We're at the phase of the project where we have a working and fairly complete GPS app. While the work is far from over, internal field testing is ramping up. That's where we discover bugs, decide on optimizations, and get ideas for new features and improvements.
This past week, I was afield in the Jeep for the first time in over a year — to brush the dust off my camera and make a new adventure video, and also to put Mapkind GPS to work.
Early in the trip, there was a bizarre stability issue that had never occurred in the iOS simulator. When I built the app on my physical device, it would crash randomly when stationary within a 10-minute span.
(this is a cautionary tale about over-reliance on simulators)
I spent all of Tuesday perched on the edge of a canyon overlooking the Colorado River, tethering my cell phone and trying to solve this issue, and it was happening due to compass bearing updates passing invalid values. That's not how I wanted to spend my Tuesday, but I can't complain about working at such an incredible location!
After the fix, the app was rock solid for the rest of the trip.
The video itself is coming soon — look for it on YouTube by the end of the month. I plan to do most of my editing next week, in addition to working on the Android build.