I got blocked by Microsoft for trying to advertise on DDG. I signed up for a new account (no prior M$ affiliation to start from), imported my Google Ads campaign, paid them a hundred bucks and was almost ready to spend. Then I uploaded my WA state business license and immediately got force logged out without any reason. An email came by to say I had been blocked. Support was utterly useless, there was no way to appeal that I could find, and I had to file a chargeback with my bank to get the $100 out. Don't waste your time & money, folks
Hello fellow map maker! I feel like I’m in the same boat. PWAs work great, I wish Apple would treat them as first class apps. I tinkered with launching a TWA for my app on the Play Store and it works pretty well but I haven’t published it yet. Probably a harder market to monetize than iOS but it seems like good advertising just to have the listing up
Hello! And yeah... :\ The Android/Chrome/Edge support for it is great, and on iOS it's actually nice, but you have to do all the hoop-jumping of clicking Share, whatever, and getting the icon to actually appear.
Also, apparently Apple really doesn't like approving apps that are basically wrapped PWAs (Google will, I guess?) so that is yet another check against bothering with an app.
Yeah, Apple has a rule against simple wrappers. Check out bubblewrap if you haven’t already. It’s made by Google specifically for wrapping PWAs for the Play Store. There’s a tiny bit of work to make a keystore and manifest file, otherwise it just pulls from your PWA config automatically
Thanks for that pointer. I have, but I just really don't want to do it... With my current architecture -- that I like -- it'd be an app per map. Which I guess could make a little pocket money, but they are so hyper-local it wouldn't earn much. So I may as well just keep things going the way they are.
reading that tweet it came across to me that he set the agent up for failure. garbage in, garbage out! maybe a more fair comparison would have been a prompt to design & implement the renderer with a clean start. throwing it all out and starting from scratch is something these models, and people, are explicitly trained against doing
other than that, I don't think any serious person would trust a ralph-loop to accomplish something truly substantial. it's good for ensuring rote tasks get completed without the agent stopping too soon, but not much more
I had the same issue planning roadtrips where the journey is the destination. I’ve paid for apps like InRoute despite poor UX, inability to access my routes from desktop, and zero collaboration support
I got increasingly frustrated looking for a replacement that I made https://plotalong.app in my spare time so that my wife and I could plan and save our motorcycle trips together. We still have to add the occasional “via” waypoint but it’s leagues better than Google maps at sticking to the scenic route
Very cool! That solves creating and saving a route with extra navigation waypoints, so the other thing I'd want out of it is a native app with CarPlay where I can get total time/distance remaining, time/distance to next stop, and the option to pick which waypoints count as "stops" (versus just being there to control the route). I see there's a GPX export but I'm sure that won't handle the waypoints how I want it to. Guessing native apps are out of scope though?
If you're ever near the Smokies, here's a loop from Knoxville through Foothills Parkway (west section), Tail of the Dragon, and Cherohala Skyway, with a detour up to Maple Springs Overlook (site of a popular annual hill climb).
thanks for trying it out! I actually happen to have a trip planned for next month in Shenandoah and Blue Ridge Pkwy, looks like that loop is a little out of reach for us this trip but I want to go back to hit Tail of the Dragon and others
I will make a native iOS app, but probably only after this summer roadtrip season passes. as far as CarPlay goes, I'll have to find a way to test that first (all my cars/bikes have "dumb" head units). I have the site added to my homescreen on my iPhone and it works for me at least, same thing on desktop I installed the PWA with Chrome and have it in my dock
you're right that other providers don't understand through-waypoints. it's more problematic for groups than individuals, but I haven't wanted to take on live navigation yet because it's so hard to do right and to do real world testing. I could just trust Mapbox to be good enough with their Directions API, but then I'm not adding that much value and so I'm still going with planning/collaborating as my primary focus and encouraging folks to export to google/apple maps or their GPS for now. thanks for all the suggestions!
CarPlay support can run in the simulator, obviously you'll need to fake the GPS location too for this to be useful. And you need to get special permission from Apple before you can even use the simulator, they keep CarPlay even more locked down than everything else.
Between the three roads on my map I'd have to recommend Cherohala Skyway as my favorite drive. Only done it once, but it's a beautiful fun road with great scenic overlooks. Longer and more relaxing than Tail of the Dragon, and I'd rate it more enjoyable if not as exciting.
That's a car-based opinion though, can't speak to motorcycles.
1) If I do one month on the paid plan to create a route, then cancel the subscription, do I still keep the route I made? Can I share and export, but no edits? Or can I still edit existing waypoints, but not add new ones? Realistically this is something I'd only use once or twice a year so I want to understand how the subscription structure fits with that.
2) How do collaborators work? I'm guessing only the route creator need a paid account, and other people can join it from free ones, but it would be helpful to clarify.
When you're working on the iOS app let me know if you need a beta tester!
thanks for the tips about CarPlay development. I'll definitely target parity with the web app at first so hopefully it'll be something I can get access to eventually
regarding (1), yes, you keep the routes you made even after your subscription ends. the limits revert to the free tier so if it had more waypoints or was longer than that then you just can't add or move waypoints. removing waypoints to get back down below the limit works and you still export your trip to formats included in your tier (e.g. google/apple/waze)
you could absolutely pay for a month just to plan and export all your trips for the year, bookmarking them with google maps or saving the files for your GPS for instance -- not a problem. I am currently exploring alternatives to monthly & annual subscription schedules to further support seasonal usage, too
per your 2nd question, that's correct, only the creator needs to pay to have 2+ collaborators. you can try it out on the free tier with 1 person at first to see if it works for you. if you just want to share maps publicly you can do that without subscribing, too
Had a feature idea, what if you could assign names/colors to sections between waypoints? For example, say between waypoints 2-4 in my map is Foothills Parkway, and color it red on the map and the elevation diagram?
Especially on the elevation view would be neat to see it color coded by which parts are which road.
Might help incentivize premium upgrades too because there's a benefit to putting waypoints at actual meaningful locations instead of playing "how can I maximize the route control with 8 points." Or heck that's enough of a cosmetic thing that you could just make the color editing part of the premium plans.
A minor bug report - the verification email said the link was good for 24 hours but when I tried to click it yesterday evening it was already dead.
I'll have to try that. how does it compare to using playwright? it seems like one advantage of playwright is being able to use it with multiple browsers, at least as far as web development goes. if these browser-specific tools end up being faster or more token efficient then it's probably the better pick for task automation and claws
Yeah, the big advantage of playwright is that it's cross-browser. It's still my go-to tool for automated testing - I use the CDP trick for one-off automation tasks.
is the LLM not acting on your stated intent? maybe you can find a middle ground, where you can plan and act in small enough chunks that it doesn't start getting its "own" ideas about what to do, or how to do it
a chainsaw is a coarse tool and I liken it to vibe coding. you maintain at least some level of control, but the edges are rough and you might slice off more (or less) than you meant to. I want to model my usage more like a table saw, a precision instrument that can make the exact cut just as I planned it
It does not include shipping. I paid an extra $30 for shipping a 40mm cube. It’s the only reason I didn’t comment initially in support of an otherwise cool service
yep! it's really helpful. I have different accounts on my gitea server for various bots and agents with restricted access scopes. it's been great for making branch protections like mandatory reviews actually enforceable
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