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Longitude and Latitude

It has been several months since we announced that Longitude 2.0 would be released soon. Unfortunately, due to a combination of a series of issues and other business priorities, its release never became a reality.

To be more specific, we wanted Longitude 2.0 to be perfect. Since the release of iOS 4.0, there have been several Latitude apps released to the App Store – but none that offered quite the customizability we wanted to offer. We built many prototypes and spent countless hours testing different combinations of possibilities (mainly related to update frequency and precision in the background), but as other business priorities surfaced, Longitude kept being pushed to the backburner. In October, we finally got the time to finish the app, and submitted it to the App Store. Two weeks later, the app was rejected and we were informed that the app was crashing on older devices (iPhone 3GS). Since we’ve all upgraded to iPhone 4, we didn’t have any 3GS accessible to test the issue, and so once again, Longitude 2 was placed on the backburner. Since then, we’ve been extremely busy preparing to launch a new product (which you’ll hear about soon) and simply haven’t had the time to dedicate to diagnosing and repairing Longitude’s crash issue.

Monday, Google finally released their own Google Latitude for iPhone. Once we heard this news, we quickly installed it and began testing it. After a couple days of use, we’ve determined that it’s constantly running in the background and updating our locations as we move around. It’s not always as precise as we’d like it, nor can it update at a specified interval (due to limitations of iOS’ backgrounding APIs), but it does work.

Since it’s an official release from Google and it’s free, a large percentage of users who would have otherwise purchase Longitude will now simply download Latitude. Given that our potential customer base has decreased significantly, that we would now be competing with a free official app, and that we have many other far more exciting (you’ll know soon enough) priorities right now, we have decided to discontinue Longitude at this time. The existing version shall remain in Cydia for use on devices that don’t support multitasking, but for devices that do, we recommend using Google’s Latitude.

We apologize to all of those who have been waiting patiently for Longitude 2. It just doesn’t make sense for us to spend additional development time on nor release a product that we would then have to support when there’s a free official alternative. For those of you who have purchased Longitude, we thank you.

This entry was posted by Sean Ferguson on December 15, 2010 at 10:09 am, and is filed under iphone. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0.Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Comments (11)
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#1 written by Marcus W. 1 year ago

This is a HUGE disappointment!!

I have used the Latitude app from Google and still stick with Longitude.

Having it update at a set interval is what I can’t live without. The Google app drains the battery like crazy!

Please keep Longitude alive in Cydia! I paid for it, support it!
#2 written by Sean Ferguson 1 year ago

We will not be removing it from Cydia. We just won’t be releasing any new versions.
#3 written by Marcus W. 1 year ago

Keep it alive and keep it updated. My whole family has purchased Longitude because it the best Google Latitude app that ‘just works’.
#4 written by Matthew 1 year ago

This is very disappointing. It would be great if you would at least release 2.0 for iPhone 4 devices, and give those people who have already purchased Longitude and have iPhone 4 the opportunity to take advantage of your enhancements. I much prefer Longitude to Google’s own Latitude keeping the location on constantly. That location icon takes up too much space, let alone the battery drain.

Why throw away the work you’ve already done? Keep the old version available for 3GS and older devices, but release the work you’ve done for us iPhone 4 users. Especially as more people upgrade to iPhone 4.

What if iOS 4.3 or 5.0 breaks Longitude? Will the money my friends and family paid on the app be for nothing? Some of them just purchased the app.

I personally think you all should continue to release to the App Store and Cydia. You could advertise it as the “Latitude” app that doesn’t constantly update and drain the battery. There will be people that will pay $0.99 for that. Or you could also introduce a light version that has ads. There are many other devs out there that have done that, just look how many Emoji enabler apps out there, even tho there is a free one, people still spend money to get Emoji.

Plus you all could introduce features that Google doesn’t provide. Such as more frequent updating with KML export.

Please don’t abandon your 2.0 plans completely. We need Longitude 2.0.
#5 written by Sean Ferguson 1 year ago

The 2.0 that we have completed is the App Store version. The jailbroken version was to follow the App Store release, at which point, we would have ported some of the code from 1.0. But the code we have now uses the background location API, just at Google’s Latitude does.

The biggest point of the 2.0 release was for the ability to view your friends’ locations. This is a feature that Google’s Latitude has implemented quite well, and you can use Latitude for this purpose, without using it for background updating. We made friend view work, but we did it through a series of hacks, as Google does not provide an API for retrieving friend’s locations. Hacks are always trouble, as any change on Google’s end could break the entire application, and then we would have to reverse engineer the process all over again.

People need to understand that this is a business. Businesses exist to make money. If the cost of development outweighs the return, then a poor business decision has been made. As it stands, we have already sunk more time into Longitude than we have made back from it. To spend additional time on getting it App Store-ready (fixing the 3GS crash issue), and then to develop the jailbroken version, when the only real difference between the current version and the new version is a feature Google has already implemented for free… would be a poor business decision – especially now, when we’re trying to beat everyone else to market on a new product.

Also… Longitude is a $1.99 app. Less than two dollars. Less than the cost of a coke and a candybar. Even if it did stop working one day many months into the future, you have certainly gotten your $1.99 worth of use out of it. For $1.99, how can you possibly expect someone to continue fixing something forever? The food you buy today isn’t going to fill you tomorrow.

When and if a new iOS breaks the existing release of Longitude, we will more than likely fix it, provided it doesn’t require a major rewrite (one can never be too sure when it comes to jailbroken apps)… but it will be another 1.x compatibility fix. In the mean time, the chances of fixing 2.0 for the App Store, let alone developing the 2.0 jailbroken edition, are slim to none.
#6 written by Mitch R. 1 year ago

@Matthew:

I bought this app recently myself, and unlike you, I realize that the developers have lives and have to make a living. When I buy an app, for a whopping $1, $2, or even $4 (less than any meal of the day) I’m paying for what these guys already worked on. Not for future work.

Just think, you walk into Waffle House, and say “I want a coffee and scrambled eggs” and they give you a bill afterward. You say “Wait, I paid for this meal last time I was here.” Yup, sounds crazy right?

Well, apps are the same way. I just recently bought the CNN iPhone app for $1.99. It even has ads. Then yesterday they made it free, and made an iPad version for free. Should I be mad that my whole 2 bucks is gone? No. Someone worked on an app, they are owed money.

All that being said, if these guys had charged $10 for an app (that btw, they didn’t force anyone to buy, we all purchased out of our own will) then two days later made it free, or discontinued it and turned off something in the server and it stopped working, then yea, I’d probably be upset.

In this case, good on you technivations (sp?) for a good app. I rather enjoy it. Please forgive those that obviously came from the Android or windows app worlds.
#7 written by RMZ 1 year ago

I tend to agree with MitchR, but I still hope that vendors will (at least) be prompt about fixing bugs and/or compatibility issues their app might have with future OSs (PC, iPhone or other).
If a vendor shuts down then obviously that would be a totally different story but as long as (the vendor) Technivations is still in business (and writes code) it would be nice if they would take care of their customers.

I know it is only $1.99 but if one has a choice when they are about to purchase an application (in the future) and they are aware of the fact that one vendor kept releasing new applications and rarely supported/updated their previous project, this fact is usually reflected in user reviews/forums and influence the purchasing decision.

Longitude 1.x works great on my 4.1 3GS and still provides much better background control compared to the Google app.
Will cross my fingers with 4.3 and above…

Thanks.
#8 written by Matthew 1 year ago

I think the comparison to food is silly, I purchased an app from a good software developer with hopes that the app would work at least 1 or 2 years. If the app continues to work, then I am more likely to purchase more software from that developer. In fact, I may be willing to even purchase an update to 2.0, 3.0, etc.

Now if you insist on using this silly food argument, if I purchased said waffle and halfway in to eating it, it turned into stone, I wouldn’t be very happy. I don’t purchase an app, hoping it will work within the next half hour [a typical meal time]. However, an app is not food, and when I purchase it, I assume it won’t stop working. If it is a free trial, I can assume that it could stop working at any time.

It doesn’t matter if the app is $2, $10, or $20. The price should reflect the feature set, and Longitude does not have a very large feature set. The point is I purchased the software, whatever the price is, and assume it should work for at least a year. For example, Microsoft provides extended support many years beyond when it stops selling the product.

Now with that said, I am very happy that Technivations has provided support for the product and it continues to work. I will be happy if they continue to provide support, and look forward to future apps they develop, as I have been satisfied with their apps so far. Let’s hope it stays that way.
#9 written by Marcus W. 1 year ago

If every developer had the point of view of Mitch R. and RMZ, that would be a disaster.

No one would buy an app from Cydia or the app store if it would be obsolete with the next iOS update! That view point is just absurd.

Everyone might as well download a cracked/hacked version of the app. Why waste money on the app if it’s going to break.

I do see that Sean Ferguson says they will ‘probably’ keep Longitude alive so that it will at least ‘work’. So, thank you if you do continue to support Longitude.

I think the excuse that developers don’t need to update and support their app just because these apps are cheap is a joke.

The $0.99 per app ‘business model’ that made the App Store and iDevices so popular rely on volume sold.

So, if Technivations can’t sell a high enough volume to make a profit, then fine.

I just think there were other routes to go besides just killing off Longitude.

I would purchase Longitude 2.0 or be happy with ad support or both! Do what you must to continue to support a good app.

I use Longitude to update my location and Latitude app/website to view friends. It works great for what I want.
#10 written by Sean Ferguson 1 year ago

Marcus, I understand your point and I agree with it to a point. The important thing to remember, though, is that (assuming an app is designed properly and doesn’t use weird hacks) apps developed for any iOS version should continue working on all future iOS versions in the App Store world. The jailbroken world is radically different, as we rely on hacks that we technically should never be using in the first place, since there’s no guarantee they’ll continue to work. For example, when iOS 4 was released, Longitude ceased to function altogether due to some changes Apple made in the OS.

The problem is, if we’re not profiting off an app, and Apple releases a new OS that breaks it again… it could be a quick fix, or it could require days of research and testing to repair it. Same with Google: Latitude existed long before Google released any sort of public Latitude API. We reversed engineered the process the Latitude iGoogle widget used the first time around, and then later adopted the update method that the Latitude web app used.

Google finally released an API for Latitude, and there’s a good chance we’ll switch Longitude to using that API in order to eliminate any of the strange, random issues a very small subset of users experience using the “hack” methods. And truthfully, if Apple releases a new OS that breaks Longitude, we’ll probably fix it.

What we don’t want to do is repair and release 2.0 with friend view support, because then we’re introducing an entirely new feature: yet another hacked one that could break without warning at any time. Our customers will expect us to support it, and that is not something we’re in a position to do right now, when there’s no way we’d break even, let alone make a profit off of it. Things were different before Google provided their own free option, and even before Apple introduced iOS with background location support… but now that both of those are in play, we’re looking at a much much smaller customer base.
#11 written by Parham Sabetazm 1 year ago

Another point to consider with software development is that we have to focus our efforts on how to best serve our user base. As Sean pointed out, relying on “hacks” for functionality can be problematic as Google may change the way things are done.

We carefully consider our application base, and it’s users, and determine how we can best deliver fantastic technology to most of our users. Our goal is to develop wonderful software for you, the end user. If we focus our efforts on software that shares functionality with the official release by Google, then we are taking away developer and quality control time away from our other applications.

As Sean hinted at, our developers are working on some amazing new applications that really are fantastic. I assure you that we are here for our users. We care about the sustainability and quality of what we develop. I can first hand assure you that no one I’ve ever met before in this industry is as meticulous about fine details (when it comes to development) as Sean is.
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