SNOWMOBILING NEW YORK STATE

Phone App for Android phones

New for the 2011-2012 season. Our app includes trails and intersections, businesses (lodging, dining, gas, dealers, others), public parking and clubhouses along with your current GPS location and a choice of background maps.

Once loaded on your phone, you will not need reception to view trail and business data.

All corridor trails statewide are included, along with secondary & local trails, clubhouses and public parking for participating clubs. (There are 53 participating clubs this season).

The first time you use the app, allow a few minutes for all 45 counties worth of trail data to download from our server to your phone. The app will automatically check for data updates once a day, assuming you have reception and download any new trail or business info to your phone's memory.

Opening splash screen	County selection list, alphabetical by region, Old Forge Inlet has its own file	Preferences screen

Tap your phone's menu button to bring up the County Selection or the Preferences screen. Displaying businesses will also display public parking locations and clubhouses. Remember to enable your phone's "Use GPS satellites" option under settings, to be able to show your current GPS position within the app. Also remember that using GPS satellites consumes battery power, so use sparingly. (Be sure you check "Show current location" to see your GPS position in this app).

		Here we are in Old Forge, permitted and surrounding trails are shown along with sponsoring businesses by category pin. The zoomed in view shows trail markers and the red pins are the trail intersections. Tap the markers or pins for more information. You can find out if a trail segment has been GPSed, what club maintains the trail, the junction ID (Old Forge/Inlet have numbered junctions) and create routes. For Inlet permitted trails, bring up Hamilton County. Or use the Old Forge Inlet selection for just the permitted trail system.
Old Forge trails in Town of Webb, Herkimer County	Old Forge trails with trail markers and intersections pins

To create a route, tap the first intersection red pin. Tap Create Trail. You will be shown a choice of trails to consider (in purple) and told how many trails connect and their mileage. Continue to build your route, tapping purple pins, then tapping Add. You can remove the current segment if needed to make a different choice. Your actual route to save will be shown in green. When done, tap the menu button on the phone, and select Save Route. Give it a name. The route will remain on your phone until you delete it, from within the app (also tap menu button to delete).
	Creating a route	Route display in green, purple shows your choices

There are two ways to remove a route. You can "Remove Segment" for every intersection along the way. Or, you can create the route, give it a name (just type a single letter), then delete that route. Please note that once a route is deleted, it will still display on your screen until you reload that particular county. In this manner, you can still work with the route if need be.
To create multiple routes in one county, you will need to reload the county, so the app understands you want to start fresh.

Why would you want to create routes? This feature is most useful for riders going out in an unfamiliar area. Routes let you check mileage of all trail segments (actual riding miles, not "as the crow flies") and save where you plan to go. If it was an awesome ride, you've got it in your phone to do again with a different group of friends. If you didn't like it for some reason, you can recall it and edit it, or you can delete it. You can create routes without reception also.

To just check mileage of a trail segment, tap the first intersection, the list of choices will have mileage for each segment. If it's not obvious because all adjoining trail segments look to be the same length, then tap Create Trail, then tap the second pin. The display will tell you the "Length of route if added" -- that is the mileage of the trail segment. Try it a few times in the warmth of your home so you know just what to do when you have to take your gloves off on the trail. We also suggest you plan out a route or choice of routes while home or on your lunch break at one of our sponsors for those really cold days.

		Here's another example of some trails, with and without reception. You can simulate "no reception" by switching your phone to airplane mode. Your phone will cache (ie, store) only those Google map tiles currently in your viewing area. Note as you move farther east without reception, that you loose the Google maps, but you will always have the trails, intersections, markers and businesses without reception. You can also create and save routes without reception.
Screen shot of trails, markers and intersections before loosing reception	Same area, but moving farther east, no reception. You can see the edge of the tile.

Allegany County, no reception, with GPS location	With reception restored, background satellite map	Zoomed in

Another example without reception to show that you can display any county's trails no matter where you are. It's all stored in your phone. Satellite image is helpful to see the lay of the land under the snow.

HELP US MAKE THIS APP EVEN BETTER: Please email us any suggestions for new features. We already have a few, thanks to our beta testers. And, please let us know if you have trouble creating a route in a particular county. It took 2 of us well over 100 hours to clean up the trail data, but I'm sure we missed a few trail segments or intersection junctions. For example, Herkimer County has 254 trail segments and 179 intersections. One of the more blessed counties, to be sure! Thanks so much!

Direct link to the app's page in the Market.

App coding provided by Lecky Integration Little Falls, NY