Flype on the iPhone
Overview
The main part of the Flype screen is taken by the map, where your current flype location is displayed. The map is a rather standard Google Map, i.e. you can:
- Move the map with one finger to move your flype location
- Double tap to zoom into the map and change the flype altitude
- Use two fingers to zoom in or out the map, aka "pinching"
- Tap with two fingers to zoom out
Manipulating the map is only available in Pause mode. During your flype you can only use the map to change your flype speed:
- Tap and hold your finger on the map, then move it slightly up or down! As long as your finger is on the map, you will accelerate or slow down!
- Double-tap on the map to slow down to 50 km/h, or 30 mph
Tap the Pause button below the map to start flyping!
- Tilt your iPhone to left or right to flype a curve: the map will rotate
- Roll your iPhone back or forth to change your flype's altitude. Details on the map will get larger or smaller
- Move a finger up or down on the map to accelerate or slow down
The Status bar
This button shows the current flype direction with north at the top.
This is your "Attitude indicator",which works like a real one on a plane. The light part symbolizes the earth. You can easily see your flype orientation.
The displayed state indicates a slight curve to the left.
In the middle of the toolbar, your current flype altitude and speed is displayed. On the settings page you can switch to ft. and mph, of course.
The Button Bar
Below the map you'll find the buttons to control Flype and EarthGlider, if available. Without EarthGlider, some buttons stay greyed out.
Start/Pause: Tap here to start and pause flyping
Record (EarthGlider): You can record flypes in EarthGlider and later playback them on Google Earth.
New Placemark: The current position, altitude and direction will be stored in a new placemark. Using a Google service, the address data will be filled in automagically. You can change these data later, too.
Streets (EarthGlider): Street lines and names are displayed on the EarthGlider's map. To show streets in Flype's map, choose Hybrid map on the settings page.
Location (EarthGlider): Names of locations and some kinds of borders and lines are displayed in EarthGlider.
3D Buildings (EarthGlider): Because EarthGlider is based on GoogleEarth, 3D buildings can be displayed, where available. This is very impressive in cities like San Francisco, Paris or New York.
If all options are switched on, the button bar looks like here:
Places
By tapping the places button on the bottom of the screen you can access the placemarks, i.e. places which you can visit with a single tap.
To add your own placemark, tap the yellow pin button below the map. Placemarks can be deleted and rearranged, after tapping the Edit button:
To edit the data of a placemark, tap the blue circle besides a placemark entry as seen above. Now you can edit the description of the placemark or change the altitude and flype direction:
Besides "My Places" you'll also find the "Online" section of placemarks. This one is filled by other users who wants to share their fevorite locations! You can do this, too! On the placemark edit page you find the sharing button:
Tap this button to access a dialog to enter details. One further tap and you can send me this placemark by mail. After a check, I will put it online for all users of Flype:
Thank you very much in advance!
Settings
The settings page is only one tap away:
Special Places
Set current place as Home: You can set one place as "Home". Flype to the location, then tap this button. Altitude, speed and direction will be saved, too.
Go Home: Jump directly to your "Home"
Go to device's location: The iPhone tries to gather it's own location using GPS and/or WiFi. The map will be positioned accordingly.
Google Maps Style
Map: Symbolic map display
Hybrid: Satellite view with streets and locations overlayed
Satellite: Pure satellite view
Measurement Units
Metric: meter and kilometer or ...
Imperial: feet und miles
Rotate Map to ...
Flype direction: With this option set, the map will always be rotated to flype direction. This mode is very intuitive, but because map labels are rotated, it is sometimes difficult to read.
North when paused: in pause mode, you can choose to rotate the map up to north. This makes it easy to read labels on the map and navigate.
Misc.
Show Map Overlay: The current tilt and roll state of the iPhone will be displayed by green lines on top of the map. Because of the small attitude ndicator on the toolbar, you may switch off this overlay.
Show Help Dialogs: there are a few help dialogs thoughout the app. You may even omit these.
Happy Flyping!
Robert Fischer, tin:b Software
Note: Google Earth and Google Maps are trademarks of Google Inc.
