1. What is CheckMyTour?
Based on GPS, the CheckMyTour mobile app allows you to track your trip automatically, to record all your activities, to memorize all your comments and photos, and to publish it all as your personalized Tour Book in the CheckMyTour portal. If you agree to, your location, the route of your trip and your activities while on tour are shared not only with the CheckMyTour community but also with your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter.
The CheckMyTour portal helps you to manage and organize the collection of all your tours in a Tour Book of your own, to find new tours and places worth visiting, to get in touch with other like-minded people, to hear about their experiences and recommendations, and to stay in touch with them after a joint tour.
2. Who's Driving CheckMyTour?
CheckMyTour has been founded by well-experienced IT managers who share the passion for motorbikimg and touring in general. On a joint tour, we realized we were using our iPhones just as much as we were riding our bikes. The question came to our minds: How can we combine all the data and services available on the Internet today into a single, useful app for the purpose of tour planning and documentation? That question gave birth to the idea of CheckMyTour - the combination of an app and a portal for bikers by bikers.
3. So, CheckMyTour Works for Motorbikes Only?
No! CheckMyTour has been designed to support all outdoor activities, mainly focussing on the road. CheckMyTour is all about tracking the trip, memorizing activities, comments and recommendations. Exactly what kind of vehicle is being sed for the tour really doesn't matter that much: even if we are motorbikers - CheckMyTour can also be used when riding a bicycle or driving a convertibe, a caravan, or maybe even on a boat. Any activity involving travelling from one place to another and typically related to specific activities can be recorded with CheckMyTour and published a personalized Tour Book on the portal.
4. Which Devices are Supported by CheckMyTour?
CheckMyTour has been designed as a combination of a smartphone app and an onlne portal. For using the app, you need to have an iPhone (4 or 3GS) running iOS4.x. The CheckMyTour portal can be accessed via all major browsers. A mobile app for Android is currently under development.
5. Can I Use CheckMyTour Without a Smartphone?
Yes. The main advantage of the CheckMyTour mobile app is an automatic tracking and recording of all activities while on tour, completely in the background, to create a personalized Tour Book. However, the CheckMyTour portal also allows for importing GPS tracks from other navigation systems and GPS recorders as well as building a tour manually and associate the track with your pictures, comments and recommendations thus creating a personal Tour Book on the portal.
6. Does CheckMyTour Replace my Navigation System?
CheckMyTour does not replace a navigation system. Rather, CheckMyTour is a data recorder which tracks and stores your way on the road, all your activities, and the local weather on your tour and helps you to publish it all. Interesting tours, be it your own or from other members, can however we downloaded from the CheckMyTour and loaded to your GPS navigation system. On the iPhone, many solutions already exist for that purpose which can even be used with CheckMyTour in a combined manner.
7. Can I Plan My Own Tours with CheckMyTour?
Generally, CheckMyTour is not so much a tour for route planning but has been designed to easily and automatically track and document what happens while on tour and support drivers while on the road. For planning purposes, hundreds of tools and web sites exist already. Nevertheless, the numerous tours and Tour Books published by other members of the CheckMyTour community may well serve as a basis and pool of ideas for your own tours. Reccomendations and comments by the community will help you in the planning or even on the road. Previously published tours can be reused by downloading GPS and POI data directly from the CheckMyTour portal. When on the road, the mobile app will help you find interesting spots and places, activities and events, and later maybe other drivers nearby and thus to optimize your tour.
8. iPhone While on the Bike? How Do They Go Together?
Very well. Among motorbike lovers, smartphones are already widely accepted for communication and navigation purposes. Various vendors offer equipment to attach the smartphone to the bike. Some of these even protect the phone from rain and dust or include power supply. CheckMyTour can be used together with these but they are not required. In extensive testing, we could prove that the CheckMyTour app accurately tracks GPS data when the smartphone is in the pocket of your motorbike jacket, in the tank bag or even in cases attached to your bike. Even in the glove box of a car recording the GPS track is well possible. As GPS signals only permeate a few centimeters of material, the iPhone should be attached close to the surface of a bag etc. Thus, the smartphone is completely secure and protected and also cannot distract the driver while driving.
9. Ho Much is the App? And the Online Portal?
Both the CheckMyTour mobile app as well as the portal in their base version are free of charge and will always be. In the future, extended versions offering premium features might be developed which may be subject to a fee.
10. Is all my Data Protected and Secured?
Yes. CheckMyTour pays special attention to protecting data and ensuring privacy. Of course, we act in compliance with the legal requirements of the Datenschutzgesetz (BDSG), the Telemediengesetzes (TMG) and other related regulations. All internet activities are based on the standards of the European Union and the recommendations of the GBDe as of September 2001. Moreover, privacy and data protection are taken very seriously even inside our company. Employees as well as 3rd party partners and contractors are obliged to comply with the legal requirements of data security. Only you alone may decide which information will be provided to CheckMyTour and other users. Personal data is only stored if you provide it to us. This data will not be handed over to third parties or used for purposes other than the services provided by CheckMyTour. CheckMyTour takes appropriate action to ensur your data is not being lost, stolen, manipulated or accessed without authorization. CheckMyTour will apply reasonable technical means and according to the state of technology.
11. Who Will be Able to See my Tours, Comments, and Photos?
In any case, only you decide who gets to see which informationen provided by you. You may apply strict privacy and be on tour "in stealth mode", you may share your location and activities with your friends, family and tour partners, or you may post any inforation to he whole wide world via Twitter and Facebook. Again and again on every single tour, it is completely up to you.
12. What if I Receive a Call or Close the App?
Once the CheckMyTour mobile app has been started, it runs in the background, i.e. you may still use your mobile without restrictions. So, you may close the app, use other apps, Internet services or e-mail without affecting the CheckMyTour app.
13. What About Battery Consumption?
It will last for a full dy tour! Using GPS services will always increase power consumption and thus shorten battery life. In tests, we were able to track for about 6 to 8 hours with the iPhone 4 performing better than an iPhone 3GS due to the improved battery. Using additional services, such as telephone or Internet, will also affect battery life. We recommend to switch off certain features such as WLAN or 3G which consume additional battery or to use battery extenders. If battery level drops below 20%, the mobile app will automatically switch off GPS tracking but still allow for manual waypoint markers and all other activities. Thus, the phone will still work in case you need it in an emergency situation!
14. What is the Required Data Volume?
The data volume required heavily depends on how CheckMyTour and the integrated services are being used. Just tracking your way on the road only requires a very limited amount of data. If you display the map and local information or want to checkin to spots and places, data needs to be transferred to the servers. CheckMyTour has been optimized to minimize the amount of data.
16. Will CheckMyTour Work Without Mobile Data?
Yes. If available, CheckMyTour uses assisted GPS to rack the route. Besides the real GPS, asssisted GPS also utilites additional signals to locate the current position, such as WLAN or mobile phone network data. When you switch off mobile data, these additional signals are no longer available and the location information will be less precise. But generally, CheckMyTour will still work and track your tour. Of course, anything tht requires mobile data, such as displaying a map or checking in to POIs, will not be possible.
17. Beware of Roaming! Much Too Expensive when Abroad!
Well, yes, but see above. CheckMyTour will still work even without mobile data, i.e. even when you switch off roaming. Of course, the limitations of mobile data being switched off apply. But tracking will work and once you are back online, say the hotel provides WLAN, you may review and publish your Tour Book.
18. What anguages are Available?
Currently, both the mobile app and the web portal support German and English. Language settings are applied depending on your iPhone settings or via the web portal, respectively. Additional languages, such as Spanish, Italian, and French are in planning.
19. How Can I Get CheckMyTour to my iPhone?
The portal is accessible via http://www.CheckMyTour.net and can be used free of charge after registration. Once released, the iPhone app can be downloaded from the Apple app store - again free of charge.
20. Why do I Have to Register? How to Register?
You have to register in order to be able to access CheckMyTour. During he registration process, a user name, an email address and a password are requested. For security reasons, registration requires email confimation by the user. To block automatic tools, such as crawlers and robots, a captcha needs to be resolved.
21. Will my Registration on the App also be Valid for the Portal? And Vice Versa?
Yes, for all CheckMyTour services only a single registration is required. No matter whether you registered via the app or on the portal, you will have access to all CheckMyTour services. You should avoid to register again as this would cause another account to be created. If you already have a Facebook account, you can connect your CheckMyTour account with it an use this for accessing CheckMyTour.
22. I Already Use Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Qype and Gowalla!
Congratulations! Any of these services can be used directly from CheckMyTour. You just have to connect your CheckMyTour user account with the respective accounts of these services and you are ready to go and can tweet and post from the CheckMyTour portal. Moreover, you can checkin into Gowalla places, Foursquare venues and spots on Qype without having to leave CheckMyTour. But remember: all these services are optional! You may use them - but you may as well use CheckMyTour without these.
23. Will CheckMyTour also Work on Older iPhones, the iPad or the iPod Touch?
The CheckMyTour app requires GPS and localization services in order to determine the exact position while on tour. As of today, both the iPad as well as the iPod Touch are lacking GPS and, hence, determining the position will be very inaccurate. Hence, the CheckMyTour app would be executable but hardly of any use. The CheckMyTour portal, however, cn be accessed from any of these devices and has even been optimized for the iPad.
24. Why do I Need Version 4.x of iOS?
The CheckMyTour app tracks and records all your activities on the road automatically. To ensure your mobile phone is not blocked by the app but rather can still be used for other purposes, the CheckMyTour app is executed in the background. Unfortunately, this feature is available only from Apple's iOS version 4 and higher. Hence, older versions of iOS cannot be supported.
25. How Can I report an Error? Or Suggest an Improvement?
We welcome your feedback! On the CheckMyTour portal, we established a forum where you can report bugs and errors or make suggestions on how we could improve our services. Alternatively, simply mail to support@checkmytour.com.
26. How can I Recommend CheckMyTour? Invite Friends?
Thanks for sharing your experience with CheckMyTour with your friends! The more road lovers use CheckMyTour, the more valuable the platform will become. You may invite friends directly from the CheckMyTour portal. In particular, all your Facebook friends are easily reachable via the provided Facebook integration. From the iPhone app, too, you can tell your friends about CheckMyTour via email, Facebook, and Twitter. And of course we very much appreciate your ratings of the app in the Apple App Store.