Version 0.85 has been released and has some exciting new features! new features include Foursquare venue information, venue phone numbers, Foursquare checkin support and more! Since we have gotten some requests for a tutorial on how to use the Foursquare integration, we are going to explain here the few easy steps it takes to start playing one the the biggest and most active games on the mobile platform using iPlacemarks!

The iPlacemarks are geared towards the users specific tastes, and in this tutorial we will be using the ‘Coffee Shop iPlacemark’ for Android 1.5+. If you do not have a Foursquare account or the app you can get both for free at Foursquare.com!

Upon opening the app, it will attempt to determine your location via GPS satellites. If you don’t have a GPS signal just be patient it usually only takes a few seconds.

In this new version of iPlacemarks you will now see your location selected on the map as well as secondary locations in your are which are not highlighted as in the picture above.

If you see the foursquare icon in the upper left corner is highlighted, that means Foursquare knows about this location and you will be ready to checkin for points when you get there! You can click the icon to get more information about the location such as the phone number and various specials.

Now if this location just isn’t for you, go ahead and close the information panel with the close button or by pressing the back button on your phone. Now you can tap any of the nearby locations on the map and route there instead!

Now that you have the location you want, you can always check the directions panel to check your exact directions.

When you arrive at your location, you can check right in with foursquare by using the checkin button on the information panel.

If you have never logged into the app before, you will need to do this once. Your foursquare information is never sent anywhere but the Foursquare servers and is stored privately to protect your privacy.

After checking in you will see any rewards that you have earned as well as the current mayor and any specials that you might be interested in.

iPlacemarks also offers you several options for configuring your navigation experience. Press the ‘menu’ button on your phone (or the small button with 3 lines). This will pull up the menu to give you some more options.

The ‘My Location’ button will pan the map to your current location in case you were exploring around the map. The directions button takes you to the same directions panel as the lower-right corner shortcut on the map. Press settings to bring up the user preferences.

Minimum distance settings: this allows you set a minimum distance for your nearest location. This is helpful if you want to find new spots outside your normal range.

The auto-show information option allows you to have iPlacemark automatically show you the Foursquare pop-up.

And that’s it! We’ve tried to go into deep details here but all you really need to remember is to tap the icon! If you have any other questions or comments, feel free to contact us as contact at androidteam.info

This is our first official UpDate to iPlacemarks in the App store. After seeing the demand and uptake of our trial 1.0 version, we saw that we are actually helping thousands of people navigate from A to B more pleasurably and in less taps.

We went back to the labs and cooked up version 1.5. Get it in iTunes here or just check the Updates section of the App store on your iPhone.

As always we love to hear your feedback, issues, bugs, or feature requests.

1. Fix the iPhone Version (done)
2. Version 1.5 (submitted)
3. Version 2.0 (in development)

Before we get too ahead of ourselves, lets focus on version 1.5 . There are some very exciting improvements in this version that we would like to highlight. Really we hope you guys provide us some feedback on these improvements and make other requests and suggestions.

Version 1.5 improvements:

New Functionality:
- Save My Location
- Allows you to create an iplacemark of your current location, so you can find it and route yourself back there later in 1 click from your homescreen

- New HomeScreen UI
- Better interface to guide the user on the 3 main use case flows

- My Places tab
- Allows users to quickly access all of their installed/ created iPlacemarks in 1 place. This is a response to user requests of being able to access nav shortcuts directly in the app.

Info Updates:
- New Intro screen/ Help Screen
- New Pop Up alert text
- Updated Splash Screen to match the pin in the headers

Performance improvements:
- Major overhaul of screens from webview to native
- much faster and smoother loading as a result
- Updated loader animations

Full Steam Ahead

We are excited about 2010. And we have started the year off strong.
Here is the top line update:

1. We updated our android placemark core app. Besides performance improvements and routing upgrades, I am very excited to announce a roll out of our “Shake to Switch” feature for iPlacemark maps. Double Shake the device to slide out the map view of your route, and see a text list view of directions. Double Shake again to switch back to map view. You can READ About it more right HERE

2. Launched 6 new android iPlacemarks. Here is the list of new destinations that we started offering  nav short cuts to:
(thanks to Androidz, TMD’s android guru)

- Krispy Kreme
- 24 hour fitness

- Wendy’s
- Carl’s Jr.
- Burger King
- McDonald’s

3. Fixed iPhone iPlacemarks version 1.0 . Now we are beta testing iPlacemarks 1.1 in our labs right now.

Stay tuned for more updates coming soon

We are back

We are happy to say that we have fully fixed all issues with the iPlacemarks iPhone app.

Service has resumed.

The price back down to Free, please download the iPlacemarks app and enjoy.

Tell your friends about it in fact.

Much thanks to our engineering hero that has returned our App to its full glory.

P.S. Both the iPhone version and the android versions are being actively developed in our laboratories

We are sorting this out, and will have a fix for the problem as soon as we can.

We are on it

So please for the time being do not buy the app on iPhone.

P.S. The Android versions are running fine btw, and they are currently free. Go get 1 of our 6 android 1- Tap navigation buttons

Here check out the screenshot of the app listed in the App Store:
http://img207.yfrog.com/i/ss1d.png/

The effort is spear headed by base64, the newest addition to the TMD team. base64 is hacker extraordinaire and is TMD’s lead partner for the Android platform

For now we will keep our methods secret. Until we determine the outcomes of our experiments its hush hush. For now lets just say we acquired the following keywords:
“Карта , карты, место, грс, путь, найди, город, поиск, метро, машина, маршрут, навигация, закладки, булавки, пробка , улица”

iPlacemarks app icon

Finally iPlacemarks iPhone app is in the App Store. Go Download yours today and start making google Maps Shortcuts
It was a lot of hard work to conceive, design, code, debug, and pass approval for TMD’s 1st app. We finally did and think you guys will be pleased with version 1.0 of our app.
We welcome all feedback, bugs that you find, feature suggestions, design suggestions, etc Just use our handy Feedback button in the app, or leave a comment here.

Download the App from iTunes here:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=334192780&mt=8

Or here is a Twitter Friendly URL you can use, we appreciate your help in spreading the word:
http://bit.ly/3L7bWW

Here is a video fly through we put together to show you what your getting for your $.99 Enjoy.
iPlacemarks App Fly Through Video

Featured Placemarks

I have been tracking Garmin’s entry into the mobile space since their announcement of their intentions.

I love GPS devices and i love my iPhone that was the driving force behind the creation of iPlacemarks to improve the navigation and location experience on iPhone.
I think we have put together an incredibly simple yet useful solution for this goal. We just submitted our App to the app store for approval so stay tuned

I think the “Favorites” functionality on the Garmin Nuviphone will provide a superb user experience in terms of quickly finding locations, and places.
This should help incite a general awareness of the idea of having location bookmarks on your mobile.
IMHO in a few years from now people will expect to be able to be routed to their favorite locations within less then 4 clicks. Location shortcut buttons will be prevalent on smart phones in the next 3 years. The trend will keep growing for that period for sure IMHO
I applaud the Garmin Nuvifone for shipping with “iPlacemarks” style functionality already onboard.

It is high time that someone showed that the Google Maps driven navigation experience on iPhone is sub optimal in many respects. ONe of which is an underwhelming bookmarking experience.