iPhone App Released - FRC Tracker

[Tom Saxton]

If you use an iPhone or iPod Touch, then I'd like to tell you about a free application that I released today.

For the last few weeks, I've been working on an application for the iPhone and iPod Touch that has a database of all the FIRST events and teams that allows you to look up info about the regional events, the teams and the matches played.

In addition to the built-in database, it also uses the frcfms Twitter feed to get info about ongoing matches as they happen.

Version 1.0 was just approved by Apple and made available on the iTunes App Store.

Here's a web page that describes the application:

http://www.idleloop.com/frctracker/

And here's a link to the app store where you can download it.

http://tinyurl.com/c96zgh

Unfortunately, there appears to be a bug in the version that's now available. When you have it check the Twitter feed for new matches, it's supposed to stop when it catches up to the last match played on March 20th. Instead, it tries to download the entire backlog of messages and then fails when it hits the end of the Twitter archive.

So, the first time you update you'll definitely want to let it run until it hits a failure around "page 22". Even though you get an error message, it is now fully up to date.

Sadly, it will do the same thing the next time you update. And, there's no graceful way to stop the update, you have to just quit the app. So, for subsequent updates, just let it go for a page or two (depending on how many matches have been played in the six or so active regionals since you last updated), then quit the app.

The good news is that this problem only affects the behavior of the app when getting the live Twitter updates. If you don't care about tracking the current matches as they happen, then the app will still be useful for scouting other teams, seeing what other regionals they attended, and how they did there.

I already have a newer version with a bunch of enhancements, which I will submit after the Seattle regional is over. It probably won't be available for the week six regionals, but I expect that it will be in great shape with more information about all of the teams and regionals before Atlanta.

[Legator91]

I just downloaded it....its purity cool. I like how it has all the match data by team and also by event. Though I would recommend some kind of ranking system, and also in each event tell who won the event. This could become a great tool for scouting. Example being 1114, do to FiM my team wont see them until Atlanta. So to have a tool like this, it could become very useful. Overall great start!!!

[wilsonmw04]

I think the bug on updating is related to the limit of tweets and individual can accept in a given period of time. I know i've been refused updates when I run twitter on more than one machine at a time.

[Tom Saxton]

The bug with requesting all 20+ pages of tweets, then reporting a failure, has nothing to do with Twitter's rate limit of 200 page requests per hour. My code remembers the last tweet it has processed, so that when it does an update it just reads tweets until it hits the first tweet it has already processed. Unfortunately, there is a bug in the version that got posted on iTunes that stops this from happening.

The odd thing is that I found and fixed this bug before submitting the final 1.0 version to Apple. I submitted the app to Apple, then continued testing. Right after I posted it, I discovered the bug (which only happens on a fresh install), fixed the bug, and uploaded the new version to Apple, fixing that bug and another cosmetic bug. Either I botched things when I uploaded the fixed version, or Apple approved and posted the original version even though I yanked that version from the submission. My guess is that I messed it up, but I sent email to Apple in case they made the mistake and need to fix their system. I also uploaded the fixed version as a 1.0.1 update within hours of the app becoming available on iTunes. (Thanks to my wife, Cathy, for immediately downloading it from iTunes and finding the problem.)

Hopefully, the fixed version will get approved and posted soon.

Since I posted version 1.0 on March 20th, I've been working on an improved version and have added a lot of stuff. Here's a list of what will definitely be in version 1.1, which I expect will be available for Atlanta.

• More efficient Twitter checking.
• Show team name and rookie year in team lists.
• Show the full team name from the team info view.
• Get full team info from the list of teams at an event (now you can see their match results, but you can't go directly to the full team info view from the regional's team list).
• Improved format for showing match results.
• When viewing a team's matches for an event, more easily determine if that team won, lost or tied the match.
• Get updates with official match results, derived from the US FIRST pages.
• Add support for the Atlanta competitions.

There are more features I *hope* will be ready by Atlanta, but I am less sure they'll be done in time.

• Show awards by team and by event.
• In team info view: show rank, record and elimination results for each regional.
• Ability to mark specific teams and events as "favorites" so they appear at the top of the list.

I hope it's something people find useful, it's been fun working on it and I got to use it a bunch when being a referee at the Seattle regional.

[EStokely]

this is a great App.

I ran around showing folks most of Friday and Sat that I had results of previous matches for games played just a few minutes earlier.

I also love the Icon for it! (it is a Super Cell)

Thanks for the App Tom!!!

[Legator91]

The update for Atlanta sounds great! I think this will become very a useful tool. I also like that you are planing to put a record in for each team. That will be very useful information.

[Greg Marra]

For many matches, The Blue Alliance has .mp4 versions of archived video. This format is playable on iPhone OS devices. If you are interested, you could tie in with The Blue Alliance API to offer replays. PM me if you want more info

Also, any chance of releasing the source code? I'm sure many people would love to see how an iPhone app works, and Apple's NDA on code no longer prevents open source projects. It could be a great learning opportunity for everyone.

[Tom Saxton]

Originally Posted by Greg Marra

Also, any chance of releasing the source code?

I don't think I'll make FRC Tracker open source. It started as a little three-day project, then became a three-week code-a-thon, and counting.

I did release a different sample app as open source as a companion to a post I wrote for the Google Mac Dev Blog.

http://googlemac.blogspot.com/2009/0...phone-app.html

http://code.google.com/p/googledocs-cocoa-sample/

Anyone can sign up as an iPhone developer, and once you're in the program you get access to tons of sample code. There are also a number of good books for learning iPhone development, with much better examples than FRC Tracker would be.

[ShotgunNinja]

Hey, I have some interesting little tidbits that might be, well, of interest.

I have been working on some stuff with a free open-source C++ library called openFrameworks, and one of the other online collaborators, memo, just finalized the development of a C++ iPhone development library. It still allows the use of Objective-C alongside the C++, and along with Apple's X-Code IDE, lets you compile a C++ project that works exactly the same on the iPhone as on any computer platform, with no changes to the code.

Here you go:
ofx-iPhone project page
oF download page

[Legator91]

Originally Posted by ShotgunNinja

Hey, I have some interesting little tidbits that might be, well, of interest.

I have been working on some stuff with a free open-source C++ library called openFrameworks, and one of the other online collaborators, memo, just finalized the development of a C++ iPhone development library. It still allows the use of Objective-C alongside the C++, and along with Apple's X-Code IDE, lets you compile a C++ project that works exactly the same on the iPhone as on any computer platform, with no changes to the code.

Here you go:
ofx-iPhone project page
oF download page

This could make things so much simpler for this app. I know I would use it! Having an iphone, the abilty to be at a competition and pull info up on a team in a sec is very usefull.

[JesseK]

No open source???

Guess I'll have to privately develop the live OPR ratings then. The app looks great, I look forward to trying it in Atlanta.

[Pavan Dave]

Is there a Blackberry version coming out soon?

[Tom Saxton]

Thanks for the kind words everyone! That's what makes it all worthwhile.

I got turn around from Apple is less than 5 days for my last two app approvals, so I'm going to wait about a week before uploading a new version. So, try it out and let me know of any bugs.

It would be helpful if a few teams could upload a robot photo to The Blue Alliance to make sure my photo download code works correctly for 2010. If you do upload a photo, let me know so I can try it out.

Pavan Dave: Blackberry and other platform versions were discussed earlier in this thread. I'm just an iPhone guy, but it sounds like others are interested in building similar apps on other mobile platforms.

[Tom Saxton]

FRC Tracker 2010 v 1.3.2 is now available with event favoriting and support for getting team photos from the photo library or camera.

FRC Tracker 2009 v 1.3.2 has a bug with the team ranking view. I've asked Apple to pull it, but it's still available. We will update it soon. I recommend waiting for the next update.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

A couple of quick comments on the interface/UX from the peanut gallery…

When you switch from "Name" to "Date" sorting in the events tab, the TableView stays scrolled to the same index. It's a bit disorienting, as the relative index to the list has changed, but your position traversing it has not. In order to have any idea what's going on, you have to look at the cell's subtext, which is tiny and gray. Is this by design?

Maybe make it so a sorting change also brings you back to the top? This should be simple with a quick 'scrollToRowAtIndexPath:atScrollPosition:animated: '

Also, check out how we do event by date sorting on TBA. Breaking it up into weeks seems like a logical way to separate the events, and could be easily added with section headers. http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv/

Now that I think of it, a third option to sort by region would by cool too!

Beyond those, this looks like an AWESOME app. Its almost exactly what I wanted to do with iBlueAlliance, which is currently just vaporware.