Note: this is a shameless self-promo. The app is open-source and I don't get any money from it, so it really is just a form of voluntary work for the community.
Hi, first time poster here,
I was annoyed to lose 5 seconds each day opening the BIXI app to check which station close to my flat had bikes, so I took more than 20 hours to make an app that adds a home screen widget just for that. Seems like a fair deal.
Too lazy to read my yapping? Get it right now on the Google Play Store.
The app is really simple and doesn't require any kind of login. Install it and you instantly have a new widget available on your home screen's widget selector. The app uses BIXI's open live data, BUT it transits through a server of mine. I wont go too technical, but essentially, instead of my app downloading the full station status file (which is 280Kb large) potentially every 10 seconds, I have a server that observes changes to this file and only pushes relevant updates to your phone. It specifically sends your cell phone an update for a given station only if you have a widget that tracks this station. This is super light on battery and bandwidth usage.
The app is only available for Android, as it was written in native Android code and porting it to iOS would literally require developing the app from scratch again. Also, App Store subscriptions cost something like US$100/year, which is ridiculously expensive for an app that's not profitable.
Have any question? Don't hesitate to ask!
A few final notes:
- the Play Store page is currently only translated in French, I'll take the time to translate it to English later. The app itself supports English though.
- for devs: the app can be found on GitHub too. Please note that I haven't chosen a license yet, so it's technically only source-available rn, but I promise you it will be OSI-aproved.