ifoi ware

April 1, 2010 – Today, changes in the DB website again broke ZugInfo. After a first investigation it seems that this time they got me good. There is not a change in the html output delivered from the site, which could be adopted to quickly. There seems to be a change in the CGI scripts, which prevents to use the API via standard methods from the IPhone. URLs that work perfectly fine from the browser window are no longer accepted when send from the ZugInfo code. I will investigate this further of the weekend, but at the moment I am not positive that there will be a fix any time soon

I am terribly sorry for the inconvenience, since I really planned to end ZugInfo graceously (see previous post).

thank you very much for the enthusiasm and trust you showed for ZugInfo over the past one and a half years. It was a pleasure to work with and for you to create a product to satisfy our common need for an easy to use, fast and (mostly) reliable  timetable application.

The increasingly frequent changes in the layout of the website of the Deutsche Bahn and the resulting failure of ZugInfo have shown me that, for the moment, I  won’t be able to deliver on one of my goals for the App, reliability, which in my view is needed for such tool. The dependence on parsing the (ever changing) webpage also severely limits the development possibilities for the App: every new feature will add to the potential for failure.

I have, therefore, decided to cease the development of ZugInfo for the moment. This does not mean the end of ZugInfo on the App store. For some time I will provide updates for the App to adopt it to changes of the DB website layout, but I will not add new features. This also means that, following the coming update, I will remove the donation version from the App Store. Update: Unfortunately, todays (1.4.) changes of the website code are non-trivial to fix and I decided to remove ZugInfo and ZugInfo donation from the App store. Please read the next post for details. Thank you to all you donators, it really motivated me to keep going!

I hope the DB will deliver on their promise they made with DB Navigator.

I wish you all the best and always travel safe,

Yours M.

.. there seems to be changes in the bahn website. At the moment the details view of ZugInfo is broken and I am looking into it. I keep you posted.

[Update] There we go, problem fixed (though I don’t quite understand why someone wanted to remove http from a hyperlink address). I will wait a little longer before submitting the fix, since you never know .. maybe there is more to come.

[Update] More changes, more updates. This time adressing an issue when quering a non-unique location resulting in an error. Technical detail: again a web address on the bahn website lost it’s http pre-fix. Will submit the fix later today (3/10/10). Sorry for the inconvenience.

Today Deutsche Bahn (German Railways) announced that they will publish their own IPhone appliciation. The detail – including the release date – are still vague, but if it is any good, I might stop developing ZugInfo. I keep you guys posted. And let me know what you think.

[Update:] There we go, DB Navigator is available in the App Store (Dec 15). Let’s have a look.

delay dots

So, there will be dots. During my research to find an unobtrusive way to integrate the information on delayed trains in the ZugInfo design I came across the LED like dots. Works like a charm. And before you start asking: green dots don’t go well with the ZugInfo design, so I opted for blue.

Hmm, maybe it’s time I start writing a manual for ZugInfo. With all the new options etc. it’s getting a bit complicated. I had a first complain, why there is no way to save stations in ZugInfo. Of course there is. ZugInfo will remember them for you, you don’t have to do nothing.

Sunday will be the day. Sunday will be the day Deutsche Bahn will relaunch their website. Fear and loathing. Could not find anything on the mobile website, but if they overhaul that too, it will probably break ZugInfo. Stay tuned on Sunday night for updates.