
Show HN: Tired of entering map directions on iPhone? I've streamlined it - pheelicks
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/quickmaps/id506283203?ls=1&mt=8
======
pheelicks
I built this after getting tired at how many actions it takes to enter
directions in Maps on iPhone. Often I just wanted to navigate from the current
location to a common place (eg home, work). With Quickmaps, all I have to do
is launch the app and with single gesture I'm done. Feedback is most welcome

~~~
derefr
For a feature suggestion I've been craving (not quite in-line with your app,
but possibly a useful pivot): let me specify a route[-gesture] with _multiple_
stop-points, possibly even returning to the start--so that the start of each
route is the end of the previous. (Say, go to a friends' to pick something up,
then from there to the grocery store, then back home [where I already was
while entering the route.]) The one thing I find absolutely tedious is saying
"from Current Location, to B", then after arriving at B, having to change that
to "from Current Location, to A", rather than just being able to say "from B
back to wherever the Current Location was when I was coming here."

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doubleconfess
I've also wanted this for a long time.

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neilk
Thank you. As a transit rider, this is exactly what I wanted. The existing
form is not so bad if you define those locations in contacts, the form will
autocomplete, including "C" for current location, strangely. But this is just
that much better.

I look forward to Apple stealing this. Charge money for it while you can.

I still don't have any good mobile integration between my Google Calendar and
maps, though. The phone knows where I am, and with the calendar it knows where
I'm supposed to be. Why doesn't it notify me at the right time to leave where
ever I am, based on estimated travel time in my usual transport mode? Surely
someone's done this already...

~~~
stretchwithme
great idea. And it should use how often you are late to improve that
notification.

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nostromo
On this topic -- add your common locations (home, work, trader joes) as
contacts in your iOS address book. Then when you need directions, just click
on the address book icon in Maps under Search, and select the location, and
you're good to go.

I was an iOS user for several years before figuring this out -- it's saved me
a lot of time. I probably typed in my home address a hundred times
unnecessarily. Although, since I'm going to try out this app, this tip maybe
isn't so useful. :)

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tlrobinson
Why is that any better than using the bookmarks feature?

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dyeje
At first I thought, "Hmm, nifty idea. Could be useful."

But then I stopped to examine the use of it. It seems that this idea is
inherently kind of pointless because the places you frequent you already know
how to get to. On the other hand places you don't frequent, the case in which
this would be fantastic, won't be in there.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you considered using prediction (perhaps
by scraping the user's calendar) to show places they have not driven to many
times?

Great job with the design by the way.

~~~
newhouseb
I commonly commute between a small set of places at different times on public
transportation. Depending on what time I'm travelling, the best route through
public transportation can be completely different. I know how to get to all of
these places by walking/driving, but I don't always know the best way to get
there given the time, which is why this app is so useful.

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ComputerGuru
What I really need is an app to send an address I've looked up in Google Maps
on my iPhone to my Garmin Nuvi via Bluetooth.

Search on the Nuvi for places > 5 mi away takes forever. It's so much faster
(and easier since Google guesses many of the address details) on the iPhone w/
Maps, and it'd be awesome to add a button that say "Send to Nuvi" and be on my
way :)

~~~
Toucan
I like the iPhone TomTom app which incorporates Google Local Search. The IQ
route planning and traffic avoidance are excellent also, I've found them
taking 10% off of city based journeys where I previously thought I knew the
roads well.

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fido
My first thought is to use this on vacation. Let's say I go to San Diego... I
enter in the hotel, the zoo, ocean beach, little italy, la jolla, etc. Then,
as I randomly explore the area, I click from current location to any spot I've
already entered. I LOVE this.

My most common words on vacation are "How in the hell do I get back to the
hotel".

~~~
cpeterso
"And where did I park the car??" :)

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furyofantares
My first thought was that I don't think I've ever needed directions to or from
a location more than once or twice, once it's familiar I know where it is.

But then I realized I do need transit times between familiar locations every
time I use mass transit.

So then I went to buy it, and it's free -- is there a way I can give you
money?

~~~
andrewfelix
> _is there a way I can give you money?_

Was thinking the same thing. I have paid for far less useful apps. This should
be 99c

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kooshball
Brilliant. This is such a common use case I can't believe it's not more
optimized in the OS level.

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Void_
If somebody drives often between two locations they know the way, right? Am I
missing something?

~~~
jamesrcole
Not for this app per se, but for a public-transport journey planner it'd be
useful for getting the next set of travel options to a common destination.

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trhaynes
Quick suggestion: style the "Current Location" bubble differently from the
rest.

Also, I'm not sure what "?" is. I assume that it lets you enter an address,
but it's best if I don't have to try it to figure it out.

~~~
pheelicks
Agree that it could be clearer. The idea of the '?' is to let you enter a
location without the hassle of having to save it first. Useful for times when
you want to go someplace, but it's not common enough to warrant saving it

~~~
apawloski
To me, it seems like this (the ? ) is the strongest feature of the app. My
kneejerk reaction is that if you go to a place often enough to save it, you
probably don't need directons anyway (or won't after one or two trips).

Nitpick aside, this is a beautifully simple interface.

~~~
egallardo
I would guess that the most common use case is getting from the current
location to a new destination (?). What if those 2 were more prominent? Saved
locations could be an additional option but to make this more efficient, I
would bring those 2 options to the forefront.

Needless to say, but well done!

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badclient
Next: please make an app that tells me what direction I should be walking to
find 7th ave if I'm on 8th ave? You'd think the gps should help but it
doesn't. You often end up walking more than half way before the gps will
sluggishly tell you you're headed in the wrong direction.

Any tourist in NYC would buy it. It's less painful than asking someone like
me(happens few times a week).

~~~
invertd
Come on man! A brief & polite human interaction never hurt anyone!

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jcfrei
wow! hurry and get this out for android - otherwise I'll do it for you ;)

~~~
lemma
On Android, you can just hold the search button to bring up voice search and
say "navigate to $address" and google maps navigation will guide you to the
address, no need to type anything. You can even say "navigate to
$business_name" and it will lead you to the closest one.

~~~
spullara
I'm sure everyone on here knows that you can do that on either platform.
Presumably people don't think that is as good.

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yogrish
If you know frequently used destinations (routes are familiar) like work,
park, Aquarium etc why at all you need maps? Will be useful when going to a
new place for which you don't know the route. In any case you need to type the
location right. I am not getting the usefulness of this App. Am I missing some
thing??

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centro
My reaction: That's awesome, I wonder how much it co… (holy *@$!^&) hit
download immediately. This is an elegant solution for a problem that should
really be better taken care of at the OS level. Hopefully Apple has the
decency to carve out a chunk of it's billions and buy this idea from you.
Great work!

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webwright
Consider adding calendar integration? i.e. a "next appointment (3pm / 1313 W.
54th Ave)" bubble...

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pheelicks
OP here. Thanks for all the feedback, wasn't expecting to get such a positive
response!

There are a bunch of great suggestions here which I plan on adding in the
future. Follow me: @pheeelicks (yes, 3 e's) for updates (inc Android version)

(Sorry for the extra post - it's too late to edit my original)

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shocks
Looks like a great app. Does it offer any password protection?

Dan loses phone, Andy finds phone. Andy emails Dan's wife saying he lost his
keys, and can she leave a spare behind the shed? Andy uses phone to find
house, Andy robs house.

Just a thought. :)

~~~
xyzzyb
Probably better to depend on the OS security for this.

~~~
shocks
Maybe so, but iirc the iPhone pin-code is pretty easy to bypass.

Perhaps it's just me that's paranoid! :)

~~~
0x0
You can configure the lockscreen to require a fullblown passphrase if you
think pins are too short.

~~~
shocks
Of course, but there have been security flaws in the past that allowed you to
easily remove a pin or passphrase.

I'm just nervous about saving my "home" address. Your car has keys, but you're
still advised not to save your home address under "Home" on your satnav. It's
the same thing.

~~~
spullara
Presumably it is on your registration or do you not keep that in your car?

~~~
shocks
I do not keep that in my car.

UK law allows me to carry only the license part and leave the paper part at
home. In the event that I should be required to produce it, I am allowed four
days to take it to my local police station.

------
iambot
The one pain point for me in the app, which I installed, is that when I
enter/edit a location I want to just drop a pin on the map - ala google maps.
And not just be redirected to the native maps app.

------
aw3c2
I am a bit confused, why do you need the starting point? I guess you would be
there and for navigation you would need a GPS position anyways.

~~~
neilk
Sometimes GPS isn't working. What if you're in an underground parking lot?

I do agree though, it seems like a bit of a fail if the OS knows that it has a
good fix on GPS, you shouldn't even need a "current location". Just tap the
location you want and go. If you want to do a route from A to B, then do the
swipe. But I expect the difficulty there is that getting a GPS fix takes time,
and mobile apps in 2012 can't do it in the background.

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d5tryr
Cute interface. The aesthetic could be a little more refined but the behaviour
and the animation is quite charming.

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JTon
Hrm. I only use my nav to get to _new_ places. That being said, I do see value
using this app to swipe to the "?".

~~~
apawloski
That was my initial thought as well. An interesting extension of this concept
would be to have generic circles too (eg "Bars") that connect the user to a
list of nearby places that the user can select from. Still no typing.

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exolab
I don't really see the point. Getting from my favourite places to my favourite
places I usually don't need a map.

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capex
Why would I need a GPS to take me to dad's or a particular cafe after I've
gone there once or twice?

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devsatish
wow! cool idea bro! installed it! I am sure I will be using this all the time
when I need the maps!

One request: If you can write a blog/comments about number of downloads after
making to top of HN, it would be interesting metric to look at :-)

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dustingetz
what GPS app do you guys use? all the iphone GPS apps I've used are terrible,
I still use Siri w/ google maps, which takes more attention than it should
when i'm driving.

~~~
neilk
The Motion-X suite of products are a little bit hardcore geo-nerd, but they
work for me.

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sidww2
Siri actually makes it rather simple to query map directions

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zeroonetwothree
This is really awesome. I would have gladly paid $1 for it.

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tonster
Very, Very clever. Definitely going to give this a try.

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alexobenauer
Brilliant. I would have paid for this, fyi.

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joering2
good job!! question -- did you design outlook and icon yourself? any
suggestions?

~~~
pheelicks
Did all the design myself, except the icons which came from the excellent
glyphish (<http://glyphish.com/>) icon collection. The icon is also based off
one of these.

~~~
joering2
thanks. is this design in illustrator?

~~~
pheelicks
Inkscape

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rpledge
Nice app, I'm impressed!

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thushan
Thank you, thank you!

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J3L2404
Clever app, nice job. Love the animation on the selection and how it just
leaves you in google maps and doesn't try to re-invent the map interface.
Might want to change

Swipe from one location to another

to

Drag from one location to another

Thanks for making it.

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gcb
i can see how the UI is awesome from going one place to another, but really,
anyone 'navigate' from anywhere that is not your 'current location'?

i don't. so it's an honest question.

thinking about it, the only few times i do search from A to B instead of "here
to B" is when i'm getting the subway, but then, i always have to click the
nearest station i'm willing to walk anyway... don't see i having one bookmark
for each one

