Target The HiGuide titles are intended for the three main steps of a travel: Before leaving, to know more and prepare the travel, On the spot, driven by the iPhone navigation features such as GPS.. Back at home, to review the travel and share it with friends... These three points have a strong impact on the design of the HiGuide, and explain why it differs so much from other available tourism Guide. It is more than a book, more than a map, it is more than a gps for navigation, more than an Internet web service : it is all at a time, and is there when the others do not apply. Design basis HiGuide design is based upon the following basis: It is made for travellers. This implies the use of accurate maps. In many cases, the traveller does not have an easy access to the Internet, and in the most exotic countries or in small far islands, the maps are inaccurate. For these reasons, HiGuide contains its own accurate maps, drawn by our team from accurate aerial or satellite photos, and checket on the spot when we are shooting our images and searching local informations. It has to be your companion at each step of a trip. HiGuide performs many very complex operations in each function mode to provide its powerful and reliable functions. But the user does not know about that: HiGuide has to look easy, natural and very usable. To achieve this requirement, the HiGuide engine uses all internal features of the iPhone: Accelerometer to detect and process the display in vertical or horizontal mode, localization features such as GPS and network triangulation, compass for the iPhone 3GS, window on the internet when it is available, etc. it is to be used for more and more destinations. We designed the internal part of HiGuide as an engine available for all kinds of destinations, from a park size to a country, for land and marine usage : All title share the same internal engine, resulting in many very important advantages: - A high level of quality: The design of the engine applies to all hiGuides - A fast and reliable development for each title: The developers don not have to build a software for each title, they only have to care about the contents. They prepare all photos, all texts of informations, all maps, then they just organize them using a simple database or tabler. Then all processes are automated to run the application from the HiGuide engine. This characteristic permits us develop some title with other partners. - A perfect capability for maintenance and evolution: Any improvement, any new feature is immediately available for all HiGuide titles. After a new compilation for the existing titles, without any extra work for the new ones. - A perfect adaptability to any future iPhone or iPhone-like device on the market. All titles developed using our HiGuide engine will be available for these other devices as soon as we will have remade the HiGuide engine for this device. It has to provide the highest level of speed and flexibility for download, update and evolution An HiGuide contains many hundreds, sometimes thousands of photos, video clips, accurate maps... The apps are big, 30 to 100Mbytes, with the consequence that the App store asks for a wifi or direct connexion to download them. These contents are often updated, and we would not propose frequent releases from the App Store for each update. To solve this problem, we have separated our new HiGuides in two parts: a free small "HiGuide engine", distributed in the App store, and the contents, which can be downloaded by this engine from our hosts. This new approach is explained bye the user's guide in the "support" chapter. Technical description Homogeneity The design of HiGuide takes care of the homogeneity of each available feature.. This is true from the lowest levels of the HiGuide behavior, such as its ability to work as well vertically than horizontally, than at the highest levels: Of course each map (or satellite image) system can be played H or V, but all features are usable in each, such as to view the points of interest, to create your own, to add photos, to jump from the map to any other function without losing the context of the visit... Internal data base The flexibility of the HiGuide comes from the use of a database instead of simple files. This advantage appears at each step of any title life, specifications, development and of course, user. Invisible to the user, the data base system links each function mode to its neighbours to make the application very Homogen, includng when a user adds its own pictures and points of Interest: They are just added to the database and then appear as a part of the title. Thanks to this choice to be database driven, HiGuide can propose different organisations for the datas, for instance it sorts the points of interest by proximity in map mode, and by logical book order when in book mode... Languages HiGuide est bilingual, english and french. Other languages ar easy easy to add. It's an other advantage of our data base appoach. The choice of the language is made at the iPhone setup level: Choose "setting>General>International>language". Maps HiGuide can use any kind of map, or aerial or satellite photo if they are accurate and easy to read. In most cases until now, we draw our own maps to choose the best level of accuracy and readibility at each level. However, this represents a veruy important work for each new title. Then, in future developments, some titles will use maps available in the public domain or under pid licence. HiGuide manages many different levels of maps, from the largest scale to the more detailed maps. Localization on a map HiGuide uses all localizations features of the HiGuide : When the GPS receives a good signal, HiGuide displays a blue point ( ) on the map. When the GPS signal is weak or absent, HiGuide tries to use the network or wifi triangulation provided by the iPhone. In case of weak network or GPS signal, HiGuide gives an estimation of the probable position. This is only an estimate which should not be considered as fully reliable. Search and select HiGuide offers Three possibilities to search and select an HiGuide object (i.e. a map, a text or a n image): From a map, a touch on a map displays the title for the selected object inside a red rectangle if the object is an HiGuide point of Interest, greeen if it's a user defined point or a user shot photo,Orange if the object is a sub map. A spinning wheel can be used : click on this icon. In this case, note that the display is dynamic : the objects are fastly displayed while you turn the wheel, and a click to select opens the full screen on this object. A search by text opens a new serch window where you can ype any wod or part of word existingin the titles for all objects. This function is also dynamic as the list of selected objects changes at each new character typed. Pour nous contacter, Au sujet d'HiGuide, contactez notre service HiGuide, Au sujet de partenariats et de développements personnalisés, contactez notre service commercial.