Strengths: Mobile Web App: Weaknesses: Bibliography:... 22

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Briana Greene
6 years ago
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1 Table of Contents Abstract:... 3 Introduction:... 4 Existing Applications:... 5 Features:... 6 Personal Experience of Run Keeper:... 6 MapMyRun:... 7 Features:... 8 Personal Experience with MapMyRun:... 8 Endomondo:... 9 Features:... 9 Personal Experience of Endomondo: Sports Tracker: Features: Personal Experience of Sports Tracker: Why Android? Getting Started: Some Code: About these Attributes: Problems while using eclipse: Solutions: GPS: Satellite Network: How Position is Determined: GPS Accuracy: My mobile device and GPS: Native versus Mobile Web App: What is mobile Web App? Native App: Mobile Web App: Monetization: Native App:

2 Strengths: Mobile Web App: Weaknesses: Bibliography:

3 Abstract: This research paper has been written in aid of designing and developing a mobile application for working out. In this research paper we take a look at similar applications to ours. Also it reviews technologies we will be using and also compares different ways of creating apps. 3

4 Introduction: This research paper was conducted in order to give me a better understanding of how to create a mobile application. In this research paper we will take a look at various features of working-out applications already on the market. We will then look at the different technologies we can use to create our app and also look at native and non-native ways for developing mobile apps. 4

5 Existing Applications: Run Keeper: [(Run Keeper)] 5

6 Features: This application allows you to pick your activity i.e. running, walking, cycling or swimming etc. This app records your distance in miles, how long your workout was, your average pace as mins/mile and also how many calories you have burned. It also lets you view the route you took on a map. This application also allows you to set goals for yourself such as I will complete a 10k race by a certain period of time or I will run for 40 minutes on Tuesday. It records all your running activities for you both on the mobile device and Run Keeper s website. This app also allows you to choose training plans for certain race targets and will provide you with a training programme to follow in order to fulfil your potential for that race. Personal Experience of Run Keeper: I set a goal for myself using the app s facilities. I set a goal that I would complete 4 miles by the end of the following day. The GPS tracker did not kick in until after 10 minutes of running which meant that whatever distance I covered was lost. Also my activity never uploaded on to the website of Run Keeper which still shows s 0% achieved for that goal. Also the map uploaded to my phone but with no street names mentioned or any location at all mentioned just a red squiggle which is not very helpful. 6

7 MapMyRun: [(MapMyRun)] 7

8 Features: MapMyRun is another application which I downloaded onto my android phone for review. This application has a number of features associated with it. Some of features include distance recorded, average pace in mins/mile, average speed as miles/hour, and also calculates the calories burned in one session. This application also shows you the route which you travelled on a map. This application lets you choose which activity you are participating in, be it walking, running, cycling, swimming or even dog walking. Also you have options for voice feedback for certain criteria, such as if you want to know when you have reached a certain distance or when you reach 20 minutes of running, you can set up an audio to inform you that you have done so. Personal Experience with MapMyRun: I completed a walking workout using MapMyRun. During my walk I could see the app mapping out the route as I went along. Also I could see how long I was walking for and my average pace as I went along. When I finished I expected to see my results stored on the application on the phone but it was nowhere to be seen. Only after I logged into my MapMyRun account on the internet did I see the results of the session. After I logged onto my account the workouts were then available to view from my phone. The next day however the stored workouts were removed from the phone, and there is no way to check using the phone app what your performances were for previous workouts. 8

Endomondo: [(Running Workout Endomondo)] Features: Records distance in miles Show average speed Duration Calories Speed With this application you can view the history of your workouts.

9 Endomondo: [(Running Workout Endomondo)] Features: Records distance in miles Show average speed Duration Calories Speed With this application you can view the history of your workouts. It will show you all of the above records and it will let you view the map of your activity as shown above. This app also provides features such as letting set goals for you or to follow routes and test yourself on the times accomplished for that route. 9

10 Personal Experience of Endomondo: I found this app very simple and easy to use. The user interface is very simple and easy to use and also easy on the eye. It is designed so the athlete can focus on his/her workout and not have to worry about how well the app is coping on the workout. The GPS signals picked up my location within a few seconds. Everything you would want to be recorded in a fitness app was recorded such as the bullet point features mentioned above. Also it provided a clear visual map of the route I took. 10

Sports Tracker: [(Sports Tracker - My workouts)] Features: Records Distance Duration Speed (km/hr.) Average Speed (km/hr.) This application allows the user to view all of the above during the workout.

11 Sports Tracker: [(Sports Tracker - My workouts)] Features: Records Distance Duration Speed (km/hr.) Average Speed (km/hr.) This application allows the user to view all of the above during the workout. It will record all the data from your workout and store it in a link called diary. It will record every activity the athlete partakes in. Also this application will save your workout on the sports tracker website as long as you have signed up and are a member of their site. Also this app will show you a map of the route you have just completed. This application allows you the opportunity of sharing your workouts with other users of sports tracker or to share them on your social sites such as Facebook. 11

12 Personal Experience of Sports Tracker: This application recorded all the data from my work out on the actual phone; however it did not sync with my account with sports-tracker.com. Also there was no map of the route which I ran. Some of the features provided by this running application include GPS tracking, Pace Tracker, Time, Calories and Pedometer. This application records every run the athlete makes. For each run recorded it also shows the fastest mile and the slowest mile which you ran. This application also can tell the athlete how many calories he/she has burnt during his/her workout. Also it allows you the option of playing music while you run. Technologies: To complete this project I will need a mobile phone touchscreen device that allows me to download applications to it. I will need to use Android SDK tools to develop this application. Why Android? Android is a Linux based operating system designed primarily for touch screen mobile devices. Android is currently being developed by Google. Android is an important platform for two reasons. First the fact that Google is introducing it and the mind-share Android has garnered in such a small amount of time. Google is attempting to make a play for the crowded mobile market. The second reason being that Android is not just another mobile platform; the architecture of Android permits a highly customizable software environment thanks to its run time binding of requested actions and the code to satisfy those requests. I will be developing this Android application using the Eclipse environment. Eclipse provides a powerful environment to build Android applications using the Android Eclipse plug-in. 12

13 Getting Started: In order to undergo my project within the Eclipse environment, I first need to install some software kits. Android SDK relies on the Java SEDevelopment kit (JDK) so I need to install this first. Once I have the JDK installed I now install the Android SDK. Once I have these installed I can open up my Eclipse environment and specify the location of my Android SDK directory. I can now start my application development. In order to get to grasp using Eclipse and creating Android projects, I needed to work through some tutorials. A website I found for building my first application is: Some Code: <EditText android:id="@+id/edit_message" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android: hint="@string/edit_message" /> [(DeveloperAndroid.com)] About these Attributes: This provides a unique identifier for the view, which you can use to reference the object from your app code, such as to read and manipulate the object (you'll see this in the next lesson). The at sign (@) is required when you're referring to any resource object from XML. It is followed by the resource type (id in this case), a slash, then the resource name (edit_message). The plus sign (+) before the resource type is needed only when you're defining a resource ID for the first time. When you compile the app, the SDK tools use the ID name to create a new resource ID in your project's gen/r.java file that refers to the EditText element. Once the resource ID is declared once this way, other references to the ID do not need the plus sign. Using the plus sign is necessary only when specifying a new resource ID and not needed for concrete resources such as strings or layouts. See the sidebox for more information about resource objects. android: layout_width and android: layout_height 13

14 Instead of using specific sizes for the width and height, the "wrap_content" value specifies that the view should be only as big as needed to fit the contents of the view. If you were to instead use "match_parent", then the EditText element would fill the screen, because it would match the size of the parent LinearLayout. For more information, see the Layouts guide. android: hint This is a default string to display when the text field is empty. Instead of using a hard-coded string as the value, the "@string/edit_message" value refers to a string resource defined in a separate file. Because this refers to a concrete resource (not just an identifier), it does not need the plus sign. However, because you haven't defined the string resource yet, you ll see a compiler error at first. You'll fix this in the next section by defining the string. Note: This string resource has the same name as the element ID: edit_message. However, references to resources are always scoped by the resource type (such as id or string), so using the same name does not cause collisions. <Button android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:text="@string/button_send" android:onclick="sendmessage" /> [(DeveloperAndroid.com)] The android: onclick attribute s value, "sendmessage", is the name of a method in your activity that the system calls when the user clicks the button. Problems while using eclipse: Error in an XML file: aborting build. R cannot be resolved to a variable. Solutions: You need to delete the main.out.xml in your res/layout/, and then clean your project. If you work on Eclipse IDE, do like this: Project ==> Clean ==> check your project, and press OK. 14

GPS: GPS, which stands for the Global Positioning System, is a satellite-based navigation system made up of a network of 24 satellites placed into orbit by the U.S. Department of Defense.

15 GPS: GPS, which stands for the Global Positioning System, is a satellite-based navigation system made up of a network of 24 satellites placed into orbit by the U.S. Department of Defense. GPS originally was intended for military uses, but in the 1980s, the government made the system available for civilian use. GPS systems now are available to users worldwide who need accurate positioning, navigation, and timing services. [ (NASA)] Satellite Network: The GPS satellites transmit signals to a GPS receiver. These receivers passively receive satellite signals; they do not transmit and require an unobstructed view of the sky, so they can only be used effectively outdoors. GPS operations depend on a very accurate time reference, which is provided by atomic clocks on board the satellites. [ (Griffin, 2011)] The Navstar GPS Constellation [ (Griffin, 2011)] Each GPS satellite transmits data that indicates its location and the current time. All GPS satellites synchronize operations so that these repeating signals are transmitted at the same instant. The signals, moving at the speed of light, arrive at a GPS receiver at slightly different times because some satellites are further away than others. The distance to the GPS satellites can be determined by estimating the amount of time it takes for their signals to reach the receiver. When the receiver 15

estimates the distance to at least four GPS satellites, it can calculate its position in three dimensions. There are at least 24 operational GPS satellites at all times plus a number of spares.

16 estimates the distance to at least four GPS satellites, it can calculate its position in three dimensions. There are at least 24 operational GPS satellites at all times plus a number of spares. The satellites, operated by the US DoD, orbit with a period of 12 hours (two orbits per day) at a height of about 11,500 miles traveling at 9,000mph (3.9km/s or 14,000kph). Ground stations are used to precisely track each satellite's orbit. GPS signals are transmitted at a power equivalent to a 50 watt domestic light bulb. Those signals have to pass through space and our atmosphere before reaching your satnav after a journey of 11,500 miles. [ (Griffin, 2011)] Signals from multiple satellites are required to calculate a position [(Griffin, 2011)] 16

17 How Position is Determined: A GPS receiver "knows" the location of the satellites because that information is included in the transmitted Ephemeris data (see below). By estimating how far away a satellite is, the receiver also "knows" it is located somewhere on the surface of an imaginary sphere centred at the satellite. It then determines the sizes of several spheres, one for each satellite and therefore knows the receiver is located where these spheres intersect. [(Griffin, 2011)] GPS Accuracy: The accuracy of a position determined with GPS depends on the type of receiver. Most consumer GPS units have an accuracy of about +/-10m. Other types of receivers use a method called Differential GPS (DGPS) to obtain much higher accuracy. DGPS requires an additional receiver fixed at a known location nearby. Observations made by the stationary receiver are used to correct positions recorded by the roving units, producing an accuracy greater than 1 meter. Global Positioning System will be an integral part of my project. The GPS allows me to track the movements of the person holding the mobile device. In order to record distance travelled and how fast a person is going I will need to include the GPS system in my application. My mobile device and GPS: My mobile device can use Global Positioning System signals for location-based applications. The GPS uses satellites controlled by the U.S. government, implemented in accordance with the Department of Defence policy and the Radio Navigation Plan. [ (Milestone)]. My mobile device can also use Assisted Global Positioning System (AGPS), which obtains information from the mobile network to improve GPS performance. Native versus Mobile Web App: What is a Native app? 17

18 A native app is an app for a certain mobile device (smartphone, tablet, android etc.) They are installed directly on to the device. Users typically acquire these apps through an online store or marketplace such as The App Store or Android Apps on Google Play. Examples of native app are Camera+ for ios devices and KeePassDroid for Android devices. What is mobile Web App? Mobile web apps are Interned enabled apps that have specific functionality for mobile devices. They are accessed through the mobile device s web browser and they need to be downloaded and installed on the device. Comparison of Native App vs. Mobile Web App: User Interface: Here is a side by side view of Facebook s native app and mobile web app: In terms of the general look and feel, there s little difference between the two, making for a consistent user experience. 18

19 Development: Native App: Each mobile application development platform requires its own development process. Mobile Web App: Run s in the mobile device s web browser and each may have its own features and quirks. Native App: Each mobile application development platform has its own native programming language: Java (Android), Objective-C (ios). Mobile Web App: Mobile web apps are written in HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and server-side languages or web application frameworks of the developer s choice (e.g. PHP, Rails, and Python). Native App: Standardized software development kits (SDKs), development tools and common user interface elements (buttons, text input fields, etc.) are often provided by the manufacturer of the platform. Mobile Web App: There is no standard software development kits (SDKs) that developers are required to use to make a mobile web app. Capabilities: Native App: Can interface with the device s native features, information and hardware (camera, accelerometer, etc.) Mobile Web App: Mobile web apps can access a limited amount of the device s native features and information (orientation, geolocation, media, etc.) 19

20 Monetization: Native App: Developers have the ability to charge a download price and app stores will typically handle the payment process (in exchange for a percentage of sales). Mobile Web App: Charging users to use the mobile web app requires you to set up your own paywall or subscription-based system. Method of Delivery: Native App: Downloaded onto a mobile device. Mobile Web App: Accessed through a mobile device s web browser. Native App: Installed and runs as a standalone application (no web browser needed). Mobile Web App: No need to install new software. Native App: There are stores and marketplaces to help users find your app. Mobile Web App: Since there is no app store for the Mobile Web, it can be harder for users to find your app 20

21 Strengths: Native App: Typically perform faster than mobile web apps. App stores and marketplaces help users find native apps. App store approval processes can help assure users of the quality and safety of the app. Tools, support and standard development best practices provided by device manufacturers can help speed up development. Mobile Web App: Have a common code base across all platforms. Users don t have to go to a store or marketplace, download the app and install the app. Can be released in any form and any time as there isn t an app store that has to approve the app. Weaknesses: Native App: Are typically more expensive to develop, especially if you re supporting multiple mobile devices. Users can be on different versions and can make your app harder to maintain and provide support for. [ (Mudge, 2012) 21

22 Bibliography: [(DeveloperAndroid.com)]. Retrieved from DeveloperAndroid.com: [(Running Workout Endomondo)]. Retrieved from Running Workout Endomondo: [(MapMyRun)]. Retrieved November 7, 2012, from MapMyRun: [(Run Keeper)]. Retrieved November 6, 2012, from Run Keeper: Griffin, D. (2011, June). Retrieved from PocketGPSWorld.com: Milestone, M. (n.d.). Motorola Milestone. Ireland: MOTOROLA. Motorola Milestone. (n.d.). Ireland: MOTOROLA. Mudge, J. (2012, July 11). Six Revisions. Retrieved November 16, 2012, from NASA. (n.d.). Retrieved November 8, 2012, from nasa.gov: Smithsonian. (n.d.). How does GPS Work? Retrieved from National Air and Space Museum: Sports Tracker - My workouts. (n.d.). Retrieved from sports-tracker.com: 22

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