Domestic US Airlines as iPhone Apps

UPDATED 9/2/10

As a frequent traveler, I have determined that a nice compact iPhone application can make travel smoother by putting personalized flight data in the palm of your hand. So I went about loading all the airline's iPhone apps, and what-do-you-know? They largely don't exist.

AirTran - sorry no iPhone app, and no mobile site
Alaska - iPhone app
American - sorry no iPhone app, use their mobile site
Continental - sorry no iPhone app, use their mobile site
Delta - iPhone app or use their mobile site
Frontier - sorry no iPhone app, and no mobile site
Hawaiian - sorry no iPhone app, and no mobile site
JetBlue - sorry no iPhone app, use their mobile site
Midwest - sorry no iPhone app, use their mobile site
Southwest - iPhone app
United - sorry no iPhone app, use their mobile site or flight lookup mobile site
US Airways - sorry no iPhone app, use their mobile site
Virgin America - sorry no iPhone app, and no mobile site

One exception is the Oneworld Alliance iPhone app that supports American Airlines.

When you look at what the state of the travel economy has been, even with a brighter airline outlook; you wonder what airlines are doing to put paying passengers into more seats.

So here is a simple case of why every single airline above should have an iPhone app:

Rely on this number or anyone else's, but Apple has sold 50 million iPhones. Not all in the US...but AT&T activated 2.7 million in the last quarter ending March 2010.

You can do the math on how many early adopters traded up, how many people got tired of AT&T service issues, but any person that has eyes knows - there are a bunch of people carrying an iPhone nowadays.

On my last flight, I estimate there were 1.5 iPhones per row of the Delta B757. With 33 rows, that comes down to approximately 50 iPhones out of 162 seats - or roughly 1/3 of the aircraft. There was of course 1 Microsoft Kin, because he sat next to me, but that is statistically insignificant, right?

Let's compare that with the average domestic passenger enplanements for the 12 months between April 2009 and March 2010...51.6 million per month (Bureau of Transportation Statistics).

We need some more math here, based on my experience, most enplanements are double counts because most people fly roundtrips....so 25 million or so unique passengers a month, which is a number comparable to the number of domestic iPhones. So, I think, my estimate of how many iPhones on that plane was low.

In the gate area waiting on flights I see people mucking about with their iPhones, but they probably aren't turning to Twitter or Facebook or an airline blog for FLIFO.

Now that you may be convinced, here are some basics for any airline iPhone application:

1. Persistent identity storage. I don't want to spend 5 minutes signing in at least twice a week to access personalized data. There are too many examples to list here of persistent identity storage on the iPhone.

2. Contextual guidance within and around airports. Has anyone ever seen the iPhone app Geodelic? They have an Experience set up for the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. This is just a start: guide me to your ticket counters, events you sponsor in my current city, to sweetheart deals you have with airport service firms like Park-N-Fly.

3. Contextual guidance within the plane. Tell me what kind of plane I'm on, tell me about my seat. Show me a safety video...I've seen this one at least 100 times, and I would watch it again because it's funny.

4. Contextual guidance within the flight. Point out things on the ground during the flight: Here is an example from the 1940s that we put on Mapicurious: Eastern Air Lines Route Map. This describes in little tidbits about the cities you may fly over. Remember, you can save this info to the device similarly to the persistent identity storage. Another one...Let me buy food items and duty free (where appropriate)...you already let me surf the net.

5. Travel tips. Here's an inventory of what you know about me: My flight, the weather, how many bags I checked, how many bags others have checked, my boarding order, my frequent flier data, my aircraft, my origin and destination, and how much I paid. Use these to my advantage, and I will be a happy flier.

6. Caching of travel data. Sometimes you don't have wifi onboard. But I still would like the data.

Additionally, what we already know about iPhone apps is simple:

1. It can be a wrapper of your existing mobile site.
2. You will receive analytics that are probably better than your current ones.
3. You probably have a developer on staff that can program it.
4. It can be silently soft launched, or through you viral network and social media hounds.
5. It provides a better mobile experience than the mobile site.
6. 1/3 of the passengers on your next flight will be carrying an iPhone, not a KIN.

Bottom line is this: I throw away your constant credit card offers. I happen to already carry your card. I don't like it when the cheap, non-traveler guy gets first class upgrades due to his credit card spending habits versus me flying your airline constantly.

Spend that money using this implementation of consumer technology to better connect with the people that give you money for your core business...air travel.

Thanks,

Maps

A little disclosure: I don't work for any airline, but I do travel frequently - but not like George Clooney. I've flown all of the above airlines except: Virgin America, Hawaiian, and AirTran.

A 3 Step Guide to Enable Location for Your Business

How do you take advantage of the Location craze?

Here are 3 steps:

1. http://mapicurious.blogspot.com/2008/10/step-1-prepare-your-locations-listing.html
2. http://mapicurious.blogspot.com/2008/10/step-2-add-your-lat-lng-to-your.html
3. http://mapicurious.blogspot.com/2008/10/step-3-make-your-business-show-in.html

Thanks,

Maps

Gigapan Panoramas of Bora Bora and Tahiti

Traveling is what we do at Mapicurious, and we most recently traveled to the island of Bora Bora for a nice getaway. What is there to do in Bora Bora if you run a site about maps?.....well, mapping of course.

Here are a few links to Gigapans done during our stay in Bora Bora:

The US forces established a naval base on the island during WWII to protect a shipping lane between the US and Australia. One activity is to visit the 4 remaining naval gun emplacements on the island. Here is a view from one of those:
http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/50888/

The largest town on the island is Vaitape. Here is a panorama of the town taken from a private dock.
http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/50537/

We drove around the island looking for excellent spots for good shots of the island. Here are a few:

Mt. Otemanu and Mt Pahia:
http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/50291/

Another mountain shot:
http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/50227/

Matera Beach. The only public beach on Bora Bora:
http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/50439/

We travel in style at Mapicurious. Here is the view from our deck in the overwater bungalow in which we stayed. Thanks to the Hilton Bora Bora Nui, we appreciated this view during our stay. Disclosure: Hilton did not sponsor this stay.
http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/50505/

The resort is on an island on the other side of the main Bora Bora island, and is a treat to walk around and soak up the beauty. Here is a bunch of other shots we captured just walking around, exploring:

Black rocks and bungalows:
http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/50421/

Overwater bungalows:
http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/50398/

Flowers:
http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/50354/

Between the bungalows on land:
http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/50330/

From the water tower (secret spot):
http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/50301/

From the spa:
http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/50216/

From the walk up to the spa:
http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/50228/

Hope you enjoy. If you take panoramas, you have the ability to embed them into Mapicurious maps. Just let us know if you have questions.

Thanks,

Maps

Hey Foursquare: Just what does it take to be Mayor?

Update: On the 59th check in....I'm now the Mayor!!!! Here is the simple secret: Your account must have a profile image. My account lacked that image on the 58th checkin, but had one on the 59th. Thanks to Tim Barsness for the tip off, and proving that he knows a lot about leveraging social media.

---

This morning I checked-in to Chick-Fil-A for the 45th time. Your first thought may be, "WTF!?" either because someone has been to The Chick that many times or that person isn't the Mayor on Foursquare. You may miss the saddest part, because there are two other guys that visit this Chick-Fil-A more times than me. At least according to Foursquare.

When I first started playing Foursquare, my goal was to be a Mayor before I quit playing and move on to the next great thing. I met people that rode by establishments on buses or walked down a street checking-in to every venue they passed. This is "cheating", but I know from my own LBS experience that GPS accuracy comes at a price that mobile game developers would rather avoid for playability sake.

Now I come to this 45th check-in milestone, and no mayorship. I'm not upset but I am unsatisfied - two others have been anointed Mayor in my time checking-in to The Chick. So the following must be a description of how I avoided being the Mayor.

What!? Me not the Mayor?



I couldn't believe that I could check-in 10 times and not be the Mayor of a place that had no Mayor. Epic Fail!

I thought if you visited the location more than others, you automatically received the mayorship for the location. I started to wonder if my AT&T 3G service was bonkers when playing Foursquare.

I also figured my GPS needed to warm up adequately - so I stood in the parking lot a few mornings to get an accurate reading (according to my own app).

I eventually noticed the location they had, while it's address was correct, the geocoding was slightly off.

Reaching out to Foursquare

My next move was to tweet some difficulty with Foursquare, and I figured this would open a communication path on the specific problem I'm having:



Kudos to their social media monitoring - because I received the fastest response ever. One of this blog's commenters will probably say this was an automated response...but I was impressed:



After that response I tried to submit a problem with the venue via their reporting email, however I received no response. Maybe they don't have my email address. I know this is a free game with unpaid support - I just had different expectations given my Twitter experience.

It would be helpful to let them know the location of the venue needs to be corrected. The location actually is plotted in the wrong area of the massive parking lot where Chick-Fil-A sits.

The Squeeze, The Squirt, and The Scam?

Trying to be the Mayor I discovered The FourSqueeze. My friends aware of my quest with access to this location kept telling me they were checking-in there, and that was why I didn't receive the coveted Mayor. I termed the pressure to check-in because your friends are trying to grab your potential mayorship as The Squeeze. Maybe Foursquare could add this competition awareness component to their game - it would help me distract my friends from my Mayorship.

After not getting success I encountered The FourSquirt. I mean I visited this location about 75 times, but only checked-in a portion because it just didn't seem to have an impact on the game. The times I go to a location where I've previously checked-in and not checked-in I termed as The Squirt. If Foursquare could remind me to check-in when I get near the location in question that would help me dominate my potential competitors. It might help with the cheating too.

And then finally - What kind of campaign do you have to run to be a Mayor? The FourScam. I use "scam" completely lightheartedly - and here are the emoticons to prove it ;) ;) ;) ;) I just want to know what more I need to do to accomplish my only goal with Foursquare, for now I'm the chump at this table. I've checked-in 45 times and not received a Mayorship!

Yo bro, you are STILL not the Mayor!



Guess how surprised I was to see Edgar L as the Mayor on my 34th check-in! It instantly gave me this brilliant idea to start showing the Mayor photo to the Chick-Fil-A staff. Only one said he might be a familiar face. I will say I explained Foursquare about 5 times to everyone - and thankfully I had a friendly reputation before showing my investigative skills.

And then the biggest surprise this morning - Edgar L totally dethroned! This guy Jason F shows up overnight to claim the title. Hey Jason F: Did you see me at The Chick today or the day before? I'm now looking for you dude! And my employee friends are on the lookout for you too. Your days are numbered as Mayor here...that is if 50 check-ins gets the job done. ;)

So here is my Foursquare offer

If either or both Mayors reach out to me, I'll be more than happy to buy them each a Chick-Fil-A lunch and learn their Foursquare secrets. We can term this as the Chick-Fil-A Summit.

If one of the Foursquare team members needs a lunch there too, I'm happy to oblige them as well.

And finally: I'll be at Wherecamp this April in Mountain View. I'll pitch a session about my experience with LBS games - and maybe a Foursquare-ite will be there to chat. By then I hope to be Mayor of Chick-Fil-A!

Here are a couple of disclosures

You may have encountered similar issues, so I'm disclosing some additional information if you want to correlate your experience.

1. Twitter or Facebook are not linked to my Foursquare account.
2. I don't have a photo on my Foursquare profile.
3. I only offered a tip for the location after I was passed over for Mayor the first time.
4. I don't think the venue has ever been closed on Foursquare, otherwise my check-ins would not be as high.
5. I think the app may have run into some problems, when you see the check-ins with a big blank page.

Pictures of my other checkins

So I didn't capture every picture of each checkin, but I was able to get most. I was in total shock this morning when there was a new mayor, but not me (picture at top of post).

A Small Guide to Mapicurious

As we travel around at Mapicurious, we need efficient ways to create maps on the site - and quickly share points of interest.

Here is our guide to how we do it:

1. We have Twitter and Foursquare accounts. We can tweet and checkin from places around the city during our data collection. These geotagged apps simplify collection of known places like restaurants and bars.

2. We use our Around Mapicurious app for iPhone (available on Android as well). This lets us know what we have already mapped. No reason to add duplicate points.

3. What's in our bag today? iPhone 3GS and Garmin Colorado 400t. We take advantage of the lower resolution camera on the iPhone, versus carrying the N95 8GB. For quick mapping, these tools are the best.

4. We use the Foursquare and Twitter mapping methods to get a map, and use our other tools (Garmin and iPhone) to enhance the location data. It can take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes to create a complete map.

5. Once in Mapicurious, we can easily expose our map data to:

a. The Mapicurious.com site.
b. Google Earth for detailed analysis.
c. Our Garmin nuvi for road trips.
d. GeoRSS to add into a few random GPSes we have laying around the place. (Sometimes we get bored too.)
e. Layar AR browsing app on the iPhone.
f. OpenStreetMap because we see value participating in the larger geo community.

And now you know.

Maps

Mapicurious now on Layar

Need to find Mapicurious points of interest in an augmented reality world?

Mapicurious just published a layer on the Layar platform. Add it to your phone by searching for Mapicuriosities, and have fun.

Thanks,

Maps

How we address location privacy in our Around service

Concerned about your privacy using our location aware browser application for Apple iPhone 3GS and Android phones?

Don't be. We place a big green notice about your location privacy clearly on our application's main user interaction page.

We think other services should do this as clear as we do.

What do you think?

Thanks,

Maps