Speed v2 & Heads-Up-Display

A review on the Australian App Store by user 'willnick' sparked my imagination:
Can you please add the feature to reverse the display so you can leave it on the dash and use the reflection in the windscreen as a "heads up" style display. Then it would become the perfect addition to the car.
You know… that's not half bad. I had planned to have this feature hit as a surprise with 2.0, but it's Christmas, so what the hell! Here's a sneak peek: In testing it's proved very legible and usable, and silently floats on the windscreen without being distracting. I'm currently thinking about different ways to make other subtle HUD-style mirrored applications for people who use their iPhone in the car, so watch this space! If you have any good requests, feel free to comment on this post.

12 comments:

  1. This is cool and all, but what happened to the Stack 2.1 update????
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  2. I'm not going to try and bother Ste with packaging and setting up the distribution of Stack 2.1 over Christmas, it's rude and selfish.

    You can wait
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  3. Let me just put this out there... but you just got Steven Troughton-Smithed. In the face.
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  4. oh ok. Thank you for the update. Btw that's really neat with reflection of the iphone as a HUD
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  5. This is really cool but i thought by now some one would have started or released a turn by turn gps app:(
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  6. Hey Steven,

    I really appreciate your Speed app, although I've had some trouble with its accuracy. Most recently, with the new 1.0.5 that has it working again, the numbers seems to be about 10% too high to me.

    When I was driving along at 70-72 mph, it was showing 77-80 mpg. Any idea why?
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  7. If i had to guess is that the gps on the iphone isnt that accurate
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  8. Hello,

    I confirm the issue fredct experienced in v1.0.5. The speed appeared roughly 10 km/h (or 6 mph) higher than I actually drove.

    I also saw that you put in decimals for the display. While it shows you more details, the internal GPS receiver appears not to be so accurate that the numbers are constantly changing. My opinion: There should be an option to just show integers as it is easier to read and keeps the display more calm. Like you stated at the icon rule #3 in one of your previous posts: KISS (Keep it simple, stupid) ;-)

    The speed bug fixed, the decimal option added, this application rocks!



    Regards,
    Phoenix
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  9. I have an update waiting in the store that hopefully will tune the readings even further. The iPhone 2.2 firmware is still broken, and until it's fixed I can never make this as accurate as it used to be.
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  10. Hi it is a great idea. I have the same idea today. And i will tallk to you buit it is to late :0)

    do you can make a black Screen and big White Numbers?

    And in Headupdisplay mode can be show the Speed Slower. But when it is jumped jo look to much inside.

    Yo can Sell on you homepage HedUp Folie :0)

    Have a nice time.
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  11. I agree that the decimal places aren't all that meaningful due to the accuracy of the iPhone GPS (especially two of them). Maybe a setting for 0, 1, or 2 decimals wouldn't be a bad choice. Afterall, if we know its wrong by 6 to 7 mph, whats the point of 0.01 mph displays?

    But more important than that, I think the frequency of changing might be an issue. The old versions seemed up update your speed only once every, what was it, 5 or 10 seconds if that? The new one seems to update once a second or so.

    Is there any chance that - again, due to the low accuracy of the iPhone GPS - the answer might be more accurate if it didn't update so often? Perhaps taking the reading less often would allow some of the error to average out?

    Maybe a second user option for updates every 1..10 seconds would be useful too.
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  12. Thanks for the head up display! Actually I also suggested this in your blog way back in September...
    http://steventroughtonsmith.blogspot.com/2008/08/speed-in-six-days.html
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