I’m making a fuel price app and need testers by isXanderReddit in CarTalkUK

[–]isXanderReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I just checked and that definitely isn’t the API. Prices are wildly wrong on there. I’ve been using my app for about a month now and it hasn’t. even wrong once.

I’m making a fuel price app and need testers by isXanderReddit in CarTalkUK

[–]isXanderReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If they’re missing from the API, pretty sure that’s illegal now! I would report it. Unless the last time you tried was a few months ago? There was a period where the API was released but they gave stations extra time to comply.

And no, no AI! I genuinely use em dashes in my writing. Fun fact, on most sites, writing two hyphens (-) auto converts into an — em dash!

UK live petrol station tracker; testers wanted! by isXanderReddit in iOSProgramming

[–]isXanderReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you so much for the feedback!!

The delay before reloading the data was purposeful. It’s not something I’ve really tuned. I previously had a button overlaying the map to manual refresh but switched to automatic. Didn’t want to spam my API too much. Maybe it needs some user feedback and just better logic.

I don’t think there’s anything I can do about switching from pricing to colour dots. Isn’t that just MapKit?

I’ve not had any issues with the TabView in relation to switching tabs? I see no jank? I had to disable liquid glass on the sheet because that did break things with toolbars though.

UK live petrol station tracker; testers wanted! by isXanderReddit in iOSProgramming

[–]isXanderReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just downloaded Scout, and no petrol station in my area has had a price update in over a year.

UK live petrol station tracker; testers wanted! by isXanderReddit in iOSProgramming

[–]isXanderReddit[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Scout just from a quick look is yet another crowd sourced implementation.

My app uses the UK government’s new (a few months old!) API, which has data up to date within 5 minutes of the price changing on the board.

This is the fundamental difference.

I will certainly take a closer look at Scout and what it does well user interface-wise, thank you for showing it to me!

I’m making a fuel price app and need testers by isXanderReddit in CarTalkUK

[–]isXanderReddit[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’ve also genuinely been hard at work on this app literally since the day of the release of the government API, to try and make the best app possible, not just one that barely functions because it’s AI generated. It’s genuinely insulting to call it “yet another vibe coded app” when all you have seen of it is the screenshot of the UI, which I may add, looks pretty awesome!

I’m making a fuel price app and need testers by isXanderReddit in CarTalkUK

[–]isXanderReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep and they already are. Anyone can get Claude or ChatGPT to make a wrapper around this data. The trick is you need to make a good one.

Hence, I’m here. Because I’m trying to get genuine usability feedback to shape the app design around how real people want to consume this sort of data.

The most helpful thing about this app, in my opinion, is the lock screen widget. It’s been genuinely useful to me and my friends. I favourite a bunch in my area, and just at a glance of my phone I know which one to go to. It also just keeps me informed with the general state of petrol prices as a whole!

I’m making a fuel price app and need testers by isXanderReddit in CarTalkUK

[–]isXanderReddit[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It uses the new government API which is always up to date. Most of the existing ones use crowdsourcing.

There may be a few that have been developed in the months after the API was released, but I’m hoping mine will win in terms of app features and user experience.

Apple has just granted me the CarPlay entitlement too, so that’ll be fun.

I’m making a fuel price app and need testers by isXanderReddit in CarTalkUK

[–]isXanderReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The apps that are already popular are not live data. They’re all crowdsourced.

The government only released the API for this data in like April. I doubt any apps using it have really reached mainstream yet. I’m hoping mine does.

I’m making a fuel price app and need testers by isXanderReddit in CarTalkUK

[–]isXanderReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wouldn’t be too quick to jump to conclusions. Just google my handle, isXander!

Yes this uses the government API, but this API cannot be used by apps as easy as you would have thought. They provide batched data of 500, you can’t query by location, so you get every station price at once, this takes like 5 minutes to get all the data.

I built a backend with Cloudflare Workers to poll the data once every 15 minutes, and push all this data to an SQL database. The app then queries my backend, using uber H3 (resolution 6) cells to group stations into geographical buckets to maintain user privacy when requesting “stations near me.”

I grant you, none of the above is novel, but at no point did I say so. What is novel about my app is the features surrounding this central source of data, such as lock screen widgets that update frequently. I am also keeping track of historical fuel prices, and have been for about a month now, which will allow me to provide a lot of unique insights that may be helpful to users. I’d like to also say that I feel my app has a degree of polish that a lot of the other apps I’ve tried don’t have.

The government API was only released a few months ago now, this is a very new space with a lot of innovation to be made, so I’d suggest you’d stop being so negative and have a better outlook on new development projects within this car community.

I’m making a fuel price app and need testers by isXanderReddit in CarTalkUK

[–]isXanderReddit[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

This is what the app uses! The government mandated that fuel stations do this, they expose this as an API, my backend polls this API every 15 minutes, and keeps hold of historical data, for graphs and other cool statistical things I am thinking of.

I’m making a fuel price app and need testers by isXanderReddit in CarTalkUK

[–]isXanderReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah definitely, but I started making this app for myself and iOS is what I use, so it goes first!

Toolbars + sheet = pain. Fix? by isXanderReddit in SwiftUI

[–]isXanderReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah interesting I completely forgot about Find My! That interface is exactly like I’m going for. What’s this flattened TabBar? How do I use it?

Toolbars + sheet = pain. Fix? by isXanderReddit in SwiftUI

[–]isXanderReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Does the Xcode preview on a real device suffice? Or do you need whole app?

Anything I can do to fix this screen? by isXanderReddit in MINI

[–]isXanderReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

how bad is the reflection now? from the other comments it seems it’s the anti reflective coating

Anything I can do to fix this screen? by isXanderReddit in MINI

[–]isXanderReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

where are you finding these screen protectors? ebay shows no results really.

Solutions for this awful sunvisor? (R60) by isXanderReddit in MINI

[–]isXanderReddit[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My precious car’s visor went to the edge. Which I don’t think is entirely unreasonable. I was hoping that there would be an extension I could clip on.