Yesterday the Edmonton Journal published an article on the front of section C on RUNNINGMAP. Here is a link to the article: http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/bodyandhealth/story.html?id=26f91dc0-1ccd-48c9-95ad-65e19746e3d2
Update: since this story ran in the Edmonton Journal it was picked up by sister papers The Calgary Herald and The Cape Breton Post. Separate stories were written and published in the Edmonton Examiner and NAITLine:
I have updated the logo on RUNNINGMAP with a modified design. I replaced the typeface first of all. I was inspired by Gotham Rounded and Bryant but ultimately went with VAG Rounded (Hoefler & Frere-Jones EULA says that the type can only be embedded as a bitmap in Flash, no vectors … that is too restrictive). I also thinned the legs of the “runner” mark partly because it looks like a more lean runner but mostly because Michael Surtees told me to. That was free advice I assume 
Also new on RUNNINGMAP are a few new GUI components. The “zoom slider” replaces the plus and minus zoom buttons. I have had several aborted attempts at designing this feature and I am quite happy with the results. It works well and looks very different to the standard google or yahoo! zoom control. Three buttons that controlled the map view were replaced by one combo pull down control, which is skinned to nicely integrate into the control bar.
Below is a screen shot of part of a Flash application I built for teaching “Cash Flow Statements” which is apparently a difficult part of the introductory accounting course at NAIT.
This is one of my best pieces of work to date but those I show it to are underwhelmed. But I think that is ok. They just don’t see a few things.
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I was really excited to see Steve Jobs present the new apple phone where he demonstrated the Google Maps application. The possibilities swirled in my mind. Then reality. First, the google map app showed a graphic of maps with push pins, and I have been meaning to introduce a push pin graphic into RUNNINGMAP for a while but just didn’t get to it. Now, if I do it, it will look like I am just copying them. Sigh. The phone has a full blown browser which means it can show RUNNINGMAP! Ah, no Flash Player. (that will come). It does not matter, it runs OSX! We can release a desktop version that runs RUNNINGMAP. Nope, Apple is not allowing 3rd party applications to run on this thing. They are locking it down! Which I’m sure is necessary since it has WiFI and Cingular (their cellular partner) would not want skype clients running on this thing. OKAY so at lease people can collect gps lat/lon while carrying this thing. No GPS (this will be added I predict). And lastly, it is expensive! $499 to $599 USD plus you have to sign up for a 2 year cingular contract and some probably ungodly per month fee. Steve Jobs wants to capture 1% of the market by the end of 2008 (massive market bw) but this will be tough. In the end this phone will have little market penetration so ultimately not an important vehicle for RUNNINGMAP at this time.
For myself, I just want a phone that will sync cleanly with my Mac address book. I pay $10/month for my Telus pay-and-talk plan. I really really liked the Newton when it first came out, but it was a thousand bucks! I eventually bought one used for $150. I suspect I will pass on the iPhone until they come out with iPhone nano that I can use on a pay-and-talk account.
Self-proclaimed polygeek Dan Florio said he did the Superhero Test and came out as “The Flash.” My results were the same.
