BlindSquare

Submitted by AnonyMouse, 23 May, 2012

Last updated on 4 October, 2017

Description of App

BlindSquare makes you sense what's around you. The only thing you need to do is listen. BlindSquare is a new solution that combines the latest technology to help the blind with their daily lives. It has been developed in collaboration with blind people and carefully field tested. You need either an iPhone or an iPad to get started. It also supports some additional accessories to enhance the experience. How does it work? BlindSquare uses GPS and the compass to locate you. It then gathers information about the surrounding environment from FourSquare. BlindSquare has some unique algorithms to decide what information is the most relevant and then speaks it to you with high quality speech synthesis. “What's the most popular café within 200 meters radius? Where is the post office or the library?” Using BlindSquare as a GPS solution: When you start the app, it will start telling you the interesting places and street crossings around you. By changing the radius, you can limit the area you are interested in. You can also search by search term or by category. You can select an interesting place from the search results and perform the following tasks: 1) Get contact info (address, phone number) 2) Open twitter feed or restaurant menu (if provided) 3) Make a phone call 4) Start tracking the place (BlindSquare will assist you by repeating the distance and the clock face direction) 5) Start your favourite navigator for turn-by-turn instructions (TomTom, Navigon or Apple Maps) BlindSquare is aware of when you travel by car, bus or train and starts to report interesting places in front of you (for example, the next stops) and street crossings when you are passing them. You can also save your own private places to iCloud so they will be found with your every device. Using BlindSquare as a FourSquare client: If you like to play FourSquare, you can do the following with BlindSquare: 1) Get a list of nearby FourSquare venues 2) When you are in a place, you can check in by shaking your device 3) Do a check in with commenting and twitter/facebook sharing 4) Correct the location of the place BlindSquare supports the following languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Czech, Russian, Estonian, Polish, Arabic, Turkish, Portuguese, Japanese, Greek, Romanian, Croatian, Hungarian, Korean and Bulgarian. VoiceOver usage is supported but it also includes higher quality additional speech synthesis by Acapela Text-To-Speech from Acapela Group. Instructions in English: http://help.blindsquare.com/instructions and http://blindsquare.com/faq Please note: This app retrieves data in real time from Foursquare and Open Street Map. Use of a flat rate data plan is highly recommended. Having only been released in May 2012, BlindSquare has already received several prizes and awards: - GSMA: Global Mobile Awards 2013, Best Mobile Health Product or Service - Apps4Finland 2012 - OpenCities App Challenge 2012 - The Finnish Information Processing Association: Best Product 2012 Please note: To use BlindSquare, your iCloud account has to be active so BlindSquare can access it to save your settings and places. Continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life.

Version

4.26

Free or Paid

Paid

Apple Watch Support

Yes

Device(s) App Was Tested On

iPhone

iOS Version

10.3.1

Accessibility Comments

This app is fully accessible with VoiceOver. All buttons and controls are clearly labelled, and once you have familiarized yourself with the interface it is fairly easy to navigate and use.

VoiceOver Performance

VoiceOver reads all page elements.

Button Labeling

All buttons are clearly labeled.

Usability

The app is fully accessible with VoiceOver and is easy to navigate and use.

Other Comments

There is nothing but good things to say about this app. This is hands down one of my most favorite navigation app to use. It offers so much for so little cost. Now that it works in conjunction with the FREE Google Maps. You really should try this out first before buying in to those other very expensive accessible GPS navigations.

App Store Link

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blindsquare/id500557255?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Developer's Website

http://blindsquare.com/support

Developer's Twitter Username

@BlindSquareGPS

Recommendations

42 people have recommended this app

Most recently recommended by Casey 2 months 1 week ago

Options

Comments

blindsquare crashing

Before the latest update everything was fine. I am always logged in to foursquare, and iCloud as well. This crashing happens every time I flick with one finger. I'm using voiceover and the app takes me to the home screen of my device. Sometimes it will open and then just crash for no reason. Aaron

not a bad app

have to say this is a pretty good app. however, i have 2 major issues with it that will prevent me from using it as an everyday app when out and about. firstly, intersections - no info when you approach an intersection as to the layout of the side street your approaching, e.g. left, right, straight ahead. this means you can't rely on it for directions in an unfamiliar area. this is made worse (for me at least) by the fact when you do turn onto a new street, it takes forever to update to tell you automatically where you now are. i'm talking a hundred yards up the street at least before it updates. now i'm probably a little impatient on this last point having been a trekker user for 6 years, where such info is updated within ten- 15 yards of you turning the corner. but in blind square, it's just too slow. this couple with the fact as i say, when you approach a cross roads for example, you've no idea which street is which so have to guess if the intersection is unfamiliar, e.g. i know i want to get onto smith street and it's on this junction, but is it left? right? straight ahead? then walk a hundred yards before you find out if you've chosen the right street! so while i like the app, it'll be used primarily as a back up to trekker for the forseeable future for me. it's nice it tells you what places/shops etc are around you, but this for me is a secondary feature. i'd rather know that smith street is the turning to the right on the next intersection, which is the one i need as thats the street mcdonalds is on, than be told macdonalds is 75 metres away at 2 oclock. :) just my thoughts and i'll be watching development of the app with interest.

We need to solve this

Hello! First of all, we need to solve this. App has been tested really well but it was really big change to enable downloadable voices and there must be some condition that is causing this. So, I need all possible information : - what is your iOS version number? - what is language of device - what languages was last selected in application - do you use metric or US units? - does it help if you remove app from your device Cliff, if you would like to help solving this with BlindSquare Beta, please email me dev@blindsquare.com

Intersections

Thank you for your response. This app is developed purely based on feedback. For better announcements of intersections I need vector data of streets from OSM. I have had that available for long time but it uses more data bandwidth, so I need to add caching for the data. For that I needed to change some download libraries. It is done now, so we will get better announcements of intersections some day...

intersections

hi, having that intersection info available would certainly improve the user experience, and encourage even more people to use it i should think.

Clff's problem solved

We were able to solve Cliff's crash. It has something to do with either Norwegian language or voice download generally. Removing app and reinstalling didn't work. That is because BlindSquare saves it's settings to iCloud, so they stay even if you uninstall / reinstall (which is great BTW. since you don't loose POI's). Trick that works is to change temporarily your device language to some other. Then you can launch app, goto settings, select language and reload voices. After that you can change your device language back. PS. This is only workaround. I have lot of safety measures in download from Amazon S3 services, for example md5 hash calculation of the file received. So, I still need to dig in which situation this happens. It might be something to do with upgrading from old version.

blind square crashing language and voice

I'm using the english language and the tom voice, I didn't know you could download other voices. That's awesome.

comments on the app crashing

When I first open up the app and let it speak for only a few seconds the app decides to crash. When I restart the app from the app switcher and try the same thing it does the same crash. It only seems to crash when VO is turned on.

There is workarond

Are you using Norwegian? There is known problem and workaround is explained here and App Store descriptions. Basically, change your device language temporarely, open BlindSquare, select voice and then you can set your device language back. Please let me know if this helps!

Workaround

Sorry, but this workaround doesn't work for me. The app seems to close when I try to do anything with VO on. It doesn't crash when VO is turned off though.

Workaround is not working

Then this must be another bug, which might be iOS version related because this is vert rare. Please emil me dev@blindsquare.com your iOS version and language you use and we'll then track this down and fix to beta and upcoming 1.41

I installed this app earlier

I installed this app earlier on but deleted it as I found it a bit too difficult to use. However, i redownloaded it last night and the voices; from the little I've seen of it so far, it seems very very much improved. I'm very excited about being able to have some sort of turn by turn instruction. The TTS is extremely clear. Tonight will be interesting as I'll mark my bus stop when I get off the bus. I echo other commenters to commend the developper for keeping such a close eye on this app directory entry and listening and implimenting feedback so quickly; it's amazed me actually. There has, as I said, been so many improvements since the previous version I had, and no sorry, couldn't tell you which one that was; it was only beginning of last year though. Looking forward to learning how to use it a lot better than I fully admit I didn't do before.

Thank you for your update

Thank you for your update and I'm glad you like it. I think you will be even more excited when I release 1.41, probably next week. Simulation rocks and gives possibility to travel new places beforehand, marking nice spots, looking around, checking nearest bus stops of your target place etc. PS. You all are welcome to new mailing list for BlindSquare:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BlindSquareGPS/ You can subscribe by sending an blank email to: Blindsquaregps-subscribe@yahoogroups.com - But you can get full support also via AppleVis

Looking forward to it and I

Looking forward to it and I will join the list. I had a very strange problem last night rrelating to the TTS voices. I was just mucking around and selected a different voice, but when I went back a screen after I'd saved the changes it brought me up the dialog to say that I need to download the TTS voices or BS will have limitted functionality. But when I'd go into select the different TTS voices, they were all there to sample. And Rachel (the default voice) was still working until I closed the program. When i re-opened it, I got that dialog again and no voices were working. I went and re-selected Rachel and it was fine. So either it's a small bug with selecting a different TTS voice or somehow the entire TTS download din't download properly. Any ideas? It's not a big deal obviously; just curious.

Language voice

Hi Respond at your TTS voices question? As you know that new BlindSquare update you have many TTS voices to choose. And you have Rachel as default voice for English language. That you need to do is setup one of the new TTS voices as default. #1 Open BlindSquare app #2 Select other option #3 Select settings #4 Look for language #5 Select your language for example English 14 voices #6 Select one of them voices on my cace Heather Select back button until get out settings menu #8 You will receibing some alert Asking you if you want to download the new TTS voice as default Depend that voice that you have picked up will be the time to download. When the new language voice been downloaded complete You will the new voice talking

Demo voices are included in the app

This is exactly how it works, so if you select new voices, they need to be downloaded but only once when you get to the main screen (or when you launch app first time). The reason why you hear voice before is simple: There is short demo recorded beforehand and included to the app. This way you know better which one you might like and avoid downloading them all.

oh, thanks guys; Now I feel

oh, thanks guys; Now I feel stupid; I didn't realize that was the case; I thought all of them downloaded at once. Ta again

Version 1.41

What's New in Version 1.41

NEW: You can now start simulation mode on each Place Description Screen. Simulation mode lets you pretend that you are at the place you have selected and lets you use all of BlindSquare's features as if you really were at the place. Perform searches, category searches, or use Look Around to familiarize yourself with a new place and plan your trip. You will hear a slight background noise so you always know when you are in simulation mode. Use the End Simulation button in the Tools menu to exit simulation mode.
NEW: The list of search results now also shows the Foursquare subcategory of each place (only in English, German, Spanish, Italian, and French)
NEW: When you perform a category search, you will now also see the list of Foursquare subcategories on the search result screen. The list has a heading so you can flick down to quickly navigate to this list if your rotor is set to headings. Double-Tap any subcategory to perform a search for places in this subcategory.
NEW: Context sensitive help through VoiceOver hints now also available in Italian
NEW: Support for MotionX-GPS HD
CHANGE: Searching for an address can now yield several results.
CHANGE: Intersections are announced a bit closer to the intersection than in previous versions
CHANGE: When you view the Place Description Screen of a favorited place, its data is refreshed from Foursquare
CHANGE: In Look Around, intersections are read before places
CHANGE: Shaking device stops Look around
CHANGE: Acapela voice and VoiceOver voice work better together
FIX: When you favorite a place, it now appears in your My Places list instantly, restarting BlindSquare is no longer necessary.
FIX: Shake to check in to Foursquare places works again
FIX: Norwegian version no longer crashes
FIX: Hungarian translation corrections

Looking for a podcast.

Hello all. please is there anyone who would be willing to make a podcast on how to use Blindsquare? It really sounds good from your description, but I would like to hear it in use. It would be also great if we had a chance to try the app before we decide we want to purchase it. I purchased Ariadne GPS some time ago, but I found out it does not work the way I expected. I would not be happy to pay for something that won't work. Thank you very much for your help.

1.41, Virtual Look-around

I played with 1.41's virtual location feature a bit last night. It was really interesting to use look-around to identify how an area might look if I was actually there. Note, also, that you can use the "My Location" feature even when virtualized, which means you can see the names of places. This app certainly is developing nicely.

Podcast will be available soon

Hello Maya! There will be podcast about 1.41 sooner than you think! Stay tuned at AppleVis :-)

"Introduction to BlindSquare 1.41" podcast is available

In this 1-hour podcast Sandra gives you an introduction to BlindSquare 1.41. She explains most of its features and suggests use cases for some of them. http://www.applevis.com/podcast/episodes/blindsquare-feature-packed-navigational-tool-blind-ios-users Content: 00:00 Introduction 03:40 Main Screen 09:35 Place List Screen 14:57 Place Screen and Edit Place Screen 27:34 Simulation Mode and Looking Up Addresses 33:25 My Places List and Adding a Place 35:13 Using Category Search or Search Terms 38:13 Tools Menu: Look Around, Recent Places, List of Intersections 49:44 The Other Menu including Settings 57:57 Filters 59:31 Support and Contact

how exciting! I'm going to

how exciting! I'm going to listen to the podcast right now! Though I'm using it, i've still got a lot to learn. Also, when it says 'shake your device" how much do you actually have to shake it? I shake mine most times and nothing happens, so I shake it harder and slightly embarrass myself as surely people around me are thinking I'm a bit weird. Also, I was sure that I read in the 'help" that it detects when you're in transport mode? It doesn't seem to do this for me? It either tells me I'm going too fast so it might be inaccurate or it reads Points of interests at me as fast as it can keep up. :) Anyway some of these things will prob be answered in the podcast so I'll stop. :)

Hint for shaking

It's good to know, that iPhone's "shake detection" notices shaking in "sideways". So it doesn't have to be really big movement if you keep your phone in hand and shake it in "sideways". You will instantly hear when it detects it. If you do it multiple times in a row, only first one is used and rest is ignored. If you get warning about big change in distance, you probably lost some GPS accuracy and you GPS reading jumps faster than even car can accelerate. BS will fix it automatically and start reoprting in "car mode", Only way to detect that this mode is on is you don't heard distances to intersections anymore, just names of streets.

Ah OK thanks for that; I

Ah OK thanks for that; I appreciate your reply. Have you or anyone else had any luck in it announcing what train station you're coming up to or you're stopping at? I noticed it only told me the train station I was at once when I did a "look around."

Traveling by bus

Hello, I would just like to clarify something and thus try to obtain an answer to the following question: If one is traveling on a city bus, would Blind Square announce intersections in advance? I would most likely choose the option of having only intersections announced in the app anyway. If intersections are indeed given out, how far in advance would one be notified? If, on the other hand, this is not possible, what kind of information should I expect to receive while traveling on a bus? Thank you.

When you travel fas

When you travel fast, BS turns into mode that it estimates your location after 7 seconds and when estimated location is near intersection it starts to speak it. So, when you have heard full name of streets, you are probably very near crossing already. If you need to get off somewhere, you can search for address, intersection, bus stop or some other landmark and set alerting distance for that. So, when ever you get to that distance, you will hear special alert sound and name of that place, distance and clock face direction. You can also set radius and BS mentions other places inside that radius when traveling on bus. You can filter what kind of places you like to hear.

yes, and you do hear what

yes, and you do hear what roads you are crossing; I did this last night. And I set the bus stop I get off at as a favourite; I haven't heard how this works yet as I had my distance for the alert set way too close; so experimenting with what is the correct distance I should set it at; whether it's 60, 80 or 100 metres.

I suggest

I suggest that you start from 200 meters and then lower it if it's too far. Bus is travelling pretty fast and 200 meters might go in seconds. If you are not near window, GPS accuracy can also drop so that's why having alerting distance high enough is good practice. Imagine that you set it to 50 meter and your GPS accuracy is 100 meters (if you are not near window) --> You can totally miss location inside 50 meters. Still, it is usually meant as a "pre warning".

I was so impressed last night

I was so impressed last night as the warning worked absolutely perfectly. I do hold my phone up to the window. I couldn't believe it when I asked if it was my stop just to be sure and it was; no more relying on the drivers to tell me - as long as the GPS signel is working of course. :) I think I will set the warning a little big further back, but not much; apart from that, couldn't be happier with that. :) As I said on an audioboo message a couple of days ago, all BS needs now is turn by turn navigation, and it will be absolutely 100% perfect in my eyes (pardon the pun. :)

Current status of BlindSquare

Current status of BlindSquare is that it supports all possible 3rd party turn-by-turn solution available, so it is integrated to apps like Navigon, TomTom, MotionX etc. So, you can launch 3rd party turn-by-turn from BlindSquare (yes, it's easier to find place with BS than with navigator apps) and BS will stay on background giving it's information. So, you pick best possible turn-by-turn and BS does the rest :-)

Ah I did realize this. I'm

Ah I did realize this. I'm yet to set Navigon up properly; I've downloaded it but I guess it wants me to install extra maps or something. And will give google maps a try outdoors; I tried to work out how to use it inside and it was a tad confusing. I was just going on what you'd said in an earlier comment on this thread. I'm not complaining though; I'm very impressed. :)

I'm impressed

I didn't have or particularly want a Foursquare account, so I never gave much attention to this app. However I recently found another app that I really wanted to use that relied on Foursquare, so I signed up and decided I might as well try this one too. I'm glad I did. As others have pointed out, combine this with a general use navigation app and you have a decent system for less than you would spend on a dedicated app, though I'm still looking forward to the releast of Sendero and will probably buy it. I tried it out for the first time today just to know where the paratransit service was going and it worked great, providing much more information than other things i've tried and working in the background while I did other things with my phone. I wish I'd gotten it sooner.

Strentgh of GPS signal

Hi guys, Not sure if I've misssed some text help on this, but is there a quick way from the main menu of BS to check the strength of the GPS signal? If not, there should be a way in the next version. I know we are able to find this information within submenus.

It's not easily accessible

It's not easily accessible today -- You need to add POI to see accuracy. I have add 70 new features to the app since it's launch. It means that original user interface is not optimal anymore and there is very difficult to find new room for these kind of indicators. I'm planning to do renewal of user interface, then this will be easily accessible on main screen. But for now, it needs few presses to get that info.

Version 1.42

What's New in Version 1.42 NEW: Shaking reads the pedometer if you have been walking for at least a minuteNEW: Restaurant menus are shown if availableCHANGE: Announcements of distances of intersections are more accurate nowCHANGE: In simulation mode, only Apple Maps and Google Maps are available with the Plan a Route feature, as only these apps support planning a route in simulation modeFIX: VoiceOver now always displays the keyboard on the Search screen correctlyNEW LANGUAGES: Japanese and RussianNEW: You can now start simulation mode on each Place Description Screen. Simulation mode lets you pretend that you are at the place you have selected and lets you use all of BlindSquare's features as if you really were at the place. Perform searches, category searches, or use Look Around to familiarize yourself with a new place and plan your trip. You will hear a slight background noise so you always know when you are in simulation mode. Use the End Simulation button in the Tools menu to exit simulation mode.NEW: The list of search results now also shows the Foursquare subcategory of each place (only in English, German, Spanish, Italian, and French)NEW: When you perform a category search, you will now also see the list of Foursquare subcategories on the search result screen. The list has a heading so you can flick down to quickly navigate to this list if your rotor is set to headings. Double-Tap any subcategory to perform a search for places in this subcategory.NEW: Context sensitive help through VoiceOver hints now also available in ItalianNEW: Support for MotionX-GPS HDCHANGE: Searching for an address can now yield several results.CHANGE: Intersections are announced a bit closer to the intersection than in previous versionsCHANGE: When you view the Place Description Screen of a favorited place, its data is refreshed from FoursquareCHANGE: In Look Around, intersections are read before placesCHANGE: Shaking device stops Look aroundCHANGE: Acapela voice and VoiceOver voice work better together

German app instructions / Deutsche App-Erklärung bzw. Beschreibu

We in Germany use this App, too. Here ist a german description for this app.

BlindSquare Navigation für Blinde und Sehbehinderte

German podcast

Thank you for linking to those instructions. There is also German podcast available about BlindSquare: http://audioboo.fm/boos/1461905-blindsquare-1-42-deutsch

BlindSquare update version 1.43

What's New NEW: Screen displaying GPS information. Tap Tools, GPS Info NEW: Search history NEW: You can now delete places from the My Places list by setting the VoiceOver focus on a place, swiping down, and double-tapping NEW: When you perform a search, places in your vicinity now appear at the top of the lists of results NEW: When your traveling speed is higher than 20 km/h or 12 mp/h, BlindSquare will announce when you reach a new city or country NEW: Waze and MotionX-GPS Drive can now be launched through BlindSquare's Plan A Route feature NEW LANGUAGES: Arabic, Polish, and Danish NEW on iPhone5: Placing your device in a vertical position with the home button up will prevent the shake feature from being activated inadvertently. If you would like to use the shake feature while carrying your device in a bag or pocket, place your device either in landscape, or portrait upside-down. NEW: Your device will now vibrate once if you have set an alert distance for a place in your My Places list and you are within that distance of the place CHANGE: BlindSquare will now guide you closer to a tracked place provided the GPS accuracy at the time the place was recorded by you was better than 8 meters and your current GPS accuracy is also better than 8 meters. CHANGE: Better announcement of intersections when your traveling speed is higher than 50 km/h or 30 mph CHANGE: Auto correction is disabled in the search field FIX: Some places in the Residential category were not announced, this has been corrected FIX: Random keyboard problem in search screen fixed

Version 1.44

This is one of the bigger update to date. There are almost a dozen NEW features in this update alone. With so many great enhancement to the app. Very well done!

What's New in Version 1.44

NEW: If Google Maps is not installed on your device, it is suggested as a navigational app when you use the Plan a Route feature. (Google Maps is free and offers spoken turn-by-turn directions to guide you to your destination)
NEW: If Background operation of BlindSquare is not enabled, it will be activated once you launch a 3rd party navigation application by pressing "Plan a route"
NEW: If Background operation of BlindSquare is not enabled, BlindSquare will still remain active when you lock the screen. You can close BlindSquare by pressing the Home button.
CHANGE: If Background operation of BlindSquare is not enabled, BlindSquare will never activate sleep mode automatically. You can always shut it down yourself by pressing the Home button to close it.
NEW: Listening to podcasts, music or audiobooks is now enabled. If you use Apple's Music app, it will pause automatically when BlindSquare starts speaking and resume again after the message. If you use different players, playback continues in the background and you will have to use the iOS music controller to stop playback
NEW: Look Around now indicates each direction using sound effects
NEW: Starting and stopping Look Around and Tracking is indicated by sound effects
NEW: Look Around will first announce the places on your My Places list
NEW: Look Around will now inform you if it does not find anything in the specified direction within your selected radius
NEW: When your GPS accuracy changes, your new accuracy is announced
NEW: When using "Plan a route", 3rd party navigation application defaults to the one previously used
NEW: When using "Plan a route", BlindSquare will also track the place to help you finding it when you approach it
CHANGE: The "Your location changed too fast." error message is now announced less often

now BlindSquare and google maps works together What's new in 1.4

Oops!! guys I think submitted at sametime just to that's the tittle say BlindSquare and google maps works together it's mean that you have turn by turn navigation after google maps updated the app at version 2.0 and even BlindSquare since version 1.43 works on the same way. now you have full navigation, turn by turn navigation for less BlindSquare is US $19.99 and google maps Us free I have worked since last week with both apps running together and just is great. Note google maps app needs have running version 2.0 to get spoke turn by turn.

problems with settings

iphone 5, ios 6.1. bs 1.4.4 1- click other 2- settings 3- a bunch of toggles appear. "shake to search address" i double tap to change the default "switch button off" to "on" 4- all works nice 5- i close app and re-open. all the settings go back to default. in fact no settings are saved. is anyone else seeing this?

Check that you have iCloud activated

Please check that you have logged into iCloud. BlindSquare saves all settings and POIs into iCloud, so you have all settings shared among your all devices.

holding the phone

in witch positions to hold the phone to get accurate gps navigation with blindsquare? and if I want to put the phone in the pocket the phone should be in witch positions?

re icloud

hi dev, That's crazy, not everyone uses icloud. I prefer local backups. Please address this issue in the next update. In current state, "my places" and settings are cleared after the app is closed in the app switcher. This means that I have to re-input all my places and settings everytime I use the app. All other apps store the settings locally, I don't understand why bs should differ. EDIT: just enabled icloud for bs and still same problem

iCloud

oh dear oh dear, i've never understood this aversion to iCloud. it makes perfect sense to use it. change 1 thing on 1 device it afects all. what's so bad about that? considering the first 5gb is free and you can choose how you use that space well what's the problem? i wouldn't want localised settings and favourites and here's why. it will make the app get bigger and bigger over time. they do anyway but that would simply increase it. considering the fact that you can't really expand space on an I device, that's bad news long term. so why should a developer change something that works and that's available to everybody at no extra cost? makes no sense to me sorry.

I believe that the cloud is the future

I believe that the cloud is the future where all apps should go, to make it easy to switch between devices and make it easy for user after getting new device to just have everything working. I warn in My Places list if you don't have that activated. If I give possibility to use also local storage, then there will be cases where people starts to loose data, when they forget to activate iCloud, store settings to local device and then turns iCloud on. If I implement local only (iCloud has always local copy too), I need to make sure that this will not happen and it might not be easy. Please check from Settings, that you have enabled iCloud / Documents&Data.

Hi, Cloud might be the

Hi, Cloud might be the future, but I choose not to use the cloud at all, because by using the cloud, your basically saying I don't need to worry about backing my data up, its someone elses responsibility. I much prefer local storage, and I would actually choose not to use any app that forced me to use a service I don't trust, I prefer managing my own backups as I know exactly where they are at all times and who has access to them. Plus the fact you farm your backup needs out to apple means you trust them to keep your data safe and free from hacker attacks etc.

iCloud has always local copy

iCLoud has always local copy on your device which make it fast and reliable. So, application reads/writes always local copy and the iOS does replication to cloud and via cloud to other devices. So, iCloud provides just additional instant backup + automatic replication on top of basic model. It would be easy to change application to save/load data from local repository only if iCloud is not activated. I'm just afraid that will it cause more problems when settings / POI's gets accidentally overridden when you for example handle your old device where setting were local and then you turn it on again?

Answers

Hi Guys Hello Clair if you have problems with settings it's maybe because you are doing some thing wrong, I been using BlindSquare over a year and I haven't had any issue that you talking about it, that I suggest to you re stalle BlindSquare again To do this delete BlindSquare from your device, open apps store, select updates, hit in purchases heading and hit and installe button under BlindSquare. Holding device I suggest to you listen the podcast in this forum it will answer all your questions. ICloud and apps Alex and someone else You are not compromise to use iCloud you follow keep using iTunes backup and not problem with, that iTunes backup does for BS in this case save the update version but not your settings whenever reset the device or get a new one, if you don't delete BlindSquare from your device it doesn't requeste sign in to iCloud you will have saved all your POI and settings. Hi Ilkka two friends of mine purchased BlindSquare app last Friday and I didn't see any issue with new version 1.44 the only thing who I saw is the price now is $23.99 US