Andiamo Places

A travel app for planning and recording trips. The app combines artificial intelligence (AI) with advanced Google APIs and runs on browsers, iOS and android devices.

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Inspiration

I created the app to help me plan and organize our family trips.

What it does

  • Creates a customized guide for your trip using AI and Google APIs.
  • Gives answers to common travel related questions using Artificial Intelligence
  • Auto-creates a travel journal with photos you took on your trip.
  • Link a video to a path and some photos to start playing the video from any point on the path or from where any photo was taken.
  • Allows users to create and share travel guides, travel journals, travel diaries and photo journals.
  • Imports KML, KMZ, GPX or TCX files from location tracking apps or Google Maps and display the places or path you traveled on the map.
  • Imports Google Maps List or google My Maps.
  • Imports Google Maps Timeline.
  • Provides statistics on how many continents, regions and cities you have visited.
  • Keeps a bucket list of places to visit.
  • Create interactive content (text, images, video, audio, maps and links) using HTML.
  • Displays content in: Map, Places, Schedules and HTML.
  • Add locations (markers), paths (lines) and areas (polygons) on map.
  • Organize Places by: Categories, Groups, Favorites, Visited, Must-see, and Rating
  • Filter guide content by: Places, Groups, Categories, Schedule, Days, Favorites, Visited, Must See, Distance etc.
  • Sort places by: Name, Category, Group, Rating, Distance and Date
  • Track your location, get directions (walking, driving and cycling) from Google maps, and get weather info
  • Click to launch Google Maps for directions
  • Add places found from Google or Wikipedia search
  • Link to Foursquare, Yelp and Happy Cow apps based on the location in the app.
  • Choose from the hundreds of existing guides provided by Andiamo Places and the community e.g., Rome, Paris, etc.

How I built it

The initial version was written in Silverlight/C# (for web) around 2011. This was followed by the android version in Java, the iOS version in Objective-C and the Windows Phone version in C#. The current versions use React for the web and react-native for iOS and android in order to maximize code sharing. I wrote all of the code, but relied on third party components, I got some help on the UI and on the framework for the React version because I was busy with the mobile versions and I didn't yet know React.

Challenges I ran into

Supporting all 3 versions took too much time for me as a solo developer, so when Silverlight was being discontinued I switched to React for the web version and then react-native for the mobile versions to share code. I tried to keep the functionality between web and mobile versions the same, but that is not always possible. Some functionality is better on the web version because of a larger ecosystem (also because of more space when displayed on a larger screen). Some functionality is better on the mobile devices, for example reading Exif data from images is not allowed on the web version running on a mobile device.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I'm especially proud of the following features: 1. Using AI and google APIs for the auto-creation of a guide. 2. Automatically creating a photo journal from photos taken on a trip. 3. Importing KML, KMZ, GPX, TCX files. 4. Importing Google timeline. 5. Importing Google Maps List. 6. Linking a video with a path and some photos so that clicking anywhere on the path or on any photos will start the video from that position based on the time.

What I learned

React-native does minimize the amount of code to write across the 3 platforms, but there are always challenges to overcome when new versions create incompatibles with third party components.

What's next for Andiamo Places

Looking at speech coupled with AI as input/output. Looking at integrating more Google APIs where appropriate. On the lookout for better AI tools or improvements in the existing tools.

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