On a very serious request... a really good bike app for the Bicycle Hire thing would be lovely.
I have a dataset that you can use (which I will get working again, but you can start using now): http://www.lfgss.com/api/tfl.php
The app should clearly cope with the following use cases:
1) I'm heading North... where are the nearest free bikes along that route? (Note: You don't want to walk South 300m if there are free bikes North 350m).
2) Following on from #1, if I arrive and there are now no bikes free, where are the next nearest free bikes (this could be #1 again, or you could adapt #1 to show the nearest 2 places along the direction of travel).
3) I know where to pick up a bike, but I don't know where to drop a bike off... show me a map so that I can locate my destination and see where the drop-off points are and how many spaces there are.
4) I want to be able to favourite some locations so that when I fire up the app I can check bike availability at those points (i.e. the 4 points closest to Waterloo if I get the train in the morning, I could check them from the train so I know which way to go from the station).
I imagine that this would be laid out as three tabs at the top: Nearest, Map, Favourites.
I imagine that Nearest would show a slim compass line below the tab and then a grid displaying rows of nearest bikes in that direction. Turn South and it would hide some rows and show some others. The logic for this is: List all stops within 150m regardless of direction, List only direction of travel +- 45' over 150m.
I imagine that Map would simply be the Google map with the location markers on them... clicking on a location marker should bring up a bubble allowing you to favourite the place and to also show you bikes free and bikes available.
I imagine that Favourites would show a list of the favourites places sorted by distance from you (but allowing alphabetic sort) and that clicking on a place would show that place centred on a map with any other favourited places nearby.
For this, I will offer a guarantee of availability of the API, and give you promotional prominence on the Cycle Show stand.
Cycle Hire Widget by Little Fluffy Toys Ltd does pretty much all this.
Cycle Hire Widget by Little Fluffy Toys Ltd does pretty much all this.