hi, i recently tried out foxytag. very cool! however, i think it could be quite a bit better with a few minor improvements:
1) typical situation: you are on the phone or thinking something when you suddenly see a radar. checking own speed and adjusting if neccessary takes something like 1-5 seconds. grabbing the mobile phone and pressing a button to turn off the screen saver (can't have it on all the time as it drains the battery too fast) maybe 1-2 seconds. Ok, now which button do I have to press? Look in the rear view mirrow - was it on both sides? How often do I press which button again? 3 seconds. By the time you're ready to report the radar, 10s may have easily passed, which may be as much as 300m. In attempting to quickly react, I accidentally pressed 1 instead of 2, or by deaktivating the screen saver and reporting the radar too quick with the same key - I guess - I reported it on the wrong side.
All in all, I think 50% of what I reported so far was - unfortunately - not accurate.
The solution is simple: change the tagging UI a bit. let a user tag a radar with any button (or just the 1) to capture the exact position. Then provide a menu that lets him select what kind of radar and in which direction(s) it was. that way I wouldn't have to think which and how often you press a button before I do - I simply click 1 and once the situation is cleared, I have all the time I want to complete the information and send it.
I think this would significantly improve accuracy of both, position and type of radar.
2) The audi bluetooth connection signals incoming calls with the nokia ringtone I selected - but it disables the acustic alarm of foxytag (on a nokia E51 neither the phone nor the car speakers signal the foxy alarm tone). as I have an other phone it's not a big deal for me, one connects to the audi bluetooth and the other runs foxytag - but it may be annoying to others.
3) Sometimes FoxyTag (or my phone) seems to loose connection to the internet or the GPS. If that's the case, some acoustic signal should warn you about that so you can reset the GPS or reconnect to the internet.
4) I think there are by far not enough users participating to be effective. I don't know if there ever will be a business model behind it, but I could imagine that placing ads on popular route planners (map24 etc) or other sites that deal with traffic and cars would greatly improve the popularity and thus user base of foxytag.
it's a darn cool project - people just need to know about it and it should be a tad easier to use. I'm honestly deeply fascinated by this - it's not really thinking one can speed safely with this, which I don't do anyway - it's more to realize what's really possible with todays technology!
keep up the great work!
thanks for reading, frank