
Fog of World - olliwang
http://fogofworld.com
======
beatpanda
Correction — "Know the Area You Have Explored Around the World, Around A
Continent, Or Even Around A Country, Where Your Phone Had A Full Battery, GPS
Was Available, And There Was Reliable Electricity For Recharging!"

This is dumb. Any given user is going to have massive holes in their map,
which, at least according to my experience, will be the _best parts_ of their
trips — the parts where they didn't have their phone turned on and didn't
care, because it didn't matter.

The problem with all of these dumb travel apps for smartphones is they only
seem to be geared toward people who travel with defined itineraries, pay money
for accommodation and travel, and only travel in more developed, predictable
places. In other words, the most boring kind of travel.

Vayable is the only company I've seen trying to make money from adventurous
travel, but even then, it's for _purchasing_ adventurous travel for _people
who can't find it on their own_.

And I _still_ can't find a reasonably good offline maps app for Android, for
when access to the Internet isn't so easy.

~~~
podperson
A lot of seriously dedicated "off-the-beaten-track" types will have solar
chargers for their iPhones (or whatever), GPS works everywhere except near US
Military Bases.

I hope they've been judicious in their use of power while in the background.
It seems like a cool idea to me. I can easily imagine simply trying to fill in
the area I live in much the same way as I would explore nooks and crannies in
dungeons maps.

~~~
InclinedPlane
The point of serious backpacking, hiking, and backcountry climbing is to get
away, not to stay tethered to facebook.

~~~
icebraining
Who said anything about Facebook?

And if you're talking about the Internet at all, that's not _the_ point of
serious backpacking, hiking, etc, that's _your_ point.

For example, João Garcia, who reached the top of all the 14 highest mountains
in the world (Everest, K2, Annapurna, etc) without an oxygen bottle, had an
internet-connected GPS logger with him - a system which also happens to have
an iOS app. Was he not "seriously hiking" because of that?

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timsally
Thank God this costs $5 dollars. I might have even gone as high as $10. To all
those that think 5 bucks is too much: for you to actually get any value out of
this app you have to use it over a non-significant portion of your life. We're
talking on the timescale of years; I find it hilarious that 1 dollar is fine
but 5 whole dollars is outrageous.

~~~
Dramatize
You and I might be able to justify the price, but 99% of the people I know
will not.

That means this is not a product I would be able to get most of my social
group to use.

~~~
igorgue
You mean people who travel around the world can't spend 5 bucks on an iPhone
app, makes sense :-)

~~~
andrewflnr
What he means is that most people, including those in his social circle, are
irrational about paying for apps, and so won't use it.

~~~
olefoo
Are they being irrational?

Most apps are opened once, twice at most. A small percentage of apps
downloaded are used at all after the first day on the user's device. A very
few make it into daily use; and most of those are on the device the day it's
purchased.

This is because most apps are not compelling experiences.

If you factor in the risk that this app, like most of the ones they have seen
so far; will not be in their life for more than 10 minutes... I would say they
are being rational in their pricing bias.

There are two ways around this. You can communicate your value ahead of time
to your potential customers, which Fog Of World does fairly well. Or you can
build a business model that has usage based pricing through in-app purchases,
so that people who are regular users are paying their way.

~~~
corporalagumbo
Just curious, are there any sites which show most-used apps?

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olliwang
I'm the creator of this app. I'd like to explain the idea behind this app a
bit.

Our dream is to go around the world, so we create this geo/map/game hybrid app
to remember everywhere we have been in our whole life time. We want to use the
exploration map to memorize our entire life when we are old and unable to
walk. We also use the map to find out places nearby where we live but we never
know. We actually got surprised many times that we found a lot of new places
around where we live but we hadn't been in the past ten years.

I visited Japan four years ago, but honestly, I really don't remember those
places I had been at that time, except few really famous places. I don't even
know what hotels I lived, what roads I walked that time. And that's why I
build this app. Now I can see the map and memorize what happened at those
places I had been.

~~~
onethumb
The app is such a great idea, so I bought it immediately, but I have to say
I'm disappointed. Much of my travel abroad happened when I was young. There
were no smartphones, or GPS.

But I know plenty of the places I've visited, hotels I've stayed in, train
routes I've ridden, etc.

I'd love a way to "paint" the fog away manually, and maybe tag that "painting
session" with some metadata (dates, at a minimum, maybe photos, etc).

Possible in the future?

~~~
olliwang
You can do it in Google Earth, one of our users drew his track and exported
them as GPX files. You can then import those GPX files back to the app.

We're also planning some new importing sources, including geo-tagged photos.

------
kristofferR
This looks really nice. I recently switched to Android (which, in my mind,
with version 4.1 finally is able to compete with iOS in smoothness/stability
while vastly surpassing it in features and usability), so I'm hopeful for an
Android version.

An Android version would also bring added benefits of smarter/less battery
intensive background operation which could make this run all the time.
Constant GPS-monitoring like Latitude or this seems to run way better on
Android for some reason.

~~~
MrScruff
* An Android version would also bring added benefits of smarter/less battery intensive background operation which could make this run all the time. Constant GPS-monitoring like Latitude or this seems to run way better on Android for some reason. *

I'm curious, what makes you think this would more power efficient on Android?

~~~
kristofferR
This is purely speculative, but I think there are a couple of reasons why apps
like this runs better on Android.

I think it mainly boils down to the fact that app developers on Android have
much more freedom than on iOS, for example - instead of having to run the
whole app in the background they can just run a small daemon. Android apps
don't resort to weird workarounds, like in regular intervals doing something
that requires some CPU power, in order to not get autokilled/paused like
inactive apps often are on iOS.

On Android they can also do stuff like only using the GPS (which is very
battery intensive) if they notice that the cell phone antenna/wifi reception
is changing (indicating that you're not standing/sitting still) while GPS
background logging on iOS requires constant GPS-logging.

Limits like that makes iOS use way more battery for background location
tracking, in my experience at least. Another reason may be simply that Android
phones tend to have larger batteries (in mAh) than iPhones do (the iPhone 5
has a 1440mAh battery, the Samsung Galaxy S3 has 2100mAh battery).

While the iPhone 5 is generally more power efficient than the S3 (due to
slower CPU with less cores, smaller display and a more optimized OS), I'd
imagine that their GPS chips uses approximately the same power, draining the
iPhone battery faster since it simply has less power stored.

~~~
jorgeortiz85
Foursquare's experience developing apps that use background location has been
the exact opposite.

The iOS background location APIs are so restrictive precisely so that you
can't drain the battery. The OS, which is running anyway, can listen for major
changes in location and start your app only if the location change is relevant
to your application.

On Android, your app has to be running in the background always, to constantly
check for such changes itself, which significantly drains the battery. If
several such apps are running...

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
> _On Android, your app has to be running in the background always, to
> constantly check for such changes itself, which significantly drains the
> battery. If several such apps are running..._

Strictly false. Your app may still have a daemon in the "running" state in the
background, but Android supports the exact same "sleep until significant
changes are detected by the OS" method that iOS uses. I have multiple
applications that can take action of some form or another based on changes to
my location, and unless I have my phone screen turned on and actively running
the UI for those apps, they never even appear in the list of applications
using the most battery.

------
Androsynth
When I used to live in SF, I would always go on walks and explore the city. I
found that it would take several visits before I could fully remember the
details of a new route or area, but once I knew that place I would move onto a
new area. This was enjoyable and I got to see the innards of a beautiful city.

Now this? Congratulations, you have turned a peaceful and enjoyable experience
into a slot machine. Now rather than enjoying where I am, I can enjoy hearing
my phone go DING! You will lose all connection to the places you go. Rather
than rely on my own memory, which takes a few trips, I will just go to a
neighborhood once, cross it off my checklist and probably never go back.
Because going back wont give me the exp I need to level up and release
endorphins.

Gamifaction is the public relations term for addiction.

Anyway, get off my lawn, yada yada...

~~~
evan_
> Congratulations, you have turned a peaceful and enjoyable experience into a
> slot machine.

So don't use it?

~~~
Androsynth
well obviously. But I want others to see gamification for what it really is.
The decision to use gamification in your products is similar to the decision
to add fiberglass to cigarettes in the mid 20th century. Executives at tobacco
companies didnt think it was bad, they just knew it would increase profits.

Obviously this app does not have the same scope as cigarettes. But slowly more
and more products/games are moving towards this model. The AAA game industry
very quickly adopted zynga-esque addiction mechanics rather than 'fun'
mechanics.

edit: before I get downvoted for what might seem like a ridiculous comparison,
let me give some context.

About a month ago, one of my favorite MMOs ever, and imo the greatest MMO ever
made, Vanguard:SOH was changed from subscription to F2P by its owner SOE.
VG:SOH is the deepest, most complex MMO ever created and has a huge world.
However once it went F2P, SOE turned it into essentially a zynga game. It
changed from an rpg to an item-driven grind fest (ie keep grinding these same
quests and you can get epic loot). Then you can buy xp potions to make
leveling go by faster. In short they turned it from a rpg into slot machine.
With a consistent and easy path to get your endorphin bursts.

Now this isn't that different than what every other AAA game studio is doing
to their games (except maybe Valve). The path is clear to them. The term
gamification exists because non-game companies want to take advantage of this
model. But what they don't understand is that they are making shallow,
heartless products that guide you towards their goals rather than making
something fun and enjoyable. In other words, the cigarette analogy is
perfectly apt. Cigarettes have been made optimally efficient to cause
addiction whereas previously they had just been an enjoyable experience and
not nearly as addictive. Addiction profit is a gold mine.

~~~
recursive
In the case of vanguard, you don't have the option to have the old,
ungamified, version. (Can a game not be gamified?) In the case of walking
around, you can still do it the same way you always have, if you prefer.
What's the problem here?

~~~
Androsynth
A game can be fun; it can be deep and complex...or it can be like farmville.
The problem is that companies are moving in droves towards Farmville type
products because addiction is more profitable. I would like this community, as
the vanguard of tech development, to see that there is a problem with this.

------
FaceKicker
This is neat, I wish Google Latitude had it. For that matter, I wish Google
Latitude had _any_ useful visual representation of the 2+ years' worth of
location data I've been feeding it. =|

~~~
greggman
Um, have you actually tried using the Web interface?

Here's a screenshot from my vacation a few days ago.

<http://greggman.com/downloads/examples/latitude-maps.png>

~~~
barrkel
That completely sucks in comparison to the app posted here, unfortunately.

~~~
greggman
That may be true but my response wasn't to compare it to the app. It was in
response to _For that matter, I wish Google Latitude had any useful visual
representation of the 2+ years' worth of location data I've been feeding it._

Latitude does have a useful visual representation. It also makes all the data
available for you to do any other representation you'd like. See links in
screenshot for downloading the data.

------
bdr
I love everything about it except the gamification. They were really onto
something inspiring, and then I got to the part about achievements and
_leaderboards_. Beyond a certain audience, that's patronizing, and it
undermines anything more serious you're trying to do (c.f. "your whole life
journey").

------
Aardwolf
Cool idea, but I think my life will be way longer than the lifetime of this
app.

I think I could do something similar in an open format that will still be
accessible in 50 years: an image of the world map, with an alpha channel that
has pixels where I've been made opaque.

------
drawkbox
This is truly one of those simple great ideas that we all should have come up
with.

~~~
vhf
In fact, I _did_ came up with this idea one year ago.

My idea was to cover the whole world with fog of war, and to make people team
up to discover the world. There would be challenges, where you would pay like
0.50$ to participate, and then big reward for the first team achieving the
challenge.

My idea was a free app with paying challenges. Uncovering 25% of the world ?
$1 challenge, 20k$ reward. It's a really easy win. People tend to like these
kind of idea, they would contact their friend abroad to team up with them,
then pay to join the challenge, etc.

I finally decided, after 3months of thoughts, not to realize this project.
It's currently impossible to rely confidently on geolocalisation data from any
mobile device. People could cheat from iPhone dev. simulator, etc.

Well, kudos to people who did it ! Different from my idea, but anyway. Now
that it's been done, I can finally explain the idea I had ! :)

~~~
iamdave
25% of the world is a _lot_ of travelling and expenses for a $1 payoff.

~~~
vhf
Reversely, paying 1$ in not much when you'll be travelling 25% of the world.

In my very basic example it was 20 000$ payoff for travelling 25% of the
world. Let's make it 1 000 000$. I'm still winning.

Covering 25% of the world's surface is almost impossible. Yet, with my app
idea, people would have most probably paid for taking the 1$ challenge (i.e.
paying 1$ to participate, winning 1M$ for being the first to achieve the
goal).

To expand on my concept, there would have been teams, anyone could create a
new team, creating teams would have been free, people could have joined as
many team as they wanted.

It's easy to go viral on these stuff. Every participant would probably call
their friend oversea to tell them to join their team on this particular
challenge, i.e. paying 1$ with the 1M$ reward in sight. The reward would be
splitted between participants of the winning team ( _pro rata_ the surface
covered).

~~~
iamdave
Are you going to go through with it? I'm looking for a good excuse to just
gtfo of dodge for a while

~~~
vhf
No, I'm not. As I said, when acquiring geolocalization data on a mobile
device, I have no way to decide if they're genuine or not.

If you want a good excuse to just gtfo, come to Switzerland exchange business
cards with me.

------
smilliken
This is a wonderful idea. It would be really interesting if you could "ally"
someone else to combine mini-maps. With this feature, you wouldn't just know
where everyone has been, but you can also map their social graph!

------
mcantelon
What is this thing? Achievement badges for going places? I don't know the "Fog
of War" strategy game reference which would likely contextualize it.

~~~
Androsynth
In strategy games, there is a fog over areas where you have no vision (ie
places you dont have any units that can see exactly what is happening at that
moment). This introduces uncertainty and allows for more strategy based on
positioning and vision.

This is based on a real military concept:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_of_war>

------
dredmorbius
Holy fucking grey-on-grey. Even if it fits the fog meme, STOP IT.

<http://contrastrebellion.com/>

~~~
awolf
You mean theme. Not meme.

~~~
dredmorbius
The theme meme and meme themes should also be stopped.

------
klausjensen
Great idea! Please do android next. And make the data open and exportable.

------
densh
That's an incredible idea. I really wish it was available a desktop
application though. Such an app could gather information from multiple sources
(including companion mobile apps) and maybe even location-aware social
networks. It's useful on a mobile phone but i would rather buy a dedicated gps
device to track my progress as constant usage of gps on a phone will
definitely decrease it's battery life. Also I really feel uncomfortable
handling this kind of historical data to any sort of SaaS. I would definitely
pay as high as $10 (or maybe even more) for something like that.

------
bobbles
Sweet, just purchased.

I travel internationally quite a bit, actually feeling a bit bummed this
didn't exist a couple of years ago :(

Hopefully doesn't eat so much battery that my phone dies before the day is
over.

------
lambada
Couple of questions if anyone has bought it and can answer: 1) Extending the
fog of war metaphor, do places gradually 'fade' or 'grey-out' or similar the
longer you are away from the area? Or is it a case of once-seen always seen?
2) This seems great for the devices that have GPS, but I'm sceptical of it's
value on say, my iPod Touch, which IIRC relies entirely on Wi-Fi
triangulation.

~~~
olliwang
(1) It's once-seen, always seen. (2) You can use a separate GPS logger to
record your tracks and import them back to the app. A dedicated GPS logger is
usually small, light-weight, long battery life, and better for receiving GPS
signal when there is no Internet connection.

------
charlieok
I think this is cool, despite the fact that it will undoubtedly leave out some
interesting experiences. However, it also serves as a visceral reminder of the
kind of data being made available to third parties when using this type of
app. It makes me want to create something similar which I and everyone else
wishing to use it can then keep entirely to ourselves.

------
whouweling
Nice concept.

Some feedback on the site itself: I'm having trouble reading the text due to
the low contrast. (Maybe my monitor isn't setup properly?)

------
daedalus_j
I love this concept, I already think about maps this way in my head, I'd love
a way to externalize it!

Unfortunately though I don't want it on game center, I want it in some sort of
open exportable data that I can access, perhaps make a widget for my website
out of, or update from other devices.

------
Dramatize
I would love to pay $.99 for this, but at $5.49 it's too expensive for me
recommend to all my friends.

~~~
kinkora
I am always curious why when people say that $x.xx (or any app that is not
$.99) is too expensive for an app.

A meal (burger, fries and a drink) in McDonalds will cost you at least $5~$9
depending on the size of the meal you get. Would you say that is expensive?
Yet, when an app is anywhere from $2~$10, people will deem it as "expensive".
It astounds me when people don't give a thought about spending $10 on food but
when it comes to any software-related stuff, the same $10 is "too much".

~~~
Dramatize
It comes down to risk.

I know exactly what I'm getting for $5 worth of McDonalds. $5 for an app feels
more risky because I have no idea if there will be any value.

~~~
cdash
You only know what you are getting from McDonalds because you have bought it
before, well what about your first time eating at McDonalds? You certainly did
not know what you were getting then.

~~~
cdmoyer
I suspect that for most people in the US their first meal at McDonalds was
purchased by their parents. And they probably know quite a few people in real
life that would endorse McDonalds.

~~~
cdash
That is a pretty much irrelevant point though, use any other example of buying
a meal from somewhere that is not as common as McDonalds. On the point of
endorsing, people can endorse an app as well so I am still not sure how that
applies.

------
mrbogle
Is there any way to get any existing data on the iphone into the app
(preferably without too much pain)? I assume it's already logging my info:
<http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/>

------
ablefire
I bought the app and like it. Perhaps I have not discovered it yet but I would
like to enter the places that I have been in the past. This would be for my
own enjoyment and could be a different mode from the "game mode" which is
based on actual GPS data.

------
lubujackson
Here's my suggestion - make the app free and sell users their data back in
city map/country map/world map form, and link it to their vacation photos.
That would be really awesome, and is totally possible with GPS in cameras now
or with phone cameras.

~~~
jaequery
don't know if it was just me but, with a name like fog of war, i thought this
app was going to be "warcraft" in real-life. that would've been really cool.

------
obituary_latte
In case the dev is reading these: typo in bullet 6 at bottom

>It is recommended to use a separate GPS device to record your tracks. This
would save beattery life of your iOS device and avoid GPS signal loss when
Internet connection is unavailable.

Otherwise, looks batteful.

~~~
olliwang
Thanks. We already fixed that. ;)

------
lindvall
The app looks pretty great. Being able to incorporate the geolocation data
from foursquare, instagram, flickr, facebook, etc. would aid in not feeling
like you have to think of your traveling as starting when you downloaded the
app.

------
malandrew
This is totally going to be cool for use while riding my bike to work. I've
been toying with the idea of exploring new paths on my 11 mile commute and
this gives me a way to map them all out and the incentive to do so.

~~~
angryasian
you should check out mytracks from google
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.maps.mytracks&hl=en)

might be more appropriate for what you're looking for

------
bluekeybox
Is this specific to iOS5 and later? I long ago was _very_ interested in
something like this, but at the time (iOS3...) my understanding was that Apple
didn't allow apps running in the background collecting data.

~~~
olliwang
Unfortunately, iOS 5 is required at least.

------
scoremotive
I like this idea a lot. I remember there used to be apps on Facebook that
listed the states someone had been to. They were fairly popular for a while.

If this can tap into that same urge, I think it could do pretty well.

------
atlbeer
I love this idea.

Unfortunately my GPX export from Foursquare doesn't seem to show up in the
application.

I used this utility for what it's worth: <http://etgps.net/gps/4sq/>

~~~
olliwang
The utility treats each checked-in locations as part of a track. But you don't
actually follow the route to visit each places, right? That's why those
locations won't be imported. You need to find a tool to convert those
locations to tracks. Each track only contains one location. That will work.

------
kiwiguy1million
Where is New Zealand on the icon and
<http://media.fogofworld.com/images/gpx.png>? :P

------
Tiz
This is revolutionary, I've always been a advocate of incorporating a gaming
atmosphere into everyday activities. This is a great push in that direction!

------
corporalagumbo
Cool idea (I've done 100% on a few Zeldas, Metroids etc... I know this will
appeal.)

I have to say the prose copy is a bit clunky though.

------
ionforce
Does anyone know what the buttons do? I could venture a guess but I'm not
like... 100% clear on what does what.

~~~
olliwang
When the REC button is red, the app start recording your locations (even in
background). Make sure there are at least 3 GPS signal bars, or no locations
will be recorded.

------
Bankq
Quick correction: the Chinese translation of supporting iCloud should be
即将支持iCloud, but not 即将支援iCloud

------
lubujackson
I would never use this because I'm an old luddite now, but damn this is a
great idea!

------
jcfrei
very cool, though that Explored Area status bar is probably going to be stuck
at 0.001% (or less) for a while... I wonder what surface you "discover" when
you're standing in place - I'm guessing around 300 m^2?

~~~
olliwang
It's actually only tens of square meters.

------
ruu1989
Anyone got any idea of battery life running this on... Say and iPhone 4S?

------
kolinko
Looks great, although I'm to worried of my iPhone's battery to install..

------
luchs
"Nebel des Welt" should be "Nebel der Welt" in the German translation.

~~~
olliwang
Thanks. We already fixed this on our website, and will be fixed in the app in
version 1.2 (version 1.1 was already submitted for review).

------
flavien_bessede
Love the idea, now I hope they made sure to not eat all my battery :)

------
lancefisher
Cool! I can't wait to load the last two years of my running tracks!

------
EdgarVerona
Great idea! Did you make that? Will there be an Android version?

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3rd3
This is a demystification of the world I don’t like!

------
BklynJay
I love the concept but $4.99 is a bit much.

~~~
gensym
Yikes, "love" isn't even worth $5 anymore? Glad I'm not in the flower
industry.

------
6ren
Also a forensic tool, a personal blackbox.

------
Shenglong
Time to go for 100% map completion...

------
colmvp
gl hf nr

------
Devilboy
Be careful what you measure because measuring affects what you measure. You'll
probably end up travelling a lot more, probably driving more and so on.

