Stockholm, Sweden – Kewlanu AB today is proud to announce the release of AutoFindr 1.0.3, a new iPhone app that automatically keeps track of where a user parks her/his car. AutoFindr uses a car’s existing Bluetooth hands free connection to detect when a person leaves their car and saves the location. It is the only app on the Apple App Store able to accurately do so without additional hardware.
In contrast to most iOS apps addressing the same problem the app has been designed with transparency in mind – with no to minimal setup it will continuously keep track of where a user parked the car without further user intervention. Existing apps use either additional hardware or a manual procedure to save the cars location.
“We have a great mall to shop in – but the parking lot is gigantic! If you’re lucky the kids will remember where the car is but they are not always with me. When life is hectic, such as when I am rushing to pick up the kids, remembering where I parked the car is apparently not always a priority for my mind… Luckily now I have AutoFindr and it has simply been there when I have needed it the most – in the end I guess it is about saving precious time” says one beta tester.
AutoFindr has a number of additional features, one of which is the ability to enter rules for parking regulations for a user’s preferred locations. Once setup, every time a user parks her car any matching rules will automatically result in timely reminders. This is intended to help a user avoid parking tickets or having their car towed.
“I took public transport to the office and was just about to report my car stolen when my fiancee sent me a picture of my car, right where I parked it – but obviously not where I thought I parked it” – Kewlanu.com co-founder Christian says and continues: “I figured: There must be an app for that! But it turns out for the iPhone there really wasn’t.” There were lots of apps but none that really worked. He quickly realized there would be a better way and in a matter of days had a prototype working. During holidays and after the kids fell asleep in the late evenings he continued on developing AutoFindr as a “pet side project” for several months, adding features, polish and real life testing. “Getting an app to run seamlessly in the background on an iPhone without impacting battery is non trivial, and let’s just say I explored a few dead ends before getting it right.”
Apps submitted to the Apple App Store must adhere to the Apple App Store Review Guidelines or they risk being rejected. According to the Review Guidelines that are put in place by Apple to ensure quality of the App Store, apps need to be working and stable with a minimum level of polish to even be considered. Christian recalls the initial submission: “The real nail biter was after submitting it to Apple for initial review somewhere half way thru [design], in the middle of summer” – normally a review takes a few hours at most but for this app several weeks went by after the app status changed to In Review. “To our knowledge we were following the App Store submission rules, but we clearly do things that it appears weren’t believed to be possible – even by Apple.”
The company claims to have a number of creative features in the pipeline but today AutoFindr is approved and available via the Apple App Store; AutoFindr is ready to find cars everywhere – if you have an iPhone why not download it just in case your car… ahem, “moves itself” in the future?
Language Support:
* English, German, Japanese and Swedish
The app is free to download and gives users a chance to evaluate functionality and assess compatibility with their car. It has 3 in app purchase options and further supports:
* Tracking multiple cars
* Automatic tweeting when you park, with a configurable level of address detail
* Unlimited parking history
* History export to CSV – allows a user to create an excel sheet with address and times where cars have been parked
* Web integration, with a custom URL request being sent whenever a car is parked including address details – allows integration e.g. into a custom enterprise workflow
Device Requirements:
* iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
* Requires iOS 8.2 or later
* 28.7 MB
Pricing and Availability:
AutoFindr 1.0.3 is Free (with in-app purchases) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Navigation category. Please see link for supporting material and potential story angle “stubs.” AutoFindr Extras (PDF).
AutoFindr 1.0.3
Download from iTunes
AutoFindr Extras (PDF)
Screenshot
App Icon
Press Kit (zip)
Kewlanu AB makes apps for fun, selectively taking the challenge to make them different. It is a small company located in lovely Stockholm, Sweden. All Material and Software (C) Copyright 2015 Kewlanu AB. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPod and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other trademarks and registered trademarks may be the property of their respective owners.