Some of the development team are attending DevDays today in Dublin. It’s an annual event help in Belfast and Dublin for developers working with mobile technologies. We met a lot of interesting developers last year so looking forward to more of the same today.
DevDays Dublin
**Expect a video from the event later today.
Regards,
Eamonn
Thought I’d share a nice article from Phil Tonks of Bus Users UK www.bususers.org about his experience of using the Dublin Coach iPhone app powered by TravelManager Developers.
Phil Tonks from Bus Users UK was really impressed with the robustness and quality of the Real-Time Passenger Information provided via the iPhone App:
“I tried to find holes in the system; I’ve used technology before in several different guises and if often let me down…. But TravelManager proved faultless as I nearly flattened the battery on the phone trying to see if us bus users could actually depend on this technology…” – Phil Tonks
Bus Users UK Article – Dublin Coach
He goes on to say that with this technology takes away the unpredictability of a bus service and one of greatess arguments for not using a bus.
**This is something we find time and time again with our customers once the passengers are informed they can make decisions that reduce their waiting time at stops and this encourages an uptake in usage of bus services.
Regards,
Eamonn
We are currently developing a new translations engine for TravelManager which will enable us to translate the platform into ANY language. Imagine not only all of your tours being sold in English, French, Spanish but also in Mandarin, Japanese etc…
Now imagine your Japanese affiliate being able to log into you TravelManager account and read the entire application in her native Japanese. The emails you send are in Japanese. The receipts, tickets, everything – in Japanese for Japanese customers and German for German customers.
Now imagine that all of that work is done for you – so you just need to decide how and where you sell your products (tours, charters etc..) and in which countries you want a presence.
Then imagine that iPhone application available in any language also.
You’ve just imagined TravelManager in 2010.
Talk to us!
Since we announced the worlds first iPhone application for the motorcoach and bus industry, on the 17th September we have had 60 operators download the application. We thought it would be interesting to show you where they are located in the world (all countries with more than 1 download are shown)
Just goes to show – that operators all over the world have the same issues to overcome and realise that real-time and mobility are the future. Now that we have TravelManager’s online quotation widget in 12 different languages (with more to come) we can expect interesting times ahead 
Regards
Dean
The TravelManager team in Ireland attended “DevDays 2009″ to meet with other iPhone developers as well as Apple Engineers. It was a great opportunity to meet with fellow iPhone developers and we’ve even got a few people interested in developing on the TravelManager API’s!!
Everyone really liked the look of our iPhone App so we thought we’d share it a few pics with you:
***Main Menu in TM App
***Open Quotes in TM App
One developer in particular has created an iPhone App for Dublin Bus timetables so that was really interesting for us to meet someone providing solutions for the same industry. More on that in the next few weeks as we start to finalize on iPhone apps (yes we’re going to have more than 1 App).
The conference highlighted the need to have a few Apps in the iTunes store and also for focus on multilingual offerings as most iPhone users really like to work in the native language (so lucky TravelManager can be language independent them )
**We’re thinking about attending WWDC in June as the DevDays 2009 event really highlighted just how huge the iPhone is going to be after the next update in June. Any iPhone developers interested in developing iPhone Apps for TravelManager should join us in attending WWDC before the end of April. (If the interest is high, in even just attending the event in June it makes sense to go as a group??)
I suspect this event is going to be a huge one that could the trip of a lifetime 
Regards,
Eamonn
*Weekly TravelManager rollout today will be posted about tomorrow..
If your interested in getting in on the beta program then send an email to info @ gotravelmanager.com with your iPhone / iPod Touch UID number and we will add you – so you can start playing around with the application as soon as it comes online
Regards
Dean
Tomorrow sees the start of the first annual International TravelManager (iTM 2009) developer conference in Sheffield, UK.
We will see developers from many different countries (UK, Ireland, Netherlands, India, China, & North America) come together (both physically and via video uplinks) to discuss some of the exciting technical developments occuring right now and how they may be best implemented into the TravelManager platform for the benefit of our customers.
High on the agenda of iTM 2009 is API extensions using Open Standards, iPhone / Android development, next generation video platforms & GPS systems.
More information to follow soon….
Regards
Dean
Today, we have purchased a whole suite of Apple Mac equipment for the office and signed up to Apples iPhone Developer program in anticipation of getting our first iPhone native application for TravelManager out of the door within the next couple of months.
Let us know what features and functionality you are looking for. We are currently thinking along the lines of;-
Regards
Dean
Still not sure about how a mobile is going to help you or your business?
Take a look at this.
Regards
Dean
