yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
Release 0.13

The latest (and probably last) release of ALTitude is up and rolling out to google play
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
It's sad but as latitude was retired I will retire this thread too and remove the app from gplay.

But do not fear, I will be back with another location assistant soon (I already have some ideas about a personal tracker)
[Android Apps and Games] cdmackay:
thanks again!
[Android Apps and Games] teorouge:
Thanks, I won't unsubscribe this thread so please keep us posted about your new project over here as well. :)

Sent from my HTC One through Tapatalk 4
[Android Apps and Games] TheInVisibleGoD:
Can't wait to see what it's coming... ;)
[Android Apps and Games] MichunB:
hello

why in preferences there are two times Interval and Accuracy settings?
[Android Apps and Games] nobnut:
I hadn't noticed that. I'm sure chamonix will fix it soon.
[Android Apps and Games] androidifyme:
very nice, going to use
[Android Apps and Games] MichunB:
about this double Interval and Accuracy settings

my phone is sgs2 2.3.5 (i9100xxki3)
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
Thanks for asking, I missed something here: there are two setings interval/accuracy because the first one controls the location manager of the service updating latitude the other one controling the location manager used for locating you on the map.

I decided to split those because you may have higher requirements while using the map. The location manager of the map is of course only active when the map is open.

I took this up as a bug an will fix with categories / wording in the next release.

You can track the resolution here: https://github.com/asksven/ALTitude/issues/19
[Android Apps and Games] luffyp:
Hi. just have some question regarding this app.

1. In the free version, how often is the app updating&uploading locations to Latitude?

2. How do I know if I'm log on or log off to the app? Everytime I press log on, it always takes me to Google authorization page even though I just did that 1 minute ago. (feature suggestion: maybe you could explicitly state in the blank area of the app if the service is being active)
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
Default is 15 minutes / 2 Km. I have taken up as a bug (#20) to make that visible in the free version.

The connection state is indeed not user friendly. Feature request added (#21)

Thanks for helping making altitude a better tool.
[Android Apps and Games] zmattmanz:
What a great idea! Superb.
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
Release 0.7

Hey guys. Version 0.7 is online with a few new features and some bugfixes. Check out details here: http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=18062312&postcount=2
[Android Apps and Games] MichunB:
hello,

I installed version 0.7 full and there is a problem with connection status (sgs2 2.3.5), I logged on several times but status is still 'Not logged in'

and

another question,

I have my Google Latitude service set on manual to let ALTitude update it,

I set interval (service settings) to 15min but on desktop version of Latitude i see that I am in my district from 24min, shouldn't it be refreshed every 15min and start counting from 0,

or latitude starts counting from 0 when my location changes? (sorry if answer to this question i obvious but I am quite new to android and google services)

and finally

thanks for your work, I am, big fun of betterbatterystat and now altitude :)
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
Did you get to the dialog where you can allow ALTitude to access Latitude?

About the parallel use of Latitude and ALTitude: ALTitude does not require any change to LAtitude settings to run. To minimize the battery drain you should completely log out from Latitude (not required though).

About the frequency and accuracy: the frequency (15 min.) is the maximum time between two location "fixes" if the accuracy did not detect a movement prior to that. Now when a location change was detected it is passed to Latitude as an update. The location change may be detected but the update still failing: there are no retries as obsessing in trying to update may lead to an unwanted drain.

Now to get clarity about what applies to your situation I'd recommend to set the preferences to write an own logfile to /betterlatitude.txt

This file will show you the location changes detected as well as the status of the updates to Latitude.

Hope this helped a bit
[Android Apps and Games] MichunB:
this is fragment of may ALTitude log:

2011-10-11 23:33:58 Preferences have change. Register location listener again

2011-10-11 23:33:58 Changed location settings to interval, accuracy = (900000, 2000)

2011-10-11 23:34:03 onLocationChanged called

2011-10-11 23:34:03 Service Updating Latitude

2011-10-12 07:17:40 Changed location settings to interval, accuracy = (900000, 2000)

2011-10-12 07:17:46 onLocationChanged called

2011-10-12 07:17:47 Service Updating Latitude

quick after 23.34 I went sleep but my ALTitude seems to sleep with me :)

ALTi wake up about 7:17 as I look whats up in my phone

was it asleep or it didnt log anything?
[Android Apps and Games] emelie:
Why does the license require "2.3.3 and up" while the app runs on "2.1 and up"?

Would really like to buy now and not wait until I make the jump to Gingerbread.
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
honestly, I think it's a mistake. expect it to be fixed soin and thanks for letting me know
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
both. your phone will only wake up if the location manager broadcasts something and it didn't. Two possible reasons: the location manager does guarantee an update in the given time if you don't move or your phone was in airplane mode
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
Fix is out, check your market updates
[Android Apps and Games] kalpik:
Actually you don't need to sign out of latitude.. Just set latitude to manually updated location, and altitude will overwrite it :)
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
Well, I have some pretty bad experience with latitude being on at all in terms of battery drain (wakelocks). Any observations on that with the suggested method. It would be pretty cool if none
[Android Apps and Games] kalpik:
Yeah, no wakelocks if you set location to manual :)
[Android Apps and Games] emelie:
Saw it for a brief period I think on Saturday.

Today it's gone again - last update according to market on "October 5, 2011", version "1.0", "2.3.3 or higher".

Was your update pulled for some reason?
[Android Apps and Games] emelie:
Alright besides not being able to install the full version (my guess is that the market just had a hiccup and it's going to work in the next days) I'm als not able to "log on".

Going to menu > "log on" I'm presented with a Google web login screen.

After that I put in my login data (why not use the built in account provider?) and hit "Allow".

Back to the start screen of Altitude, but it still tells me "Not logged in".

Could that be because I have two-factor authentication enabled?

EDIT: just sent you a PM with several lines of logcat that may be helpful
[Android Apps and Games] :
I'm having the same issue on CM7 and I'm not using two-step authentication. Would be interested to hear what you find.
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
I read you feedback and will be analysing the log this weekend. Will consider moving to the account provider if it supports oauth2
[Android Apps and Games] emelie:
that's great news! thanks for your effort.

looking forward to the next version!

PS got a new situation: seem to be logged now when i launch the app, FC every time after a couple of secs though (already sent error report with description).

currently on the road, will provide logs & detailed description later/tomorrow.
[Android Apps and Games] suku_patel_22:
Facing issues when signing in to altitude,

Facing issues when signing in to altitude,

I have 2 factor authentication,

When I open google authenticator to get my code, the login form loads again, and the password from google authenticator times out.

Need to fetch the credentials from the phone.
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
For unknown reason version 1.1 has been deactivated by Google. I was able to reactivate it today while Google still has problems with the market.

Sorry for the inconvenience
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
Has anyone tested latitude on Android 2.1/2.2. One user reported problems on 2.2 in market comments but without details I can't do much
[Android Apps and Games] DimonDroid:
App works great. I can see my movements in Latitude history, but my friends can't see my location ((((. Any solution?
[Android Apps and Games] peterbonge:
It seems that the app has a problem if no internet connection is available. It tries to connect, fails (of course) and shows an error message in the notification area. This is very annoying.

It would be nice if the app would check the availability of the internet before trying to do something.
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
That is weird. Do you have latitude on with no location update or are you logged off?
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
Added as a feature request #24
[Android Apps and Games] luffyp:
Another problem I'm experiencing similar to above is that if I'm log off Altitude, after a while I'll get error message saying Altitude can't update my locations. It seems the service is still running and trying to update locations even though you're log off.
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
Even if latitude is still updating altitude will do its work so that's not the root cause. You may still want to purge latitudes cache and log on/off to make sure the drain is not happening.

Altitude complaining about the location not being updated does not mean that it stops running bit only a that anupdate failed. That may be caused by bad network coverage or too slow response or the Webserver.

As long as there is no log on problem with latitude (I'm working on making that error more explicit) I don't see a problem causing the updates to stop
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
Ok I have tested a while now and made a few observations. It would be great if someone could confirm before I update the doc / instructions:

1) if latitude is "on" and location set there to "no update" ALTitude will not be able to update anymore. This happens without any error from Latitude to ALTitude

2) if latitude is "off" ALTitude updates perfectly and the location in Latitude is updated as manual

3) if Latitude is "on" and position set to "manual" ALTitude updates fine, the overhead of having Latitude signed on is minimal but the advantage of having the friends on the map is great.
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
I've been thinking of a few features and would like to get your feedback:

- as we know how to keep latitude signed on I could add a direct access to Latitude from ALTitude to get the map displayed

- update of location for facebook / twitter (with a policy in terms of precision of the location update (city level, street level, real position)

- change of location precision for a given time, e.g. "real time update with GPS" for "1 hour" or "update with a precision of 100m" for "4 hours" (I had that idea when I went jogging because my gf likes to see when I get back near home again so the precision of 15 minutes/2000m I is not enough)

Other ideas are welcome
[Android Apps and Games] kalpik:
Yep, that's exactly what I suggested a few posts back :)
[Android Apps and Games] rp_guy:
Never mind, full functionality in full version only
[Android Apps and Games] emelie:
- don't need direct access (see below)

- sharing location nice to have but not essential (i would much rather share via sms/other private channels than twitter/etc)

- quick access to timeout-based "finer granularity updates" would be great!

last point:

if i understand everything i wouldn't need to have access to altitude once i've set these settings: "latitude on/manual" & "altitude on"

that way my location gets updated automatically via altitude and i still can use google maps w/ latitude to see myself and my friends' location.

if that's true then i don't need an easy ui bridge (button etc) between latitude/altitude because i would never open altitude except for changing settings.
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
Thanks for the feedback. You are right, ALTitude is just made for sitting there, except if you use the notifications.

I will look into a way to allow an easier way to change the precision parameters. I have been working on AccountManager too but will leave that out of v0.8 because oauth2 is a pain.
[Android Apps and Games] mynameisjon:
can't seem to log on. after clicking allow it just goes to the main page and sits there "not logged on"
[Android Apps and Games] 93ae8074:
I'd this problem yesterday after purchasing key license. Finally I tracked it down, you've to enable GPS if you want that app to log on.

Cheers.

P. S. I hope the developer can confirm it. 'Cos if this is not the case it was pure random lucky. ;)
[Android Apps and Games] mynameisjon:
well GPS is turned on. lol..
[Android Apps and Games] 93ae8074:
I told you so because I wanted only cell location. ;-)
[Android Apps and Games] mynameisjon:
ikr.. cell location only would be the perfect battery friendly solution.
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
Release 0.8

I just released v0.8 with new features (check post #8 for details or see my blog)
[Android Apps and Games] rp_guy:
The latest update gives me a force close when I try to access the preferences panel. Hopefully it saves settings from the previous install, but this is occurring on 2 different Motorola ATRIX on 2.3.4.

I've used the report button, not sure if it does send a crash report to you or how that works
[Android Apps and Games] emelie:
buffered location updates

i love you

that is all
[Android Apps and Games] mynameisjon:
Same here. Sent a report as well. It signs in successfully now though...
[Android Apps and Games] luffyp:
Same here. But the latest version (0.8.1) fixed it. Thanks dev :)
[Android Apps and Games] mynameisjon:
is there any chance to have intervals of more than an hour?
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
It was randomly luck, ALTitude uses whatever location provider is available, if multiple it uses the one that suits the precision requirement the best
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
sorry for that. I fixed the bug this morning when I read your mail and uploaded to the market
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
Surely, I added a feature request for that: https://github.com/asksven/ALTitude/issues/30

Please feel free to comment there or reply here. What timespans would make your day? 2 hrs + 5 hrs or more?
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
That's what I use except of a quick action with 10m resolution for 1 hour when I jog. only wifi is cheaper.

Then problem with the auth token is not related to the location provider but to something going wrong in the pretty complicated oauth2 handshake.

I am working on using AccountManager instead of the current orchestration because it is meant for clients (as opposed to webapps) and gives more info about things that may go wrong.

If google would provide a better doc I would have finished by now but unfortunately I have to write a complete app only for testing AccountManager. It's fun and so one of my top priorities for the next sprint I love do on this project
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
Release 0.8.2

Today was a busy day. V0.8.2 was just released with a few minor fixes in the new features.

Enjoy!
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
I stand corrected. From an app point of view "passive" location is the cheapest one: in this mode the app just waits for another app to retrieve the location and uses it. Benefit from the energy point of view:

- the ressources for getting the location are consumed once

- most likely the location change can be handeled in the same wakeup

I am writing an article about location awareness on Android but it may take some time before I will publish as I have a few projects running.
[Android Apps and Games] mynameisjon:
Actually its more of a buffer issue?

Was thinking of it in terms of the phone coming out of deep idle every 60 minutes, then having to go back into deep idle.

60 minutes is actually fine, but I don't see an option to fine tune "schedules" or control it with tasker.

I guess it really depends on battery savings. 2/4/6 hours I find would suit a sort of "quiet hours" schedule.

thanks for the updates.

---------- Post added at 03:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:16 PM ----------

Would that mean that the locations would only be synced up with latitude if I were to load foursquare (for example), and not actually look for a location when the phone is in deep idle?

Or would I continue to report the last known location as per the set schedule?
[Android Apps and Games] somecanuck:
I just installed it on my phone. Motorola Milestone, Telus (CDMA), CM 7.1. It force closes instantly, or some times after 2-3 seconds. Is there a log file I can look to for the errors?
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
You need to look in logcat. If you are not used to logcat I suggest downloading alogcat from the market. An FC always comes with a Callstack dump and that part would help me fixing the problem
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
You are correct, passive depends on another application listening on an active provider. The interval for update would still wake up the phone and report the last known location. Please note that altitude dors not use that method though but I am working an absolute tool to make exactly this kind of measurements for my article
[Android Apps and Games] somecanuck:
It's attached, captured using the "long" mode.
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
That is indeed a hell of a help. The FC reason is:

E/AndroidRuntime(14950): Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: provider==null
E/AndroidRuntime(14950):	at android.location.LocationManager.requestLocationUpdates(LocationManager.java:441)
E/AndroidRuntime(14950):	at com.asksven.betterlatitude.LocationService.registerLocationListener(LocationService.java:212)
E/AndroidRuntime(14950):	at com.asksven.betterlatitude.LocationService.registerLocationListener(LocationService.java:171)
E/AndroidRuntime(14950):	at com.asksven.betterlatitude.LocationService.onCreate(LocationService.java:136)
E/AndroidRuntime(14950):	at android.app.ActivityThread.handleCreateService(ActivityThread.java:2066)

To explain:

when ALTitude is loaded is starts a service that is responsible for retrieving and processing location updates. This service uses a so called LocationListener to get called when the location changed. The Listener in its turn request a location provider for a given Criteria (based on the preferences). This provider is not decided upon by ALTitude but a request is issued to Android by telling "get me the best and cheapest provider for this Criteria).

In your case Android answers "I have no provider" and this case is not handeled properly.

Now the good news is I can handle this case but you still won't be happy because without a provider for location you won't get any updated.

There are different possible reasons for that:

- in your "Settings - Location and Security" neither "Use wireless" nor "use GPS" is ticked: in that case you will never get a location and ALTitude is useless so I'd suggest ticking "Use Wireless" and a) the problem will be gone and b) you will get a location that has a low energy cost

- you have revoked some permissions from ALTitude using a tool like "Permissions". In that case grant the perms again and everything will be fine

- non of the above apply and we have a mystery to solve

EDIT: I have taken this as a bug to solve the symptoms but the root cause is in your settings
[Android Apps and Games] somecanuck:
Enabling location by wifi resolved it.

I entered my email/password and clicked "allow access" 3-4 times, it just kept jumping between the app and the "allow access" screen. Killing the app via Cyanogen's long-back button and re-loading it cleared that up.

Thanks!
[Android Apps and Games] somecanuck:
FYI, the same error occurs when exiting from airplane mode, even with having a location provider enabled.
[Android Apps and Games] XlAfbk:
for some reason (ideas welcome) I'm getting a notification about a 401 failed login attempt like every other day or so. Without me doing anything it starts working again afterwards.

I'd suggest adding a "only notify about failed login attempts after X succeeding login attempts have failed" option so I can set it to only notify me after 3 or 5 failed attempts cause then something is likely really wrong.

edit: when i just disabled wifi the moment altitude tried to update i got a notification about the host being unavailable. please include that kind of error messages in such a setting. I don't care whether 1 or 2 updates fail, Latitude is not that important. I want to know when there's something really wrong (e.g. I've been logged out for some reason) but not about every little quirks
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
here's you go: https://github.com/asksven/ALTitude/issues/33
[Android Apps and Games] Anakha56:
Can I ask a blonde question? How does this work? Hear me out first before defaulting to the "Read the first post" answer because I have read all nine pages :). I dont want to know the nitty gritty on how it works because thats what the first post is telling me, what I want to know is how do I use this? Latitude itself has the option "Location Reporting" set to "Do not update your location" and check-ins are set to "Automatic Check-Ins". Now if I want to update my location say when I arrive at work, do I launch Latitude and update or do I launch ALTitude and it will update location immediatly?

Also a minor suggestion but in your free version can you provide a market link to the full version? So if I press menu abd go "More" I would like to be able to click a link directly to the paid version.

Thanks for trying to tackle the Latitude issue. Will use it for a couple of days and get back to you :).
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
What you are talking about is update the location upon user request, this is something Altitude does not support. What you can do is use Altitude to update your location with a low frequency and precision but from the moment altitude is configured it runs (as a background service). The energy footprint is much much better than if you let latitude do this.

So if you want that functionality give it a (free) try, but if not and you want to only set the location manually do so in gmaps by using "manual location"
[Android Apps and Games] somecanuck:
I'm having trouble logging in as well. I load the app, "Not logged in", so I go to "More", "Log on". It prompts me for a user and password again, and redirects me to the "Allow access" page. I click it, I get sent back to Altitude but I'm still "Not logged in". If I try to "Log on" again, I'm immediately at the "Allow access" page. If I totally exit the app and re-enter, I'm still "Not logged in".
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
I admit the 'not logged in' text is a little confusing and I will change it. That text only tells that the logged in state could not be retrieved. On the next update the service is able to connect but as we are talking about REST api there is no real state 'logged in'.

Reading the last pages convinced me that there is a need for me to rework that area to avoid false positives.

https://github.com/asksven/ALTitude/issues/34
[Android Apps and Games] mynameisjon:
I was wondering, does using Passive mean that Altitude will force a 3rd party app to get a location? I noticed that after using passive, Skype's network location seems to come up as a wakelock.
[Android Apps and Games] chamonix:
Latitude does not use passive location except for the map if you set the prefs accordingly. This setting then applies only when you are in the map.

I dream of a way to control and app from the outside in terms of forcing passive. It that would be supported I would turn all my apps to passive and use altitude as the only active location listener. By doing so I could make sure the updates are they way I want them and ALTitude would do a good location provider for the whole phone.

Unfortunately this is not the way Android is designed so it stays a dream