September 4, 2009, 3:07 pm
AT&T is going to permit Loopt, a location based services vendor, access to exclusive background functionality on the iPhone. As the primary developer and owner of a free web based location services site, moostrax.com, I am absolutely infuriated with what is taking place.
When I discovered the aforemetioned, I realized that the key to being able to take advantage of a closed platform(as a software developer, and in this case, the iPhone platform), is to strike a deal with the carrier and put some money in their pockets.
And as a consumer, if I want to run a background application on MY iPhone, which I payed good money for, I need to pay the carrier an additional monthly fee(in this case, per application), and HOPE that the application I wish to background, has a deal with the carrier(so I can pay them money, of course).
Honestly, it is disgusting what is happening in this world. Patents are ubiquitous and exclusivity is everywhere. The DMCA and similar laws cripple consumers’ rights to take control of our purchases.
Attempting to jailbreak an iPhone (and giving a user access to his own phone) can void your warranty. Why? Because Apple doesn’t want you to have control over the iPhone. They want you to use the iTunes store. They want your experience to be guided by their extensive expertise.
I’ll definitely be posting more on this subject soon, but its late now, and I need to sleep.
August 7, 2009, 10:15 am
I just made a very basic MoosTrax location updater for the iPhone. Currently it just sends your location to MoosTrax when you press the Update Now button.
I will be adding push notifications soon so that when someone pulls up the Live Tracking page on the MoosTrax website, you will receive a notification on your iPhone requesting you to update your location. That is really all I can do for now, as background applications are still not permitted.
If anyone wants to help me test this first version, please email moostraxsupport@gmail.com.
Screenshots:
August 7, 2009, 6:33 am
I am currently working on adding MoosTrax for the Palm Pre. Is there anyone out there that is interested in this? Let me know!
July 3, 2009, 3:39 pm
I recently traded my T-Mobile G1, with Android, for an iPhone 3G. I am hoping to get MoosTrax running on the iPhone, but unfortunately, even with push notifications, it might not be the same as the BlackBerry and Android versions. Here are some reasons why.
No automatic location updates
The iPhone OS does not allow applications to run in the background, which means MoosTrax cannot check your location and send it to the server at a fixed interval.
Push Notifications aren’t the whole solution
MoosTrax could send a push notification to your phone, telling it to send a location update to the server, but unfortunately it requires user interaction. It wouldn’t be too convenient to have your phone vibrating every few minutes asking you to update your location.
Manual updates
Initially, MoosTrax for iPhone will have support for sending location updates to the server manually when you open the application.
Stay tuned
Hopefully, within time, Apple will make the push notification functionality more advanced so that MoosTrax can be as powerful as it is on other platforms, such as Android and BlackBerry. For now, stay tuned for the iPhone application. I am waiting to be approved in the iPhone developer program and then you should see the application in the iTunes store soon.
March 18, 2009, 4:29 pm
You can view the new MoosTrax site at http://www.moostrax.com. Registrations are now open so anyone can signup.
A new BlackBerry client version has been released, version 0.3.3.
Also, existing Storm users that are experiencing update problems should raise their accuracy to 200 meters and see if that fixes the problem.