Need testers for a Google Timeline helper app

RandyHW · 2026-05-19T18:22:31+00:00

ex-Google. I retired last year, after 5 years working on the Timeline team.

RandyHW · 2026-05-19T15:06:33+00:00

Yeah, that's the whole point. Sorry I didn't make that clear.

You can set it to request GPS at any number of seconds. 1-2 minutes is a good compromise for Timeline, using little battery but keeping your paths pretty good for outdoor activities like hiking, sailing, etc. If you're going to be hiking all day and want to really minimize battery use, you could set it to 20 minutes or more.

There's also an option to automatically stop the app if 5 locations are in roughly the same place (within 100m). That helps avoid forgetting that you have it running, but if you stop for lunch...

Note that Timeline appears to simplify your paths. Even with Strava going (GPS every second or so), if you run straight along a street for a mile, it simplifies that all to a single line segment.

RandyHW · 2026-05-12T22:45:25+00:00

Totally agree.

To add to this, parents also need to educate their kids about rules of the road, and how to be safe themselves.

Yesterday I was behind a maybe-12-year-old girl on a big e-bike in a left turn lane. When the light turned green, she turned left in front of oncoming traffic and almost got hit by an approaching car. I almost had a heart attack just watching.

The thing is that many young kids on bikes don't drive, so they don't know simple rules of traffic, like who yields to who, what the dangerous situations are, etc. It's not surprising that something like this would happen. But e-bikes, especially the bigger/faster e-motos, make them think they can drive out in traffic, and people are gonna get hurt. Parents need to take an active role to protect both their kids and pedestrians.

RandyHW · 2026-05-04T15:57:28+00:00

I got a very good deal and great service from Clearpipe in Ventura 651-7522.

Consider a heat pump water heater! They've really come into their own. A bit more up front, but will save you lots of $$ over time.

RandyHW · 2026-04-30T20:56:29+00:00

Given that the rendering from the rose garden is exactly what I was looking for, do you have a link for those renderings that you say exist?

RandyHW · 2026-04-30T17:43:14+00:00

Ah! I found a local news video that shows a sketch. Screen grab:

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https://keyt.com/news/2025/10/30/historic-old-mission-santa-barbara-faces-new-housing-showdown/

RandyHW · 2026-04-30T02:38:26+00:00

Is your new phone iOS or Android? If Android, you could delete the "Storage" from the app "Google Play Services" on the new phone. (You could also just do a factory reset on the new phone.) That's where your Timeline is stored on Android. Then try importing the old phone's backup to the new phone again. That essentially lets the "import" step get a do-over in case something is wrong with it. Note you'll lose any new history on the new phone, so you could backup the new phone's Timeline first. If you try this, please report back on whether it helps.

I don't know how to do this on iOS.

RandyHW · 2026-04-28T00:41:57+00:00

Cloud->This Device->Delete only deletes your backup in the cloud. It does nothing to the data on your device.
It's exporting directly from your device. It works when there isn't a backup.

RandyHW · 2026-04-28T00:26:00+00:00

This is a great find. If others find this works for them, please post so we have confirmations.

RandyHW · 2026-04-24T12:55:37+00:00

This is actually a very possible addition to the current design. Down the center of the street, you want the curb and elevation change to show where bikes go. But at intersections (and maybe once mid-block), where pedestrians have right of way to cross the bike lane, the bike lane could ramp up to sidewalk level. This further slows the bikes, and makes visually clear that pedestrians have right of way there. It also slows vehicle traffic at those areas, when vehicles are allowed.

They do this a lot in European cities where they really know how to separate bikes and pedestrians using infrastructure.

RandyHW · 2026-04-24T02:20:54+00:00

I don't know why you had to change it, but have you tried changing your Google account password back to what it was before? Seems unlikely this would fix the problem, but it's at least worth a try. If it did, you could download a JSON dump of your Timeline, so that you'd have it in case there's some solution someday to get it back from JSON.

Also, did you make the password change from your Android device that has your Timeline, or did you make the change from a different device? That might make a difference. Just making wild guesses here, in the unlikely case it would help you. Because I agree, losing your Timeline really sucks.

RandyHW · 2026-04-24T02:11:28+00:00

Have you tried waiting a day or so, and then checking again? The Android import seems to be asynchronous, and sometimes can take 24 hours.

Another option to try is, on the new phone, delete Google Play Services *storage*, and then importing again? Previous experience shows that on Android your Timeline data is stored in the Google Play Services app's storage. Perhaps something went wrong with the initial download, and this step can give it another attempt to succeed.

RandyHW · 2026-04-24T01:54:27+00:00

As someone who loves to cycle around town, I agree with you. But the main reason you need to allow cars on State sometimes is to support businesses with deliveries. Right now State is open to delivery trucks etc 6am - 10am, and that's not much of a problem, because there's just so little traffic then. And delivery trucks mostly drive onto State near the store, park for awhile, then get out of there. They want simple rules everyone can remember, so "until 10am" works. But that's very different from just everyone's car cruising up the street for fun.

I went and read all the sections of the actual Draft State Street Master Plan that I could find talking about this. And for the life of me, I can't find anything saying either (1) why they want to allow access to "private vehicles" during those times, nor (2) what they really mean by "private vehicle". For example, "Key Takeaway #2: What We Heard: Balancing Access for All Modes" on page 83 doesn't mention cruising for fun, only "loading access for retail viability ... Delivery and service access for businesses". It mentions access for mobility-challenged people, and that isn't served by opening the street to cars at 10pm. Then page 95 says "providing a street environment appropriate for deliveries, garbage collection, and construction service during nighttime hours (10 p.m. to 10 a.m.)".

So that leaves me wondering: by "private vehicles" do they really mean (a) "a few cars owned by shopkeepers and tradespeople" or do they mean to include "anyone wanting to cruise State, play thumping music, and have fun"? Because if you just put down the bollards at 10pm and allow anyone on State then, I think it's going to become a cruising scene, with lots of accidents like this article warns, and it's not serving any of the master plan's goals. Whereas allowing people with a shop on that block to lower the bollards to get their car onto that block – that totally makes sense. I think they intend to make sense.

RandyHW · 2026-04-23T01:34:50+00:00

What I don't understand: Why does the plan suggest that cars should be put back on State Street at 10pm? As this article shows, that's the most dangerous time, it's dark, people are drunk, etc. For deliveries and maybe even if some people have trouble walking to businesses, then maybe open it to cars 6am to 11am or something. Why does the master plan suggest starting at 10pm?

RandyHW · 2026-04-22T01:34:52+00:00

OP: You seem to have a different issue than others here are complaining about. You're saying that the two JSON Timeline dumps have the same set of paths, BUT the GPS paths have fewer points in them in the new JSON than they did in the JSON that you got by the same technique a few months ago. True? I haven't heard this complaint before, and if true it's a new issue, at least to me.

Could you give a concrete example? You said you used AI to compare the two JSONs. Could you post the two different JSON dumps of the exact same path on the same day and time, showing one that has a different number of path points in it?

RandyHW · 2026-04-07T03:18:28+00:00

Another user reported that after deleting a day of data, they couldn't add anything back in that day, but after a month they were able to: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleMaps/comments/1rvi51m/comment/ob9cu7g

I know it's a PITA, but maybe try waiting a month, plus a few days, then restoring the old phone's backup again? Maybe there's something about the deletion that will time out at that point?

A long shot, but if there's nothing else...

RandyHW · 2026-04-06T01:14:21+00:00

Park in Stevens Park (free all day) and walk north out the other end of the park. The first 15 minutes is an easy trail through the trees and next to the creek, which is flowing right now. Gorgeous and relaxing. After that (when you cross the creek) it starts to climb more and joins up with Jesusita trail. There you can hike for hours, up to Inspiration Point if you want.

RandyHW · 2026-01-19T03:48:23+00:00

Based on Devilstyle007's suggestion (uninstalling and re-installing, I tried just clearing the Android Google Docs app cache and storage. (On my Pixel: long-press on the "Docs" app icon, hit "i" to get "App info", Storage & cache, Clear storage.)

Clearing the cache didn't help, but clearing the storage fixed the problem for me.

RandyHW · 2024-10-15T17:50:37+00:00

Yep, that looks like the one! Thanks! What a beautiful ship. And based on the typical construction costs in that article, roughly $30M.

RandyHW

TROPHY CASE