App developer here. My app, Samaki Rewards, gamifies safe-driving. You get points for driving safe. You can then use these points to get discounts and/or Visa Gift Cards.
I partnered with GiftCards.com, who has offered to give out gift cards to safe drivers. I'm also working with TireBuyer.com, JewelMint, and HowAboutWe to give discounts on their sites as well. All deals will be available on Friday.
This is my first iPhone app. I learned Objective C just to complete this project. There are a few more features that I would like to have included, but I promised GiftCards.com and TechStars NYC that I would have it up by week's end. And we all know how long it takes to get an app approved.
I'd love to hear feedback, advice and comments. Drive with the app around town, and see how it goes. http://www.Samaki.com
Quick question.. What is to stop me and all my friends using this on my bus to farm gift cards? I travel for 3 hours per day, I'm sure between the 6 of us we could be a real pain in the ass.
--You get a huge "point bonus" for using a car charger, which is a real cheap way to ensure that you're in a car, versus just standing in a bus. Also prevents us from murdering your iPhone battery.
--Given the way most busses operate (rough start/stops, crazy fast speeds, rush rush rush), you'd probably throw off the algorithm, which would flag you as "unsafe driving", and give you a shitty amount of points.
--At least for our test group, we couldn't find that many people willing to put down their iPhone when they didn't have to...Especially sitting on a bus for 3+ hours. Lots of folks said that they would do that, but boredom always got the best of them.
Ahhh I see, that makes a lot of sense, thanks for clarifying and I agree, not using my phone for that period of time would be difficult, that's why I keep my laptop on my for use on the bus (yeah, I'm one of those weird bus laptop people) - I might install this and see how much I can screw around with it (all in the name of improvement of course) for instance, can I sandbox this so it doesn't know when I use my phone, etc.
One major issue I have is this - internet coverage isn't perfect (I don't know about the US but it sure sucks in the UK when you're in the country!) so surely disconnecting for a few minute while you go over a hill, etc, would be detrimental to your points. Personally, if I cared enough about this application not to use my phone, I would probably check it out of paranoia to see if the loss of internet in rural areas lost me points and it wold actually be a negative impact, so with this in mind, how do you handle lag / disconnection / poor coverage?
Of course, these are edge cases, but important ones which could lose you custom in the long term.
It doesn't need the internet to work. Once you log in, we keep you logged in (unless you reboot your iPhone). So even if you reach a dead zone, you're fine. Just make sure you have internet when you try to save your points :-)
Oh I see, so the points are stored locally then uploaded to your server?
Definitely going to download this and see what I can mess around with then, would love to see if I can inject a ridiculously long route and have it run 24/7 to trick it in to thinking I'm simply the most amazing driver and rack up points then upload the route and drop you an email when I'm worth a few thousand dollars worth of gift cards. :)
"We do not allow phone conversations while driving. Yup, that includes hands-free accessories. "
Any particular reason for banning hands-free devices, especially given that most cars nowadays have them and that many are controlled on the steering wheel directly?
Fun little app, for a good cause too! Nicely done.
Quick question, what all do you do with the location data...I'd love just a bit of transparency on what else you might use the data for. What data leaves my device?
Your GPS data stays locally. I might, in the future, implement a "past route" feature, so you can see how you performed, but that's in a future version.
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try to make it more clear how I'm using the data.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 24.5 ms ] threadI partnered with GiftCards.com, who has offered to give out gift cards to safe drivers. I'm also working with TireBuyer.com, JewelMint, and HowAboutWe to give discounts on their sites as well. All deals will be available on Friday.
This is my first iPhone app. I learned Objective C just to complete this project. There are a few more features that I would like to have included, but I promised GiftCards.com and TechStars NYC that I would have it up by week's end. And we all know how long it takes to get an app approved.
I'd love to hear feedback, advice and comments. Drive with the app around town, and see how it goes. http://www.Samaki.com
--Given the way most busses operate (rough start/stops, crazy fast speeds, rush rush rush), you'd probably throw off the algorithm, which would flag you as "unsafe driving", and give you a shitty amount of points.
--At least for our test group, we couldn't find that many people willing to put down their iPhone when they didn't have to...Especially sitting on a bus for 3+ hours. Lots of folks said that they would do that, but boredom always got the best of them.
One major issue I have is this - internet coverage isn't perfect (I don't know about the US but it sure sucks in the UK when you're in the country!) so surely disconnecting for a few minute while you go over a hill, etc, would be detrimental to your points. Personally, if I cared enough about this application not to use my phone, I would probably check it out of paranoia to see if the loss of internet in rural areas lost me points and it wold actually be a negative impact, so with this in mind, how do you handle lag / disconnection / poor coverage?
Of course, these are edge cases, but important ones which could lose you custom in the long term.
Definitely going to download this and see what I can mess around with then, would love to see if I can inject a ridiculously long route and have it run 24/7 to trick it in to thinking I'm simply the most amazing driver and rack up points then upload the route and drop you an email when I'm worth a few thousand dollars worth of gift cards. :)
Any particular reason for banning hands-free devices, especially given that most cars nowadays have them and that many are controlled on the steering wheel directly?
Quick question, what all do you do with the location data...I'd love just a bit of transparency on what else you might use the data for. What data leaves my device?
Anyway, I'll be trying this out.
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try to make it more clear how I'm using the data.