Hey smarty phone ap writer, here's an idea ap for you.

You know what GPS aps lack? Adequate detail necessary for traversing a forest access road while sideways and partially airborne and still holding it together. Stage rallies in the US often handle this with the use of "Jemba" notes printed on paper and handed to a navigator who then barks the instructions to the driver while attempting to not lose his or her place in the notes and hold down their grand slam breakfast. Jemba notes have been around for a while, and are composed with a computer mounted in a prerunner vehicle, using an odometer, GPS, and accelerometer inputs to generate the notes. Back in the day, that was all pretty fancy-pants hard-to-come-by hardware, but nows a days pretty much all that stuff is either in, or could be reasonably simulated in a smart phone.

I want an ap that will write Jemba notes for me. And bark the notes back to me as I travel at safe and legal speeds taking my family on a picnic in the woods. And will run in the background uploading topography data as I drive around everywhere, making every car with the ap and an enabled device a prerunner. Imagine running 'Tail of The Dragon' while Siri gives you instructions like "right 3 opens over crest into left 2 caution no cut,..." And displays the corresponding Jemba notes so, if you choose, you can turn off the audio, give the phone or tablet to your passenger and pretend your you're in the WRC while driving to the store to get groceries.

On second thought. That's a terrible idea. But I still want it.

I would buy this.

I'd give it a thick Netherlands-type accent in a super calm monotone and use it to get everywhere.

From Main Control 1 (start), 100 metres straight to a kink left, severity 2
100 metres, kink right severity 2
200 m, square left (90°)
100 m, kink right severity 4
50 m, Jump (caution!) into immediate right hand bend severity 2 tightens (caution, don't cut [the corner, due to hazard on the inside]!)
100 m, oversquare right
400 m, flat (maximum speed) into crest into kink left severity 4
100 m to Main Control 2 (finish) .

Burger King will be on your left.

I have a cousin who writes android aps for a living. I doubt he'd know anything about the Jemba notes, however. Is there an open source Jemba notes program to get the meat of it?

In thinking about this, you could have the phone making a video while your are driving too, with a bluetooth/USB taking input from your pedals/steering.

It might not be accurate enough without a high-precision and high-frequency GPS, that's the only problem. Apart from that it wouldn't be a whole lot of work to modify an open-source GPS app with turn-by-turn direction capability to do this.

Edit: This couldn't be sold in the Apple App store but I consider that a positive.

Does the google interpreter speak Jemba? I nominate Jemba as the official language of GRM. Quick make some t-shirts that say I speak Jemba.

In reply to RossD:

Not that I'm aware of. Everything I know about the guts of Jemba notes is here: http://jemba.se/jemba.htm

And it looks like someone designed their website in the early 90's.

Maybe not so useful of an app... Rally driver admits he has no idea what co-driver is talking about

Top British rally driver, Mark Fischer, today found himself at the centre of a storm of controversy after confessing that he had absolutely no idea what his long-term co-driver, Gethyn Davis, was talking about during races.

It had been assumed that co-drivers were reading ‘pace notes’, a series of instructions describing how to negotiate the road layout ahead, but Fischer claims the notes are ‘total nonsense’ and that he has simply been humouring his co-driver all these years. ‘It’s just gibberish,’ he said. ‘But the regulations say that there must be two people in the car at all times during the race, and Gethyn was a good mate so I always just took him along for the ride.’

maybe this would be a great ap for http://www.indiegogo.com/RaceCapture - but that greatly limits the market for the ap... :-(

oldtin wrote: Maybe not so useful of an app... Rally driver admits he has no idea what co-driver is talking about

LOL That takes a load off. I got to thinking about this because I'm taking the navigator seat for the first time at the Sandblast (www.sandblastrally.com) and was studying up on how to make sense of the reading material they hand me for the rally car ride.

The RaceCapture alone couldn't do it, other than maybe through some little scrolling LED screen. It doesn't have any real sound or display capability. Coupled with a smartphone, yeah it could be used as a good high-quality GPS and accelerometer source.

Might not be a bad idea to contact the people who developed these apps, they might be interested in enhancing them with that kind of thing:

Rally: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.crml.android.rally&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5jcm1sLmFuZHJvaWQucmFsbHkiXQ..

Rally Dash Trackmaster: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trackaroo.apps.mobile.android.Trackmaster.layouts.logger.RallyDash&feature=related_apps#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEwOSwiY29tLnRyYWNrYXJvby5hcHBzLm1vYmlsZS5hbmRyb2lkLlRyYWNrbWFzdGVyLmxheW91dHMubG9nZ2VyLlJhbGx5RGFzaCJd

RallyData: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.crml.android.rallydata&feature=more_from_developer#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEwMiwiY29tLmNybWwuYW5kcm9pZC5yYWxseWRhdGEiXQ..

Hmm, I have the tools to write iPhone apps. That might be a fun thing to play with - I'd been looking for an app idea to use for experimentation.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: I'd give it a thick Netherlands-type accent in a super calm monotone and use it to get everywhere. From Main Control 1 (start), 100 metres straight to a kink left, severity 2 100 metres, kink right severity 2 200 m, square left (90°) 100 m, kink right severity 4 50 m, Jump (caution!) into immediate right hand bend severity 2 tightens (caution, don't cut [the corner, due to hazard on the inside]!) 100 m, oversquare right 400 m, flat (maximum speed) into crest into kink left severity 4 100 m to Main Control 2 (finish) . Burger King will be on your left.

LOL!!!

oldtin wrote: Maybe not so useful of an app... Rally driver admits he has no idea what co-driver is talking about Top British rally driver, Mark Fischer, today found himself at the centre of a storm of controversy after confessing that he had absolutely no idea what his long-term co-driver, Gethyn Davis, was talking about during races. It had been assumed that co-drivers were reading ‘pace notes’, a series of instructions describing how to negotiate the road layout ahead, but Fischer claims the notes are ‘total nonsense’ and that he has simply been humouring his co-driver all these years. ‘It’s just gibberish,’ he said. ‘But the regulations say that there must be two people in the car at all times during the race, and Gethyn was a good mate so I always just took him along for the ride.’

LOL X2 !!