back to article Historypin

If you’ve ever wondered what your environment looked like in the past, or just like looking at old photographs of places you know, then Historypin is well worth a download. Searching for pictures couldn't be more easy. The app shows them pinned to Google Maps so you just pan around to any places of interest. Tap on the pic …

COMMENTS

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  1. annodomini2
    WTF?

    OMG!

    A review getting more than 90%, is everyone at the Reg feeling ok?

  2. dotdavid

    App2sd

    A bit unrelated to the app HistoryPin (although it's a fine app), but it's good to see El Reg Android reviews saying whether or not the app supports "app2sd".

    It baffles me why devs still release apps that DON'T support it*, considering it is a mere one-line change in the application's manifest XML file.

    As for HistoryPin, it's a fascinating app. The only issues I've found with it so far is that on the OH's Asus Transformer it inexplicibly rotates to Portrait when you're holding the tablet in Landscape (and vice versa), and you can't seem to view the "modern" views of each photo in the app.

    (* apart from the obvious launchers and widgets thanks to Android limitations)

    1. MBDaley

      App2sd - why

      App development manager here. We didn't originally have app2sd because it wasn't introduced until 2.2. We had to disable use support for 2.1 and below to get this working.

      Regarding the Transformer issue, we're releasing a fix for this any moment now. It's a matter of the X Y and Z axis being different on Honeycomb tablets. We can only really test on our Galaxy Tab 10.1 so any feedback on how it works in other tablets would be welcome!

      Here's a little bit of info about the issue from Google

      http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/09/one-screen-turn-deserves-another.html

      1. dotdavid
        Thumb Up

        Um

        "We didn't originally have app2sd because it wasn't introduced until 2.2. We had to disable use support for 2.1 and below to get this working."

        I may be wrong, but that's not true as far as I know. You can use the 2.2 and above SDK to generate an APK targeted at 2.1 and above if you want, which would allow app2sd on 2.2+ devices but retain compatibility with 2.1 devices.

        http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/uses-sdk-element.html

        Thanks for the heads-up about the rotation issue fix and the link. Looks like a nightmare to implement! Will be happy to more thoroughly test the app on my OH's Transformer (I've mainly used it on my own Nexus One).

        1. DrXym

          Yes

          You can supply a 2.2 manifest and set the min supported api to 2.1. Use 2.2 tags and they get ignored by the old version. So yes you can support moving apps to sd.

          Google have also changed marketplace so even if this were not possible that now you can upload multiple apks under the same product name and it gets matched up to the right device by magic.

          The move app to sd doesn't strictly do that though. It moves resources to sd (within an encrypted loopback device), but keeps the app code on the protected flash. If your app were really large, it would still consume a lot of space. The solution to that is probably to write a custom dex loader, shifting out some classes into an external dex which is treated like a resource but it could be a lot of effort.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Apparently available on iPhone from end of the month...

    See http://www.historypin.com/faq/#title55

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    Tom Pellereau's idea?

    Isn't this a more refined version Tom Pellereau's (The Apprentice) idea that he had brain stormed during the mobile application task? Then again i haven't bothered to check if History Pin pre-dates The Apprentice recording. Lawsuit anybody?

    1. Argh

      Re: Tom Pellereau's idea

      I'm not sure that this is a traffic light, so they might be safe from lawsuits.

  5. Duncan Hothersall

    Doesn't show up in Android Market for me

    Maybe a phone version thing. Shame, cos it sounds ace and I have some Edinburgh photos I could add.

    1. thesykes
      WTF?

      Not on market for me either...

      Tried searching for it on the market and it didn't show. Folllowed the link to the market from the article, it's there and it is compatible with my phone! Clicked install and the install process kicked off immediately, installed no problems and a quick try of it shows it appears to work.

    2. clanger9
      WTF?

      Re: Doesn't show up in Android Market for me

      Didn't show up for me either with a Market search, but the Q-code took me straight there.

      Weird. Of all companies, you would have thought that Google could implement a useful, working search function on the Market {sigh}...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ people who cant find on the market.

    I did a search for "historypin" without the " and got this result.

    https://market.android.com/search?q=historypin&so=1&c=apps

  7. paulcrumbs

    Google fail..

    Fancy investigating the search issue Reg?

    http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Android+Market/thread?tid=1e575cf9e437736c&hl=en&fid=1e575cf9e437736c0004a90916ca7cf4

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Android version

    worth noting that this app is only supported in v2.2 and v2.3

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