Best posts made by Timo Martosatiman MRA

Attention community,

On request of you, the user, I have delved a bit deeper into the ongoing issue of waypoints not receiving the appropriate adress while using MyRoute-app.

As you all know MyRoute-app is a small company. As a result of this, many of our suppliers see this as an opportunity to request huge sums for previously cheap or even free licences. It is a continuous struggle to get fair deals. In recent negotiations Google requested that we would start paying an unacceptably high price for the feature that automatically puts the adress on a waypoint. In light of transperancy on this issue I am informing you that as a result of this we have decided to simply refuse the contract and explore alternatives. This means that all your waypoints will be named "waypoint" upon placement.

As a small company we are sometimes forced to innovate in areas we thought we had covered. At present, it is disappointing to scrap a feature because of that, but, over time, this makes us stronger and more resilient to change. MyRoute-app will never change its position on the availability of free features for our BASIC users and a fair price for paying members.

We, motorists and motorcyclists, have something special here at MyRoute-app. We listen, we do our best and we are transparent even when it would be easier not to be. We do this because you deserve to hold us accountable for our performance. We are not guided by shareholders or sheer profits, we are guided by your trust.

Kind regards,

Timo

There was no alarm, no crimson digits showing only zeroes, no rocket engines blasting, no window overlooking spewing out towers of smoke framing a beam of superheated gas. Neither was there a bustling operations room dominated by a wall of colourful screens. There was a small “connection lost” message in my screen, followed by a cheer from across of me.

I looked over my screens, across of me sat Daniël who was at that time busy linking the final digital cables of NodeBB into the framework of MyRoute-app. “We’re online”. He whooped.

I decided to smile, that the community blog I’d been writing on that afternoon had now disappeared beyond retrieval because of that small ‘connection lost’ hiccup shouldn’t spoil the mood even if at that time I just wanted to smash my head into the keyboard with great force. After all, this was a momentous achievement that should be celebrated. A broken keyboard would not be very festive.

Now as with all things we do we come across new issues the moment something is finally ‘done’. Usernames not synchronizing properly because apparently we at MRA are weird for using non-unique usernames (one would wonder why you even bother with UID’s in your database if you’re going to force unique usernames anyway) and the forum software absolutely didn’t approve of such chaotic conventions. Or usernames suddenly being too long. Or group tags not showing up. Or awards not being awarded. Or Community Blogs being deleted because of launches. It’s all part of the life.

Since that is all finished we can once more look forward. There’s tons of things to do now. First of all activity has to slowly start up. Then as activity grows beyond the scope of management and the forum proves its worth, features will be added. Finally the Community Leaders team will have to grow so that the Community Forum will become entirely self-regulated. We’ve been thinking about this feature since 2017 and now it’s finally here.

Now we must look to the future: Adding smart skipping to iOS Navigation. Implementing WEB 2.0. and the associated UI/UX update. Finally getting Apple and Google to stop ignoring us so we can start development for Android Auto and Apple Carplay. Growing the Community Teams with more RouteXperts, Instructors and Leaders. And much, much more.
Next week I’ll try to get you some more information on what and where the Community Blogs will be hosted in the foreseeable future. Even if we’re busy on “boring” things such as bugfixing, stability updates and refactoring, I’ll provide a nice window into the company so that you always know what’s going on and what we’re working on.

For now, all that rests me is to wish you a lot of fun with the forum.

Wishing you great adventures,

Timo

User @Callewaert-Francky mentioned voting for features in another thread so I thought this would be a nice source of discussion here on the forum. As I wrote my reaction I decided that if this turns out into a productive discussion we should probably move it to a different topic

It's an interesting idea that we've talked about on a lot. There are some concerns for such workings but we'll definitly consider it if the community is able to help us avoid problems. I'm going to dedicate some time to explaining it in this post, please forgive me if I over-explain or come across as patronizing: I'm simply trying to involve as big a part of the community in this as possible.

Let's start.

The problem of decision making
Imagine an obvious "we all want this really much" feature such as elevation. Now, any user on MyRoute-app will certainly enjoy being able to see elevation while tracking, planning a route or while for example showing a route to friends. But how do we know this?

Right now we know things like this because first of all Michel (the CEO) is an avid motorcyclist and has a lot of experience with route planning software and navigation devices on the end-user spectrum. Michel knows that by having elevation you're able to not only make a route more twisty, but also increase it's elevation pattern (very relevant for cyclists for example). Daniël, me and the other guys at the office know that this would be useful because we heard users about it and are able to deduct the relevance of such a feature from our direct surroundings (and having a good dash of creativity).

So we're completely on the same page there. Well, go ahead you must think! Forward into development, let's get that elevation profile done! We'll get started right away. But then something hit us: we also want to get Android Auto and Apple Carplay online and to be honest that would be a lot less technical work. With the same train of thought that we had before, we're able to deduct and verify that indeed Android Auto and Apple Carplay would at the very least be just as good as a new feature as elevation and there's another bonus: development doesn't need to get involved immediatly because management and finance will first need to pry open the closed doors of those tech giants to allow us access. Alas, management and finance are also caught up and in the end everything will still cost a lot of resources. Thus we might as well go ahead and just get everyone rallied around investing heavily into adding a suite of small new features that won't satisfy any existing user but would probably draw a lot more hikers and runners (a demographically small group right now) to MyRoute-app and the community around it.

Now let's look back on all that, what happened here? Why are we unable to develop things that would either be good for a certain group of our existing community (elevation), develop an innovative feature that would help in guaranteeing durability (Carplay) or invest heavily into an oppurtinity rich part of the community (more hiker features)? It's because those are all equally important and competing factors.

1. The community must be satisfied; and therefore we develop features that the community wants (elevation)
2. The community must continue to exist; and therefore we develop with the future in mind (Carplay)
3. The community must grow; and therefore we try new things (hiker features)

This balancing isn't done in weekly, monthly or even quarterly meetings. It's a continuous process that isn't entirely clear at all times but that translates fairly well into gut feeling because we're all experienced and work with a relatively small team. Of course we're expanding at the same time, so we've started to work with a strategic, tactical and operational goals, but that is an entirely different story. To get back on it, we know what can be done immediatly and what can't. We know when a feature is in harmony with all three goals and when it isn't.

The self regulating community and voting
Does that mean that the community should not have a voice? Absolutely not. In fact, the reason why we started this forum is because in part because we want to make the community self regulating and an even greater source for inspiration. The community will not be a blindly following trailer attached to a vehicle that they don't control, the community will be like a sail pulling MyRoute-app in the right direction.

Now in all honesty voting would be a very crude way to let that sail up. It would certainly work for some features, so in that sense I agree with you that we'll sometimes use it, but it certainly shouldn't be the way our community continually steers the future of MyRoute-app (in my opinion). Why? Because voting as a general way of doing things has it's own problems. In politics today we see what happens when governments get elected because people don't want to vote anymore and only a fraction of the population goes out to choose who'll rule them for the next few years. On our scale that might cause a loud minority of the community to push through features that are not in the best interest of the majority or all of the three outlined factors. Ignoring a vote, even if it's better for everyone, would certainly look bad.

So how could we fix this? Well, first of all discussions on this forum might come up and we support that. A critical mind considering and lobbying for a feature and it's relevance on an intellectual level is far more effective and responsible than a poll could ever be. Of course such discussion should be substantive, but that speaks for itself. Secondly, the first-among-equals of the community should be involved as decision makers. It's why we're recruiting RouteXperts, Instructors and Community Leaders. MyRoute-app will then factor in what's seen here on the forum and what the aforementioned groups tell us, compare it with the earlier outlined factors and come up with an order of implementation for features.

In conclusion
So to anser your question: the community is already involved and is actually getting more involved in helping us prioritize, having votes on everything would hamper that. What we don't do properly right now is clarity and transperancy into development. The forum and community blogs will be the first steps towards that. Perhaps we'll even grow a kind of "community decision board" over time, but we'll first see how this works out.

I hope I have explained everything as clear as possible. Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas!

Thinking about what I’d like to write about this week whilst strongly ignoring the fact that I didn’t write a blog last week, the thought crossed my mind that since it might interest some of you, and bore quite another few, this time round it would be nice to chronicle the story of how MyRoute-app went from a one-man-act to the small company it is today. You’ll read about the challenges we faced and overcame, how we did it and what challenges we’re facing today.

Act one, the one man act.
As you might know already, MyRoute-app is the brainchild of former TyreToTravel co-owner Michel van Hagen. For those that are unfamiliar with this name: TyreToTravel was the commercial enterprise that sold the premium version of Tyre, a free routeplanning software conceived and built by Jan Boersma. Michel foresaw that as time moved ever onwards there was room to reinvent the traditional routeplanner with contemporary design. Tyre was conceived and built in an era where the Internet, connectivity, digital sharing, smartphones and social media were neigh non-existent. This next project would be built to move along with changes in the digital world. Thus, the idea of MyRoute-app was conceived.

In late 2013 Michel met freelance programmer Daniël Luthra who had just finished making an app for a shared acquaintance. After they discussed the idea, Michel gathered funds: particularly through the VIRP program. As funds were secured the necessity of a concrete visual design became adamant. That request for a visual identity and design was put forward to, you guessed it, yours truly. I designed banners, chose the now familiar blues-on-white color scheme alongside several visual conventions and drew up visualizations of what this MyRoute-app should look like. At that time Michel was still working from home and “the office” that Daniël worked in was a converted spare bedroom in his parental home.

Crushing cones
From 2014 to 2015 we started turning dreamy ideas into tangible features. Joris joined our team, recruited by Daniël while giving a voluntary IT class on our old high school. The beta version of MyRoute-app WEB was launched, followed by a mobile app. The office that Daniël and I worked in moved from that spare bedroom into a spooky vacant office building where a tiny room was rented. We had a stand on a large national fair, shared with an affiliated group. We gathered our first few business partners and had our first big end-of-year sale in December. We gathered tens of thousands of users. Had frequent meetings on what feature would come next as design and development symbiotically moved together. Challenges were crushed like traffic cones under a tank and our dreams glimmered like unexplored stars whizzing past the rocket of our enterprise. A lot of that momentum carried on throughout 2016 and well into 2017.
What made 2016 and 2017 unique was that it was the first time where we realized that while we were crushing cones and whizzing past stars, we were also unable to brake safely. Each individual was working hard, but by doing so became ever more isolated. As we recruited more people in the form of Christian, Anthony and Corjan we didn’t change the entrepreneurial “just hit the accelerator as hard as possible and don’t mind the RPM” mindset. Michel and Daniël were at risk of becoming seriously overencumbered, getting ever more responsibilities and taking work home and on holidays. By adopting a better grip on projects and eventually getting relief as the new crew gained experience, we were able to slow down the pace, albeit minimally. Because of this, milestones such as the route-planner in the app, expansions on the route planner in general and social features such as events, groups and the travel blog were achieved.

Reinvented and reinvigorated
Eventually you’re going to realize that beyond those traffic cones lies a steep cliff where the road ends abruptly. Eventually, as the stars whizzing past become fewer and fewer, you realize that you’re heading into the infinite darkness of deep space. Eventually, you’re going to have to brake or face an inevitable doom.

I personally think that this is an experience that all successful start-ups have to overcome at some point. Like a great filter for embryonic companies, at one point in time you’re going to have to restructure yourself, move your key players around and redistribute responsibilities. You can’t be dependent on single persons, so you create redundancies for tasks and knowledge. If you don’t do this, your players are going to burn out, your responsibilities won’t be upheld and your tasks risk incompletion. Some start-ups might be better prepared for this than others, but everybody eventually has to change from an oversized one-man-show to an undersized company.

That change came to fruition in 2018 and early 2019. We spent more time on polishing whilst still keeping new features coming at the same time. With the launch of Navigation (and subsequent updates), tackling the great big change in the way Google invoices Maps licences (which by the way, indirectly killed of several other companies) and spending more time on how new members will experience the learning curve of MyRoute-app (which we always want to keep as low as possible) we achieved that developmental goal. Today we eagerly look forward into the future with a new roadmap, once more crushing cones and passing stars armed with the knowledge of yesterday.

The single most requested feature was in fact, not, a height profile. The single most requested feature was a kind of insight into what we’re working on next in general. In the past we’ve worked a lot with newsletter emails and we’ve shifted our communication format a few times around. In general though, MyRoute-app has been hesitant on teasing and announcing features because we don’t want to disappoint.

Programming any kind of software is practically incomparable to other disciplines out there and is in practice hardly predictable in time, budget and knowledge. A chef knows how many ingredients it takes to bake a cake, what appliances he needs to use and how much time it would cost. He could also easily quantify what everything would cost. Ask a programmer to do the same to bake a digital cake and he will laugh and throw sand in your face before running away as fast as possible. Surely, I’m exaggerating here, but the reality with most large-scale IT projects is that they’re hardly digital kitchens where programmers create delicious software by haphazardly writing lines of code in staggered neon-green digits on a black screen.

In our specific case we have to also be very careful with the resources we spend on development. Our development team has nowhere near the capacity that the corporate giants can throw around. At MyRoute-app you won’t find floor upon floor of project teams, managers and other office folk working nine-to-five shifts in a colossal skyscraper. This does have benefits though, but those benefits are the prime reasons why it’s harder for us to communicate announcements. We might change our plans on a dime if a project starts looking grim, while at the corporate giant this thought has to travel up, down and sideways through a multidimensional chain of command. Discussions and meetings will be organized, consultants will be asked to chime in on subjects they have no knowledge of while managers fence with favors and responsibilities for the entertainment of president, board and shareholders.

While this might simultaneously mean that the big boys on the playground are able to create features while more closely adhering to the parable of a digital kitchen, it also means that they lose the flexibility to quickly cancel an order. There’s no providing a quality alternative or making up for it by other means. They’re usually too entrenched for that. To make things worse, if they truly become unable to deliver something high-profile that they’re working on it has the chance to turn into a grand spectacle of drama and tears that might last for weeks or even months. Bonus points if key figures resign. Now of course we also have that risk, but for us that risk is infinitely more manageable because we’re so flexible. On the other hand, MyRoute-app doesn’t have an eighty-headed risk-aversion department.

As we’ll be announcing in this month’s newsletter, we’re now working on a few new features for both BASIC and GOLD users while working on improving the stability on Navigation (most notably the black-screen issue on Android). At the same time we’re working on an entirely new product. Here’s hoping nobody has to resign over any of this.

Our users generate most of the feature ideas that drive MyRoute-app forwards. In this specific thread, we'll summarize suggestions put forward on the forum. A suggestion might have multiple interpretations, as such, all relevant interpretations will be linked here. Participants are encouraged to discuss suggestions within their respective threads. This thread should be used only for the discussion of the list itself, its' structure and possibly its' level of accuracy.

Last updated on the 11th of march, 2020.

MRA Routeplanner

1. Show routes in map view of the library (ErikB)
2. Sorting and filtering on events (MTC-TET Club)
3. Remove unaccepted passed events automatically (MTC-TET Club)
4. Change download directory (max auger)
5. Adding multiple routes at once in the view of one route (Alan bowen)(Lisi Mayr)
6. Add waypoint with GPS coordinates (Frenator)
7. More advanced event editor (Guzzist)
8. Show and possibly edit times for each waypoint (Royzee)(Tim Goodman)
9. Add geo-tagged images to routes and tracks (ErikB)
10. Blog feature for events and groups with privacy settings (MTC-TET Club)
11. POI Name and icon editing (Guzzist)
12. Show height profile of a route (Lisi Mayr)
13. Flowchart route with decision waypoints (Dan Howell)
14. Search routes based on destination (Con Hennekens)
15. Collaborative route editing (Dan Howell)
16. Download entire route library
17. User profile and MRA profile integrated as one
18. Live route calculation while dragging waypoints (Christian Schrenk)
19. Rework POI's and Favorites to share behaviors (Drabslab)
20. Save as Co-pilot .trp format (Mark Davies)
21. Control where a waypoint is inserted on the route (Jeffrey Kogler)
22. POI visibility on higher altitudes (Ron Cook)
23. E-mail notifications on events (Guzzist)
24. Save as editable text document (Brian Liechty)
25. View speed limits (Will Brooks)
26. change color of routeline (Will Brooks)

MRA Navigation

1. Use unpaved or gravel roads (Petri Salo)
2. Generate "arrive later" route (Petri Salo)
3. Android Auto and Apple Carplay
4. Flowchart route with decision waypoints (Dan Howell)
5. Speed limit symbol updates (Guzzist)
6. Advanced in-app statistics (Guzzist)

Attention community,

In the coming period MRA will outline an official roadmap, solve several problems including the earlier arisen "waypoint problem". This is in addition to the release of several promised features being released. Our developers will dedicate their time first and foremost to resolving these problems in the coming month. We as a community can not help them with that. We can however, look ahead and towards the future.

That is why MRA has decided to outline an official roadmap aimed to create even more transperancy and a clear picture of where the future will be headed. For this we will need you, our members, to help us by providing us with your vote in the coming period. You will be given the opportunity to vote on important features that will stipulate what features will be built, and which features will have to wait.

For this purpose I've held an in-depth meeting with Customer Support who are at the absolute frontline of all member questions and wishes. Together, we've condensed a list of features that will be put forward to be voted on. This first vote will eliminate features that the community deems of less importance. Finally, a vote will be held for the final selection of the top feature priorities that MRA should be working on.

Once the results are in, the results will be compiled into a Roadmap that will be made publicly available for all to see. For absolute transperancy, we will include our entire planning on this Roadmap to outline all important milestones. After all, we want you to know what we're working on, even if it's something boring or technical. After all, there's a reason for everything. As your community manager I pledge to outline the clearest possible explanation for everything that we're doing and you will be able to hold me accountable to that.

In return, I ask of you that you register your vote and create awareness of this coming vote and get all your MRA friends to do so too. After all, it is of utmost importance to all of us that the future of MRA satisfies not only us, but all those that we create our routes for.

Vote for the future of MRA. Sign up for the newsletter in advance:
https://myrouteapp.activehosted.com/f/14

It’s bizarre how quickly a strange situation can become normal. It’s been less than three months since many people in my immediate environment still had the feeling that everything “would be all right and nothing will change". In all honesty I also didn’t initially believe that that my life lived with such total freedom would change drastically. At the same time, fortunately, the worst doomsday scenarios have not materialized. Toilet paper is now back on the shelves, no war has broken out and I have yet to see zombies shuffling through the streets. For the time being, I mainly sit at home as much as possible, see each relatives as little as possible and when we see each other it is at an appropriate distance.

Resonating in my personal bubble is a cacophony of complaints about boredom, something that I’m simply not really experiencing myself. First of all, there is work, so I simply have enough hours of the week to spend without having to think about being bored from being in quarantine. In addition when the clock’s off, there are plenty of, chores at home, home hobbies, videogames, books, series of films and indoor sports to keep me busy. I strongly hold the belief that I’m some sort of quarantine prophet. According to the more level headed analysis of my girlfriend the title “strange but relatively well-socialized introvert” would be more appropriate. The best compliments always come from loved ones.

That said, my girlfriend was not dealing with his quarantine half as well as this strange dude. In order to avoid a chernobylesque meltdown we started going on daily walks. Sometimes early in the morning, sometimes early in the evening. This schedule came into existence as it is a daily search for good times to be outside while at the same time adhering to social distancing. Good timing is neccecary, especially since the many forest and park paths are not at all made for two people who pass each other at a distance of one and a half meters.

Because it is nice to get a little insight into what you do exactly on such a walk, I also started tracking tracks with MyRoute-app mobile. Although the MyRoute app mobile app is suitable for cyclists and walkers, the main target group is and has always been motorcyclists and motorists. It was therefore nice to see how useful MyRoute-app mobile was in creating beautiful tracks that I could study further at home on the PC.
When free-roaming or going without a perfectly plotted route, the tracking functionality of MyRoute-app mobile does shine. While the MRA Navigation app might be better suited for tracked guidance, MyRoute-app mobile provides plenty of the basics. I immediately noticed how easy it is to use the mobile app and how natural it felt while going for walks.

The regular loop that I walk goes through a beautiful nature reserve called the balijbos in Zoetermeer. The walk lasts about an hour and a half at an average speed of slightly above five kilometers per hour. Because we sometimes walk at dusk, the circle mainly runs along polders and there is only a small part where the vegetation becomes dense enough to truly call it “forest-like” (Balijbos translates to something like “Forest of the Balij” in Dutch, hence why I’m pointing this out). The walk is also almost a perfect loop while still offering some nice underground variations and a few climbs and descends.

Immediately after having walked and tracked the first two laps I felt completely at home here. For example, I had taken photos of all kinds of nice places with the moment function. As a result, I now know where all the benches, resting places and information or viewpoints are on the route. The best part is of course that you can also show these photos to friends and family in combination with the track you have walked. We have now even reached the point that my girlfriend has also downloaded the app so that she can track her own laps.

Finally, is MyRoute-app mobile as advanced as, for example, Strava or all kinds of other specialist walking and running apps? The first feeling is "no". After all, I can't keep track of my heart rate and steps, but on the other hand, I personally don't need that anyway. I won’t pretend to be anything more than a recreational hiker and with that in mind the incredibly simple and clear layout of the MyRoute-app mobile greatly helps with the ease of use. Although MyRoute-app mobile is not a specialist walking app, it is a great walking app for motorists and motorcyclists who also walk.

Attention Community,

You can now view a height profile of your routes. Activating the height profile renders a 2D graphic of your route on the map, clearly showing what parts of the route go over higher terrain and which parts go through lower terrain.

Basic usage of the height profile
You activate the height profile on any route by clicking the height-profile button. Once active it’ll turn blue.

(height profile inactive)

(height profile active)

Once activated, the height profile graph is rendered in the lower right of your route. The graphic automatically picks a range of heights relative to your route on the y axis. This means that on roads with less height-difference (such as roads in the Netherlands) will still show the relative height difference. However, in these cases it will be differences in a few meters, rather than hundreds of meters.

(a route with high relative height-difference shows clear peaks and valleys)

(a route with low relative height difference shows slight differences in elevation)

Advanced usage: height reviewing
The graph allows users to review the height profile of their route by intelligently tracking the connection between a point on the graph and the corresponding coordinate on your route. For this purpose we use height-flags. If you move your mouse over the graph, a flag containing the details of the corresponding coordinate will show. Additionally, you’ll see a smaller flag appear on your route indicating the exact location coordinate. Clicking the coordinate in the graph will zoom in on the map.

(a flag with details will appear when you mouse-over in the graph)

(a flag will apear over the corresponding location on the map)

Advanced usage: threshold reviewing
The graph has a handy threshold slider allowing you to slice off parts of the route above or below the threshold slider. The threshold slider is located in the bottom right corner of the height profile graph. To move the treshold up, click and hold the black triangle. Whilst holding the black triangle, move the mouse up vertically. Release the handle at an elevation of your choice.

(default position of the threshold slider handle)

(after moving the threshold slider, it will remain on it’s position of release, clearly slicing the height profile).

After releasing the handle, the graph becomes clearly sliced at the set elevation. Using the threshold slider as a visual guide you can verify that parts of the route are indeed all above or below a certain elevation.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts on this new feature. And as with anything, feel free to leave a comment.

Today I realized that the world is returning to a semblance of normalcy. Sure, governments are still enforcing measures across the globe with each country applying their own flavor variations, but that was to be expected. Nobody with the slightest grasp of how governments work expected our presidents, kings and prime ministers to suddenly declare the end of lockdown measures. We all knew that society would be expected to follow a steady yet cautious path towards freedom.

At the end of this ride we’ll have a collective memory of an event that will forever leave its’ mark on every generation alive today. The severity of loss during these times may never be underplayed, nor the uncertainty in the lives of those whose jobs now no longer exist. This memory will surely dictate how we’ll shape the future, what legacy we’ll leave for those to come. Will we allow tomorrows’ children to hold hands, tussle in the schoolyard and play contact sports? Will we allow ourselves to shake hands upon doing business and once more to embrace good friends and loved ones? Only time will tell.

For the time being, I’d like to cherish the freedoms that have been regained. There’s no doubt about the joy of being able to go out on a trip again, even if some measures remain in place. Even now, there’s freedom to be found on the road that can only be hampered by an empty petrol tank. With the wind in your back, the sun’s heat on your face and mountains rising ahead the world certainly seems reassuringly unchanged. One must hope that whatever change is inevitable, that this will be change for the better.

As for MyRoute-app, we’ve luckily been able to get through relatively unscathed. With swift decision-making we were able to continue our work from the safety of our homes. Things have changed, but in the end we’re coming out stronger than before. It was a conscious decision to close our office, to embrace working from home with effective management and to be flexible with any measure thrown at us. I have no doubt that our team is coming out stronger from this than we went in: with better expectations of one another, with the right tools to continue working even when we can’t physically see one another and to work productively from home.

If you’ve been wondering what we’ve been up to then stay tuned. We haven’t sat still and the coming period will see many exciting announcements from our team, the most recent of which has been the addition of the long promised height-profile on your routes. We’ll be hosting webinars to give people the tools to start making amazing routes again. We’ll also continue to support our Instructors and their clubs, some of whom have already indicated that they want to organize events. Whatever the future holds, MyRoute-app will be there. Here's to that future .

We thank you for your continued support. May you enjoy many safe travels.

Your community manager,

Timo Martosatiman

Attention community,

By your request we've chased down the opportunity to develop products for next-generation vehicles outfitted with Apple Carplay. On behalf of the team I'm very happy to announce that MyRoute-app has finally been granted access to Apple Carplay development. This means that we will be able to make our apps available on Apple Carplay in the future.

We've been petitioning both Google and Apple to grant us access to their respective systems since 2018. Every single time we've been ignored. At the same time, many members in this community who use Carplay kept asking us when they could expect Navigation to become available for those systems. As a final act of defiance we reached out to the European Commission's Anti-Trust Agency. After gathering knowledge about our rights, we made a final plea to both Google and Apple to grant us access.

Slightly later than requested, we gained word from Apple that they had failed to pick up our previous requests. They immediately granted us access to the Apple Development area (for which we are very grateful). We look forward to working with apple to bringing MyRoute-app to Carplay compatible devices. Since we are now finally in contact with Apple and have received an explanation for the events as well as a workable solution, we will not pursue an Anti-Trust investigation. Sadly, since Google hasn't reacted, we will have to come up with a different strategy.

In light of continued full transperency, see the attached communications between Apple and MyRoute-app below. We've omitted all private and project information for reasons of privacy and partnership.

(Blue text by MRA, Black text by Apple)

Kind regards,

Your community manager,

Timo

We're ready to start sharing more exciting information about the future. One of the upcoming releases will be an overhaul of the existing roundtour generator. We're building a roundtour generator that's both easy to use as well as technically advanced. Even more so, we're building it from the ground up!

For the sneak preview by Catalina, see this video on facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3391537777533722

For a preview of the preliminary design, see an image below:

(please note that this image represents an ideal artistic vision by the graphics designer and will most likely change in the future.)

Hello Community,

MRA Video will be a new addition to the family. With MRA Video you can create amazing 3D video's of your routes and tracks, filled to the brim with beautiful moments and insightful points of interest. This novel system has been in development since late 2019 and was originally due 1st of january. Due to unforseen circumstances we were forced to reiterate most systems used by MRA Video.

Now the work on MRA Video has progressed far enough to warrant an initial test. For this purpose we've granted the RouteXperts access to MRA Video as part of a Closed Beta Test Phase. While, as expected, many reports came in of problems and bugs, we were also very satisfied to see many video's being completed successfully. Based on this initial success we're preparing new releases which will be pushed to the Closed Beta Test Phase after thorough internal tests.

Stay tuned for more information,

Kind regards,

Your community manager,

Timo

Hello @Alain-Devroye,

Very sad to hear that you've had a bad engagement when trying to upgrade your membership. You did right by coming here to the forum, as there really was no reason why this should have taken so long.

Your membership was changed and I sent you an email to see if we can figure out the details, let's continue this discussion through mail.

Moderation notice:
While this was an important thread to make, and I won't remove it. A title like "MyRoute-app out of business" is a bit clickbaity and would have been immediately removed had the message not been this important. As a result, I've decided not to remove this thread but lock it. That way everybody can see what this was about and how it was resolved.

As this thread resolves around personal information and getting my attention, both of which were attained, I'm locking this thread for further comment.

Kind regards,

Timo.

Welcome to the new forum! To celebrate, we'll give out 20 contributor awards.

• 10 for the first 10 people who make a serious introduction on the introduce yourself category
• 10 for the first 10 people who make a serious topic showing off their ride in the Rides category

Winners will be announced in this thread!

I'm very happy that you're here with us Dragbert. You're right about those improvements in medicine: my grandmother was recently diagnosed with cancer, went in for 5 treatments and was done. She was scared, coming from an era where something like that was a certain death verdict. Perhaps I grew up in a time where defeating cancer was becoming a reality, or perhaps I just got lucky and didn't see too much of it. Regardless, I can only imagine what it's like to survive something that your father didn't.

I wish you good luck and a joyous ride on the 15th of September.

Hi there @Dragbert! Welcome to the forum. Hope you enjoy it here. I share your view that many forums die out because people move to social media, but after long consideration we did choose a forum for some reasons:
a.) it's the kind of UI that's recognizable for everyone
b.) To create a real community with events, heroes and history a forum covering all subjects is better than many FB groups covering seperate subjects
c.) As time progresses and MRA evolves, features will expand to give more and more unique features to the forum.

Glad to see that you're here in good health and enjoying the roads. Are you enjoying the Suzuki as much as the Yamaha?

EDIT: added the Contributor award to you!

This is how a "My Ride" post should be written .

I loved reading about you and Kay, beautiful story! I love the colours as well.

Welcome Michel, I'm glad you've made an introduction here as well

There’s the smell of fried food. Gasoline. Sweat. The fair is bustling with people and showy stands manned by loud salesmen who never quite manage to drown out the noise of motorcycle engines. As usual, our stand is rather underwhelming compared to the million-buck pop-up dealerships overshadowing the two refurbished market stalls we’re occupying. I’m shouting loudly into the ear of an elder gentleman wearing a Harley cut, explaining what MyRoute-app is, does and can mean for him. It’s also free.

“So, what’s the catch? You surely aren’t doing this for free.” Famed words that I’ve heard so often. It’s relatable as well. Out of work, I too suffer from the sales pitches of all kinds of figures. Oftentimes things marketed as “free”, “not binding” or “trial” mean “you’re going to pay eventually, usually by some method that is borderline nonconsensual.

I hate such practices with a passion and so does the rest of the team. To create some very clear transparency on this specific subject: of course we’re here to earn a sandwich. The thing is, we invest the majority of the surplus sandwiches back into the company. As such behaviour increases productivity, we’d like to earn as many sandwiches as possible. Sandwiches foster growth, either through allowing us to buy equipment, being able to pay for better supporting services (such as ActiveCampaign as opposed to MailChimp) or by just hiring more mouths to feed. Sure we all like profit, but that profit is hardly being used to reenact the lifestyle of the late Louis XIV.

These days too many products and services market themselves as being something they’re not. Many free services turn people into products and sell them as consumables to other companies, non-binding contracts turn out to be rather binding if you don’t cancel before this- and that date, usually going hand in hand with an innocent looking “trial” period for a certain something. It is really no wonder that these days everyone is conditioned to approach business with suspicion. In the best case you’re shilled for a product that’s relatively useful to you and you end up paying a price that you deem acceptable. We aspire to rise above such practices, even if we require aspects of them merely to survive. After all, the grand utopia where work becomes more hobby than necessity for those wanting to live a comfortable lifestyle is still some time away.

Surviving until that day we’ll be running business based on the idea that our relationship with you is more important than whether you’re able to pay for a GOLD or Navigation package. By earning your respect, releasing features continuously and constantly improving our suite of products and services we aim to inspire those that experience added value from GOLD or Navigation to convert into paying customers. Even if they won’t “buy”, they’ll tell grand stories of this amazing product that they know of to others, increasing over time the chance that these stories reach the right kind of person. A person that wants more than what we offer for free.

Now such practices are hardly measurable a seasoned sales veteran would likely shout. There’s no KPI available and thus no expected value in Euros or dollars. The reality though is that we know that many who started out with a BASIC subscription eventually converted into GOLD users or caused others to do so, even if it took years for those people to feel like upgrading. That’s the difference between us and most other companies. Our goal is sustainability and longlivety.
The fun aspect of this is that after explaining this to someone on a fair, club night or convention I’ll usually be approached as well by people verifying all of the above simply by telling their own stories. People using BASIC and being happy with it, people taking GOLD because they liked the added value of more features, people taking GOLD because they support our mission, people getting GOLD financed by their clubs or people who simply took GOLD because they got it at a discount somewhere.

The catch is that there is no catch. BASIC is free and will remain so. The reason why people pay beyond the free version of what we offer is that there’s tons of reasons. Perhaps the only small catch is that in the end we’re all human and if we like something, we tend to spend money on it. It really doesn’t matter whether that’s a service, a bike, a car or someone you love.