TrafficCamNZ

Written by David Wilson | 09 July 2009

TrafficCamNZ displays pictures from the internet. It displays any jpeg or gif or png type image that has a fixed web address (URL). It was built to display images generated by traffic cameras, though you could use it for any image, even weather maps.

Images you choose as "Featured" are downloaded and are setup side by side so that you can swipe across the screen to view multiple images quickly. The All Cameras view lets you scroll vertically through every camera as fast as the images can be retrieved off the internet.

TrafficCamNZ works over the celluar network though it works best with WiFi because, usually, it's faster!

The application comes pre-configured with cameras from New Zealand and hundreds of other cameras from Germany, France, Australia (Sydney), USA (Minnesota DOT, San Francisco, California, New York), Canada (Ontario), London, and other UK cameras.

You choose which cameras are the "featured" ones. Featured cameras are easily identified in the Library, they are the ones with a Green dot next to them.

You receive updates to the camera list automatically, a check is performed every 7 days when the application starts.

Managing your own personal list of cameras is easy too. This can be done in two ways:

1. Enter a new camera directly on the iPhone and key in the entire URL (http://mywebsite/image.jpg) or
2. Create your own XML file for importing into the application. Instructions on how to do this are available at the support web site or by contacting the developer. When you do this import, you can optionally erase all existing cameras that are loaded.

Application notes:

• Pictures are displayed in the order they are received so the image arrangement may be different every time you run the application or refresh
• You will be downloading pictures over your a WiFi or cellular connection - they may be large - you should monitor your network traffic usage
• Images are not cached, if you receive an image that isn't right (i.e. daylight when you know it is night time, it may be that the camera is not functioning)
• Sometimes the traffic camera pictures are not up-to-date on the internet. You may see night pictures when it is supposed to be daylight or perhaps pictures don't change. TrafficCamNZ has no control over that.

Features:

• Flick through the loaded images with your finger - this was the original idea behind the application
• Full screen image display for one image with pinch/zoom
• Load your own web images by specifying a World Wide Web URL, and test before saving
• Free version available, loads up to 3 images
• Full version available, loads up to 19 images
• Full version - has a table view that displays every camera image
• Choose your own list of images to display up to the application limit
• Comes loaded with Traffic Cameras for New Zealand and other cameras around the world with selected cameras displayed. Edit the preferences to turn on the display or turn off the display of the pre-loaded cameras. Remember you cannot display more than three at any one time with the free version.
• Allows XML import of camera list
• Camera list (XML Import file) can be updated from a web site - doesn't require the release of a new application
• New in version 1.2 is the ability to rotate the iPhone when looking at your featured cameras and have your pictures rotate too

Many great comments from around the world have been made about TrafficCamNZ:

• Great little app, what a time saver. I would often leave work to find the traffic all congested, now I can check before I leave and even if it gets busy I can check on the road and take a different route. I have set my own cameras and can quickly check what's what. A real must for driving commuters, couriers or even taxi's.
• It a great gadget. And it works with iTouch
• This app works very well and is awesome if you travel a lot. Going on a road trip for work or vacation? Google the cameras for your cities, insert the URL into the app, and cameras appear. It's great and most US cities have tons of cameras thanks to our Dept.s Of Transportation!
• I set it up for all the traffic cameras from Douglas County down through El Paso County (Colorado) and it works great! So well in fact, that I sprung for the paid version.
• Make sure you enter in the URL's correctly - that's where some people mess up. What you see is basically what the traffic/weather cam sees wherever they are. And yes, they have to be viewable on the Internet first. Check out your local Dept. of Transportation's website. Awesome app!
• I set this up for some of the Colorado Springs traffic cams and it worked perfect.
• App is very easy to use and I use it for going to work every day.
• I put 2 of the most important traffic cam on the way to work and it works perfect

Availability on iTunes

• TrafficCamNZ (NZ$1.29)
• TrafficCamNZ Free

The iTunes description tells you about the application and it is hopefully written well enough, by me, to convince potential buyers that it is the application they've been looking for. The iTunes description is limited to 4000 characters. I think this is done to stop novels being written about applications. I wanted to tell nziphone.com readers a bit more (not a novel) about why I wrote this application and why there are actually to versions of this application.

The basic idea has always been and remains to get traffic camera pictures that are available on the internet and display them on the iphone. And importantly you must be able to go from image-to-image swiping left-to-right to right-to-left using only your thumb. Perhaps now would be a good time to say that doing this while you are driving is not advised.

This was my first real iPhone application, and back in November 2008 when the application was released there were only ~10000 applications in the App store. Staying visible in the App store was an issue then, it's even more of an issue now with +65000 applications in the App store.

I wanted this application to also pay for itself. While discussing this with a good friend he suggested I have two apps, a free one and a paid one. Embracing that suggestion I did just that creating "TrafficCamNZ Free" and "TrafficCamNZ". I needed to create a difference between the two applications and achieved this by having the free version limit the number of displayed images to three and it's image list does not have a auto update feature.

The two application idea was huge success with there being about 5000 downloads per week of the free version. About a month after the initial release I made a change to the free version - adding a button on the front screen that linked to the paid version of the application. This had an instant effect on sales of TrafficCamNZ. Today, eight months later, There are about 500 downloads per week of the free application with what I believe to be about a 5% pull through sales to the paid version.

I have continued to enhance the paid version adding cameras where I could find them. Though the default camera list was maintained within the program code and every time I changed the list I need to resubmit the application to Apple for approval. To avoid this tedious process I changed to the application so that it could read a file off the internet thus allowing me to update the file and release it immediately. Today I have over 1600 cameras in that file.

I continue to receive inquiries about the application via e-mail usually from people trying to identify the correct camera image to load. Often those inquiries can lead to a discovery of a lot more cameras that I add to the camera file.

Actual and real feedback about the application has been somewhat sparse. I did go chasing the feedback on "TrafficCamNZ Free" and got Apple to remove some of the offensive comments early on (these were clearly not application reviews). To check the reviews I've have to change iTunes to look in the different AppStores around the world - a somewhat tedious task. With positive feedback and suggestions I would be more inclined to make the suggested changes to the application.

While the developers have been working hard to build up the +65000 applications, Apple too have been working hard behind the scenes not only with new firmware for your iPhone and iPod Touch and the iPhone 3GS. You've probably noticed that some applications occasionally crash. And that when you've sync'd with iTunes you are (or were) asked if you wanted to submit the diagnostic information to Apple. Well that information is collated, analysed and made available for developers to examine. The Application crash reports can take a bit of interpreting and perhaps at times figuring out just what the users have been up to. I do look at these problems and fix them.

There is a set of cameras I haven't been able to get working, these are the ones in Tauranga linked to off the Transit NZ web site. To get a displayable image in TrafficCamNZ you first need to be able to display the single image in your browser window. I don't know what the developers have done on that web site but it doesn't work for me.

Wellington commuters travelling along SH2 from Petone to Wellington will have seen a lot more cameras being installed recently, this looks to be a Transit NZ project. I hope hat still images off these cameras are made available on the internet and I can add these into the available camera list too.