I recently helped this gentlemen with some questions he had about Elevation Pro. It’s not the first time I’ve come across these questions, so I thought I’d post it here for you all to see. If you’ve ever wondered why we provide two data sources for Elevation, this might explain it…

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Hi Daren,

We provide two ways to read your elevation above sea level because there are some cases where one works better than the other.

For GPS, this is not as accurate as USGS. It works however, without the need to be connected to the internet. If you find yourself hiking deep in the woods or traveling in areas that don’t have access to the internet, you can still get a decent elevation reading via the GPS reading.

For USGS, this is much more accurate. However, this does require you have access to the internet in order to get the data from the server.

If you’re able to see both readings, defer to the USGS reading for more accuracy.

As far as the gear rotating; this is a good question as well. The reason you see that is because the application is continually providing you an elevation reading. As you travel, if you so choose, you can let it continue to update your elevation even as you move. This works well if you’re in the car or want to see elevation differences as you travel.

We have a “Battery Saver” mode in the settings tab that will prevent this feature from running too long in order to save battery. Turn this on if you don’t want the application to continually update your elevation.

Let me know if you have any other questions,

Regards,

James

Here at Precognitive Research, we’ve been using the excellent open source cocos2d-iphone graphics engine for new iPhone projects.

PRKit is our contribution back to the wonderful cocos2d community.

Currently, it offers one notable feature: dynamic creation of textured polygon game objects.  While basic, we found it especially useful for dynamically generated terrain in games.

Other features will be added to this library in the future.

PRKit is freely available on GitHub.

Elevation Pro 2.2 is now live on the App Store, and contains the following changes:

• Full iOS 4 compatibility, including a bug fix that was preventing the app from loading
• Improved Twitter integration with OAuth support
• Minor bug fixes and performance improvements

Be sure to update to the latest version!

Precognitive Research Team

Currently, there is a bug in the live production version of Elevation Pro (2.1) that prevents it from functioning on iOS 4.

iPhone OS 3.x and iPads are unaffected.

We have submitted an update to Apple and expect it to be approved within the next week that corrects this and also adds Twitter OAuth support.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Precognitive Research Team

You may have heard about the upcoming change requiring any apps connecting to Twitter implement OAuth to verify credentials. We were using MGTwitterEngine by Matt Gemmell but it won’t work after June 24th.

In light of this, we’ve made some small fixes to now authorize your Elevation tweets from Elevation Pro using OAuth. This new feature will prompt the user by opening a Twitter authorization page and will require the Twitter username and password. It’ll then ask the user to “allow” Elevation Pro to post tweets.

Please note that in order to set this up, you’ll need to touch the Elevation Tab, touch the arrow button to “Get elevation” and then touch the “Share.” This sequence of steps will open up the OAuth page as described above.

As soon as Apple approves the update we’ll post it here and field any questions you might have.

Precognitive Research Team.

Elevation Pro 2.0 was recently reviewed at Navigation Apps.

“This iPhone navigation app boasts incredible access to information and also is able to store and upload information that you uncover. You can track your elevation as well as upload it to social networking sites like Twitter to be able to share it with friends and family. It is a fun way to keep a travel log of some of the unique places that you have been. If you are an avid hiker or mountain climber than this is a good way to one up your friends and show off your accomplishments.” — Navigation Apps

Pick up Elevation Pro 2.1 on the app store today — and remember it is one of the few Universal apps out there, which means you don’t have to buy another copy for your iPad!

We’re pleased to announce Elevation Pro v2.1 has been released for iPhone and iPad!

For iphone, we fixed the USGS data feed issues. You can now use Elevation Pro worldwide again, except for Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Greenland. We are looking into additional data sources to cover these missing locations.

We also released a version of EP especially for iPad. The UI is all new. Existing customers will automatically get the iPad version for free, since it is a “universal” app. The elevation maps look brilliant!

You can get your upgrade or copy of Elevation Pro here:
http://bit.ly/GetElevationPro

Special thanks to all our customers who waited while we resolved the data feed issue and upgraded it to work on the iPad.

Precognitive Research Team

Update #2

Great news! We successfully identified the issue that was causing outages for all countries except for US. The USGS turned off their data feed and opted in to using a different technology. This disrupted our feed and users were unable to get Elevation waypoints outside the US.

However, we found a new data source, implemented it, tested it, and have now submitted the update as an emergency release to Apple.

As soon as they approve the application upgrade, it will be available for all existing customers (for free) to fix the problem, as well as any new customers who may want to purchase Elevation Pro.

Also, we’re excited to announce that an iPad friendly version of Elevation Pro was submitted along with our other updates, so anyone who is buying an iPad and owns EP or wants to purchase it, will be pleasantly surprised with the new User Interface enhancements!

Thank you all for being patient as we worked on getting a new data feed up and running.

-Precognitive Research Team.

Update #1

We received a response to our inquiry; The USGS data feed we were using has been changed to use a different data set. We are looking into this further and will be working hard to implement a fix.

Thank you for being our customers and hanging in there while we get this issue resolved!

-Precognitive Research Team.

——-

We are currently aware of an issue with the USGS Elevation data not being available outside of the US.

If you are using Elevation Pro outside of the US, or you are using the Map tab to acquire elevation waypoints outside of the US, the application will get stuck searching for the USGS data.

We have contacted the USGS government service and are looking into the situation. We have also pulled Elevation Pro from sale off of all International markets until this can be resolved.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Visit here often for more updates as this issue unfolds and gets resolved.

Sincerely,

-Precognitive Research Team.

Precognitive Research is happy to announce that Sound Proximity Mine will be free in the App Store for a limited time.

If you haven’t already, be sure to watch the video, The Art of the Ambush, below.

Got a great prank video? Upload it here!

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve submitted the official Elevation Pro v2.0 to the Apple App Store. The changes and features added to this next version is quite impressive. We’ve added the following features:

• Obtain an Elevation for any habitable place on Earth simply by touching the location on the map
• Post your current Elevation to Twitter
• Battery Saver Mode – Let’s the user choose if they want constant elevation updates or want a quick update.
• Updated Graphics
• Save an unlimited number of Elevation Waypoints in Map, Satellite, or Hybrid views.

We’ve also learned a lot from the first version of Elevation Pro and added tweaks into the new version.

• Knowing multiple points of elevation at once is useful
• Users want elevation for other places besides just where they stand.
• USGS Elevation reading is much more consistent and accurate than GPS based elevation. Users should rely on the USGS reading as their primary elevation indicator.
• Sharing your elevation with your friends on Twitter can be fun!

We hope to have Elevation Pro 2.0 on sale in the App Store for $1.99 as soon as Apple approves it.

Thanks for your interest and we hope you enjoy our application!

-Precognitive Research Team

We’re pleased to announce that Baby Alert Pro has finally been approved and is now once again available for purchase in the App store.

We are giving it away for free this week to show people that we’re back in business with this application.

Baby Alert Pro is the premiere Baby Monitoring app for the iPhone. It has all the features you’d expect from a great baby monitor.

Thanks to all our customers who were patient for this update. The process for approval was challenging at times, but we persevered.  Baby Alert Pro now works with OS3.1.

There still is a bug that was introduced in OS3.1 that prevents the application from reloading after dialing out.

We have submitted a ticket to Apple and hope this gets resolved in their next release.

You can download Baby Alert Pro here for free.

If you like our product, please tell a friend!

Update #5 10/1/09 2PM CST:

We are in the last leg of this long journey. We are awaiting App Store Approval for Baby Alert Pro which has fixes that address several of the bugs introduced by OS3.0 and OS3.1. We’re anxiously waiting for the thumbs up to put BAP back out for sale (Free for 2 weeks).

Currently, there is a previous version of BAP that people can download for free. Please note that users will need to upgrade that version as soon as the latest version (1.0.2) gets approved.

Thanks to everyone who has been patient and has been understanding throughout this process.

Update #4 9/14/09 8:53 PM CST:

Almost 3 months later, Apple has heard our plea and has done away with the Dial out Dialog Box prompt in OS3.1 for the iPhone.

Consequently, we are fast at work putting the finishing touches on a new version of Baby Alert Pro. We had to do some minor modifications due to a new bug that was introduced in OS3.1, which prevents the application from starting back up after it has performed a call out. As a result, the audio option in the application will not play if you have chosen the dial out baby monitor feature. Users will now have to pick between playing back the audio clip, or dial out to a phone, but not both (as designed in original version).

Please stay tuned for more updates as we quickly move to relaunch Baby Alert Pro!

A special thanks to all our existing customers who have put up with their copy of Baby Alert Pro not functioning as we lobbied for a fix from Apple.

Update #3 6/25/09 11:56 PM CST:

With no further feedback from Apple, we are still unable to provide an update that will make Baby Alert Pro usable in OS 3.0.

However, the nice folks at Mobile Orchard posted about our plight and created a project that will help us get feedback to Apple.  The goal is to provide a community-based voting mechanism for SDK issues.

So, if you want Baby Alert Pro fixed — and any other apps that dial phone numbers — please head on over and vote for the issue at the SDK Feedback Project!

Update #2 6/22/09 4:37pm CST:

Apple has been responsive but has not told us when we can expect the dial out confirmation issue to be fixed.  Currently, it is being looked at by Apple engineers.

Many iPhone applications, such as quick dialers and other monitors, are experiencing this same issue and all of us are nagging Apple to get it corrected.

Baby Alert Pro will remain unavailable for sale until Apple can tell us when it is corrected. Look to this page for the most recent updates.

Update #1 6/21/09 2:15pm CST:

We fixed the audio issues but we have discovered a much larger issue – Apple has mandated that all applications supporting outbound calls in OS 3.0 are now required to display a dialog box to the user, requiring call authorization input. This means that the user would have to select “Yes” or “No,” when the sensor is triggered in order to perform the outbound call. Obviously this will not work for a Baby Monitoring Application.

This is a huge setback for us and we are working with Apple, like many other developers who rely on an outbound call requiring no input from the user. We feel that the user has already allowed the authorization of outbound calls since they elected to buy, install, and launch our application, which has clear guidelines and instructions around the fact that outbound calls is one major feature of our application, Baby Alert Pro.

As we work with Apple to address this, we will be pulling Baby Alert Pro down off the App Store until further notice.

We are very sorry for any confusion to our newest customers, as well as our long time customers who will discover that upon upgrading to OS 3.0, they will no longer be able to use Baby Alert Pro as it was intended.

Original Post:

Some users are experiencing issues with the sound not being detected in Baby Alert Pro. We have identified the problem and are working on a hot fix to address this issue.

Currently, it looks like the OS 3.0 upgrade is the main source of this bug.

Please check back here periodically for information, or simply wait for the update in the App Store coming as soon as we are able to release a fix.

Thank you for your patience and for being our customers!

Sincerely,

The Precognitive Research Team