GeoTrack Android: the storyboard

Our next assignment is to write an Android application. Due to other work and personal circumstances, we’ve been unable to work on this project until yesterday. It will be a challenge to finish the application before the demo day (next Friday), but it’s doable. We might split up if I (Laurens) find that I have to do most of the work again.

The original plan was to simply port our Flex application to the Android platform. After questioning the usefulness of such an application, we decided to replace some features the Flex application had, by new features which are probably more useful on an Android phone.

The goal of the original Flex mashup was to visualize (and compare) popular music around the world. It’s definitely possible to port the application to the Android platform, but we don’t think anyone would want to install this and use it occasionally. The new goal for the Android app will be to find and explore the popular music and upcoming events near your geographical location.

Here’s a storyboard I’ve drawn on my laptop…

The first two tabs (“Location” and “Top Tracks”) are very similar to the Flex application. The initial location is based on the GPS coordinates, but can be changed.

I’ve left out a “Top Artists” tab, because that’s almost identical to “Top Tracks” anyway.

The “Geo Matcher” and the “Geo Roamer” are also gone, because we doubt they are interesting features for an Android app. We can’t think of many scenarios where they could be useful. So we added a “Local Events” tab, which lists nearby events (obviously…). The user can view event details like the address, music genre, artists, … by clicking on the image. Directions with Google Maps can also be requested.

Admittedly, it’s not a very creative mashup. Hopefully, we will think of new features (or different approaches) during development, just like with our Flex application.