GPS Locator for iOS 8 [Crash and Fix]

Quite recently Apple announced iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and along with that iOS 8, the latest version of iOS operating system. As always the new version of iOS contains a variety of new features and improvements, from which both users and develoepers benefit.

Unfortunately every update has consequences; the apps require modifications to comply with the new version. Every application whether it is mobile, web or of some other nature uses external third party libraries. Thus almost every application depends on some other library in order to accomplish and provide the users with a service. This problem is possible to grow larger, since those libraries might in turn depend on some other libraries and so forth and so on. Thus, there are a lot of dependencies in almost every application. Consequently, there is a higher chance that an application will crash when a significant update, such as the roll out of a new version of iOS, occurs.

The whole point of this post is that GPS Locator fell inside this trap and at the moment is crashing for a lot of users. However, the problem has been identified and new version will be released soon. Apart from fixing the bug that leads to random crashes there were a few other minor fixes.

Thank you very much for the patient and I am terribly sorry for the inconvenience.

GPS Locator becomes social

It seems too late for a Facebook page. But better save than sorry! So, GPS Locator has its own Facebook page where you will learn more about what's going inside and with it. User's can now post related photos and express how they use it.

GPS Locator v3.0 is out

It was about time. This is a big update for all GPS Locator users. The new version 3.0 is ready to roll out for each and everyone of you.

As previously mentioned the change was about the UI and UX, but there are fixes on the functionality for a more stable application. An issue regarding the start/stop button was resolved and now you can record your track even better. Tracking remains as easy as before, just a single tap on the record button and you are ready!

Share and enjoy!

Moving to a "flat" design!

Preamble

This post is dedicated to the upcoming update of GPS Locator and to flat designs. This update is mainly inspired by the movement of Apple and Microsoft to flatten the UI of their mobile platforms. A new trend (or style) is taking the world of UI and website design by storm - flat design [1]. Graphic elements become simpler in order to provide comfort to the user's eye. Colors are brighter and at the same time soothing.

Flat design

First let's answer the question: "what is flat design?". Most people would consider it as a philosophy rather than simple aesthetics. It incorporates the philosophy of a different kind of usability and user experience (UX). Its main characteristics are simplicity, clean user interface and ease of use. It is a minimalistic approach and style to designing websites and UI where we take a step back, strip away all the 3D elements, gradients, shadows and effects to leave behind the bare necessities [1].

The first to embrace this change are web sites. From blogs to simple web sites, everything is becoming flat. Many designers have published a lot of free resources to motivate independent software and web developers to embrace this new approach of building stuff. A lot of blogs try to explain flat design, most by example, since it's really hard to explain this movement by words. At fltdsgn.com someone can see various examples of flattie designed web sites.

Why moving to flat design

Computing devices are part of technology and technology is moving at a really fast pace, whether some people like it or not. So, application developers should keep up with the changes of the future. Thus they have to update and improve their application(s) as fast as possible, so they won't stay behind. So, it's time for a major UI update.

The Update

The app is almost ready, but as always it requires finishing touches and further checks to secure that everything works properly. So, above you see the new logo and below a few screenshots of the new UI. You can see the adoption of simple design, with no shadows or textures which makes the UI look clean and feel usable. It's smooth and clear as it should!

Hopefully, the update will be available within 2 weeks...

References

[1] Showcase Of Beautiful Flat UI Design - Hongkiat.com