Ôªø HiGuide, Detailed technical presentation
Touristic promotion using iPhone
JLF-Entreprises
HiGuide, closer view.
Detailed Technical Presentation

The very great simplicity of use of HiGuide can make you forget the very great richness of its characteristics. Users will only see a few screens which they manipulate in the most natural way, without suspecting that the HiGuide motor and the iPhone are accomplishing an immense amount of work.

It is this work which we illustrate below. The screened photos have been borrowed from a few of our own applications: Paris for its monuments, Cameroon for its exotica and its films. These photos are at the AppStore for a more life-size examination on your iPhone.

To display the general presentation, click on the double blue points .

A simple and intuitive presentation
Even at first glance, the user should be able to use his HiGuide in an intuitive way, without needing to refer to the instructions explaining all the details.

The main menu thus presents a minimum of choices, defined for each application. For example:

  • A general presentation of the region
  • A map presentation of everything surrounding you
  • A direct presentation by list

    The two other choices are to look at the last news and to tune the HiGuide.

    • Main menu:
    The main choices

    The first choice:
    General presentation

    Points of Interest (Poi)
    HiGuide describes each interesting place by utilizing all forms of multimedia: text, images, sound byte, video, the combination of these forms as illustrated texts or audio guide, videoguide…and the extensions into the Internet.

    The Poi can be classified by categories (monuments, green spaces, transportation, etc). The categories and their icons are chosen for each title.

    • • •

    Poi: Texts, images, audio and video

    Points of interest of the users (Poiu)
    The users can add and place on the map their own points of interest, by directly using the keyboard, the microphone, or the movie camera of the iPhone.

    They can then edit these points, move them or delete them.

    The user’s POIU then act exactly like the HiGuide POIU. HiGuide pins them on the map with colored pins, and you can find them in the title index or in the description written by the user.
    In the lists of our example “Paris”, the POIU are classified in the category “What I have toured” (But this is only an example, everything can be modified.)

    Entering the title and the description of a Poiu

    Adding photo, audio, video...

    Presentation by List
    The list is a simple means of gaining access to a selection of points of interest.

    When the points of interest are classified by category, a list of categories is first proposed. With one click, the user can display the list of results corresponding to this one category, or to all categories.

    The list is set by alphabetical order or by proximity, and it updates as you make your selection.

    List of catégories

    Alphabetic sort

    Sort by distance


    Refining the search
    		 The selection can then be further refined by a search field in which the user types a word, or the beginning of a word to search among the titles or in the whole text some points of interest.

    The user just touches the search field at the top of the screen, and a keyboard is displayed.

    The user can either choose “all” to see the totality of the categories, or he can type within a certain category. Either way, the list is refined until the user finds his element.)

    By touching the chosen list element, you go to the file of the corresponding description.

    Description

    Presentation by Map
    HiGuide uses a double system of cartography. When the iPhone has access to the Internet, HiGuide uses online maps, the most precise and the most universal. The user has the choice of the display by map, by photo satellite, or, in some places, by aerial views.

    The maps display the points of interest using colored pins or icons.

    		By touching the blue button situated in the lower left corner of the screen, iPhone centers the map around its position, indicated on the screen by a blue dot
    When the iPhone’s GPS is not receiving a signal of sufficient quality, it provides a calculated position by triangulating the received signals through the GSM telephone network, or by from neighboring WIFI points. In this case, a blue concentric circle conveys the idea of the uncertainty of the position.


    Online map

    Online satellite photo

    Local offline maps
    		 Local maps

    When the Internet is not accessible, HiGuide uses it own maps contained within the iPhone.These maps have an accuracy which meets the type of each application.

    The local HiGuide maps are particularly important for foreign visitors, as well as in countries where the Internet is not available.

    Reducing the number of points of interest on the screen

    At the top of the screen, a search field allows for rapid selection of a POI or POIU by its name or a fragment of its name, or a text which appears in the title or in the body of the description. A keyboard temporarily replaces the map on the screen.


    Selecting from the map

    Selecting all categories
    Choosing by Categories

    		The “tools” button, located at the bottom of the map, allows for choosing different function modes on the map and for selection of POI or POIU.

    By touching it, you temporarily lift off the map page to have access to the tuning menu.


    Before selection

    Selecting 2 categories

    After selection
    The selections remain memorized, so that if you fine tune the search field on the map, the search only applies to the chosen categories.

    All facets of multimedia, in all directions…
    HiGuide knows how to produce and display images, sound and video. For the best comfort of usage, it detects automatically the position of the iPhone to display images horizontally or vertically in their largest presentation.

    For taking snapshots and adding sound, the user can take these directly with his iPhone or other cameras:

  • Photos: iPhone camera or photo library of the iPhone
  • Audio: iPhone microphone or external microphone,
  • Video: video camera for 3G iPhones or video library of all

    • Detection of horizontal or vertical mode


    HiGuide and Internet
    The points of interest have been written in the standard language of web sites (HTML), so that they can very simply contain the links toward any site in the Internet.

    The websites replace the point of interest inside the HiGuide current screen, under control of the HiGuide buttons.


    Calling our server on the web

    2 choices on our server:
    - our selection of web sites,
    - free search using google.

    Our selection of web sites

    Free search using Google

    «Push» notification
    Among the different possibilities of communicating with users, the notice “Push” is particularly important. It allows the sending of messages to all users who have downloaded a HiGuide title, even when they don’t use it. So this permits notifying them of all updates as well as any type of event.

    These messages pile up like newspapers and can be consulted by the choice of “Latest News”, from the welcome page.

    The developer of each HiGuide title can choose different categories of notification, as for example, “Important Events”, “Launches”, “Promotions”, “Festivals”, Service updates”.. The user can choose those which he wants to receive. For example he can accept the notifications indicating promotions and updates, and refuse notifications of current service. However all the messages are consultable under the heading “Latest News” until he erases them.

    Remember that the notifications are sent out even when the user is not using the corresponding application. Thus he has the choice of forms of notification.
    Of course he can refuse any notification or accept one or all of the three following possibilities:
  • By a beep informing him that a message has arrived
  • By a message appearing on the screen, indicating the presence of a message
  • By a round red “chip” appearing in the corner of the icon of the application. In the chip a number indicates how many messages have been received since the last access to the heading “Latest News”
    • Notifications are managed for each HiGuide by our servers. The notification of messages is launched exclusively by the manager of the application, who has all the necessary controls at his disposal. The notification of messages simply uses an Internet navigator (Explorer, Safari, Firefox etc.) and is protected by a pass word. When you want to get your messages by cell phone (for an outside event for example) it’s perfectly possible to use an iPhone.

    Downloading directly from our servers
    HiGuide can propose downloading the extensions and the updates of each title, directly from our servers. This procedure is much more flexible than going directly to the AppStore, and allows notably dealing with each special case, promotion…The downloads can be free or paying for the user.

    A HiGuide title can contain hundreds of photos, and great quantities of sound bytes and films. The size of a HiGuide can go from around thirty to several hundred mega-octets.

    The current maximum size accepted by Apple to house an application in its AppStore is two gigabytes, which is largely sufficient for most of our HiGuides. However it must be noted that as soon as an application goes beyond 10MB after compression, Apple requires that its downloading be done outside of the telephone network, by direct connection or with WIFI to a computer.

    In order to avoid this inconvenience, it is possible to create a smaller version of each HiGuide (called “lite”) which can be downloaded very rapidly from AppStore, even in the case of a slow telephone network. From HiGuide Lite, the user can download the complete version from our servers.

    In case of a interruption of connection during the download, our servers only recharge the missing files. When an application is downloaded from the AppStore, all updates necessitate a complete new download. But in the case of an upload from our servers, only the modified elements are downloaded.

    Creation, Maintenance and evolution
    The motor of the HIGuide is common to all its titles. We assure its maintenance and are in charge of all its updates and evolutions. All versions of this motor, present and future are at the disposition of our customers who can thus rapidly update their titles.

    The realization of an HiGuide consists in assembling all the basic elements, constituting the points of interest and in linking them to by means of a database or a simple spreadsheet. We can take on this task, but we can also train our customers and partners in their utilization.

    Personalization
    We provide by default a panoply of base elements which allow to build an HiGuide: buttons, icons, general maps…

    Our customers and partners can use their own graphic elements.

    • • •

    Languages
    HiGuide functions by default in French and in English. For users this choice is automatic and corresponds to the language chosen for their iPhone. It is equally possible to add other languages.

    Catalogue
    For the promotion of all the titles created by HiGuide, we are building HiGuide catalogs on AppStore, presenting a few samples of all the titles already available or in preparation. The HiGuide catalogs provide a link toward the titles available on AppStore.

    The catalogs make extensive use of the resources of downloading from our servers in order to create faithful customers of the users by promotional trial offers and downloads, for the whole of the HiGuide distribution, as well as the versions distributed here before their official launch on the AppStore.


    World catalog

    Greek islands catalog

    Note: This document applies to HiGuide Version 3. Availability : november 2009.

    For any information about "How to develop the HiGuide of my region?", please contact the HiGuide commercial team.

    HiGuide is a trademark of JLF-Entreprises 49, rue de Silly 92100 Boulogne (FRANCE) - AppStore: HiGuide / Tel: (0033) 6 19554807