Description of App
SeeingAssistant-Move is an application developed by Transition Technologies S.A. in order to support blind and visually impaired people in everyday life. SeeingAssistant-Move provides advanced geo-location and navigation features as well as current weather reports.
SeeingAssistant-Movehas been developed in close co-operation visually impaired people in order to address their needs as well as possible. Features:- route planning
- support for LoadStone and OpenStreetMap POIs text databases
- advanced neighborhood scanner with world directions
- searching for location
- where am I functionality
- route recorder
- sharing points
- entering text by voice
- Dropbox integration
Comments
new version 1.4 on the AppStore
new version 1.7
new version 1.7.1
new version 1.8 on AppStore
added German language
There is updated version on the AppStore - version 1.8.1 with German language.
version 1.9 - monitoring localization, speech synthesis
Dear all,
There is updated version on the AppStore - version 1.9.
What's new in this version:
- added monitoring localization
- possibility to use in application the built-in speech synthesis - only iOS 7
- configuration presentation of direction in stand and moving mode
- edit points from "Show neighborhood", "Find in databases"
- added activating/deactivating database by voice command
- adding simulating location in "Find address"
- possibility to add points to databases
- added application usage statistics
- route can be registered again from "Routes list"
- additional messages about possibility to download databases
- possibility to activate database after download from Dropbox, website or imported from e-mail
- changed way of importing Open Street Map files, less restrictions
- name of route and database can be one character length
- bugs fixed
Best wishes,
Seeing Assistant Team
My comprehensive review
This is becoming my favorite app for navigating when my internet connection is spotty or I'm in an open area where my own landmarks are more important than map data.
The free Lite version will give you a taste of the software, but it has limitations (see the comments in its AppleVis entry) and when you purchase the full version you'll need to download map/point databases again and create your own points once again from scratch.
I am in Silicon Valley, California, so the OpenStreet map data here is pretty robust. But even when it has no internet connection to geocode, this app is able to tell you the direction and distance from any point in any database you've downloaded or added points to. You can turn off its auto-announcing of the current address if say you are trying to find the restroom in a picnic area, or a building on campus or the deli in a business park. I've found no other app that will continue to help me navigate to previously landmarked locations without an internet connection.
You can also set it to announce the current address at fixed intervals as you walk along.
There were two aspects of the app I found confusing at first. The term "database" refers to many things; data you download from open sources on the internet and data you create yourself. You can also save the data you create yourself in different databases.
Data you create yourself are called points. Each point (on the internet they are sometimes called POIS, an acronym for Point Of Interest") are simply a landmark of a particular location. When I stand in front of the building where I work I can create a point and name it "Parking Lot A" which is what the sign says. Later, I can create a point for the same location called "Student And Community Services Building" which is the official name of this edifice. The app doesn't care.
The address is also saved as part of that point. In other apps, when you create a name for a point you loos the associated address.
The other confusing aspect of the interface is probably very nice for low-vision people. The top half of the screen always contains the same large buttons, in the same arrangement for performing common tasks. The VO user will need to flick past these buttons to get to newly refreshed onscreen information. I soon learned where to touch on the screen to bypass the standard buttons.
Unlike other navigation apps, this one integrates with dropbox in two important ways. First, it will import databases from other sources, and supports several formats. Those include formats used by Loadstone-GPS, an open-source program written by blind people for Symbian phones. There are also other sources of points on the internet, Poi factory and OpenStreet maps, and it can handle those as well. Sighted people with car navigation gizmos also can download points in various formats from the internet, for example to support Garmin GPS devices, and there are free programs to convert that data in to one of the formats that this app supports.
My favorite converter is GPS Babel because it's so simple and accessible.
The other dropbox integration is backup. After you've saved a lot of points, you don't want to loose them. You can back it all up to DropBox and keep them in a format you can export to other software in the future.
You can issue a few voice commands to locate things "find bank" toggle monitoring "monitoring off" or repeat the announcement of the current address. This makes the app more hands-free than most.
Seeing Assistant Move creates pedestrian routes, manually or automatically. When it's manual, you enter the points as you go along. Automatically it creates a point every thirty seconds or so. You can then follow either of these routes to return to a previously routed destination. and it can also give driving directions using either Apple or Google maps. Like other navigation programs, it will show your location on an Apple map, let you explore with your fingers, check the surrounding neighborhood and find a particular address's location.
AppleVis had several negative posts about this app. Previous versions had a truly clunky, unintuitive interface. I believe that's completely changed, and I love this app now!
To close this review, I offer some useful web links.
Seeing Assistant Move Links
Main site at:
http://seeingassistant.tt.com.pl/move/
Tutorial at:
http://seeingassistant.tt.com.pl/move/tutorial/
LoadStone-GPS:
http://www.loadstone-gps.com/
LoadStone's Point manipulation tools:
http://www.loadstone-gps.com/docs/tools/
GPS Babel:
http://www.gpsbabel.org/
POI Factory:
http://www.poi-factory.com/
OpenStreet Maps:
http://www.openstreetmap.org
I know you shouldn't compare but...
How does this app differ from say Blindsquare? What makes it better/worse? Can it announce intersections and if so how?
Just a few questions that pop up in my head because i've got the impression that Seeingassistant Move doesn't even come close to Blindsquare.
version 1.14 - new features
Dear all,
There is updated version on the AppStore - version 1.14.
What's new in this version:
- added profiles of settings
- added categories for points from Open Street Maps
- added angle of monitoring
- configuration of shake gestures
- changed way for adding point to recorder route by shaking gesture
- fixed bugs
Best wishes,
Seeing Assistant Team
http://seeingassistant.tt.com.pl
https://twitter.com/SeeingAssistant
sa@tt.com.pl