happens, the app asks if you want to report this error via email.
• New app icon and splash screen.
• New current location pin.
• Updated behaviors for search and direction search screen for slightly better UI performance.
• Re-organised code structure for less disk space usage, faster*start-up*time, and smaller app package size.
• Some bug fixes.

0.9.1 - 10 Mar 2011

• First public beta release.

Looks very promising. I'm gonna give it a try. Oh, for your statistics: I prefer the satellite view. But it's absolutely okay to not use it as long as this would prevent your app from working as intended.

[Edit]

I installed your app and played around with it some time. I like it a lot, even though for some reason it's not able to detect my work address (where I currently am). I'll try it again when I'm back home and see if it will detect this address correctly. The pin is at to correct spot though.

nice start! i suggest:

audio - turn by turn.

when you add Google, add the longitude option also

route details to be displayed as well

Thanks, and i look forward to your updates

Cool app

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Very Cool. It seems very sensitive, maybe a little too much. Sometimes swiping will take you out of the program. Nice icons. Can you edit the 'me' icon?

Can't seem to edit a pin, tapping does nothing right now.
no pins are saved for me either.

Thanks for trying out guys and glad you find the app somewhat nice.

@dkp1977:
Thanks for finding this. I've done some testing last night and it seems this is a problem only on the HD2. Tried on HD2 and also the Omnia 7 and HTC Mozart. Current location was reported correctly on the other 2 all with GPS, mobile network and WiFi turned on. I'll definitely look into this issue.

@barrychon:
If route detail means turn-by-turn itinerary list for the route, it's definitely coming in the next version. Google Longitude is an interesting idea that I've never thought about. I should add this to my "To-Investigate" list now

@Wind Dancer:
I'm quite interested in the bugs that you encountered. Can you let me know which handset your are using? And if possible, how much disk space you still have?

About the 'me' pin, I don't like it either. That's one of the first changes I'm gonna bring in the next version, making the 'me' pin editable like the other pins and, you're right, I should give it a nice icon too

I have a Mozart
5 Gb free

Is it possible to cache the offline map so that I will not have to load a new map every time to use the program.

This is just a suggestion by me.


I will try to use your app, It's look great.. Thank you.

Caching image is a nice idea, and I realize the native Bing Maps does this too. However the map control in the SDK does not support this feature yet. So there's no guarantee that this would come in a future version.

Originally Posted by leonzhou

Thanks for trying out guys and glad you find the app somewhat nice.

@dkp1977:
Thanks for finding this. I've done some testing last night and it seems this is a problem only on the HD2. Tried on HD2 and also the Omnia 7 and HTC Mozart. Current location was reported correctly on the other 2 all with GPS, mobile network and WiFi turned on. I'll definitely look into this issue.

I tested the app again when I was back home. It named the address under the pin absolutely correct. oO Just the pin wasn't located where I was. It was like half a mile away from me. But I think that was just because I was in a building, so it had to depend on the mobile connection rather than GPS.

Anyways, your app is absolutely promising. I'm looking forward to future versions.

I like how this apps works a bit choppy, especially when loading maps but its a beta

keep up the good work