Benches app (for iPhone)

Finally the app is live! Available for iPhone users! You can find the benches near you! Get it from the iTunes store.

A friend of mine from eVolutive and I (more him than me) have create an app for iPhone where you can find benches near you. It uses the data from Open Street Map.

Why we did an app to show the benches around us?
I had the idea when I was walking the London LOOP. Quite often I asked myself: should I stop here and eat my lunch or keep walking and find a bench? How long for? Is there a bench nearby that I can’t see?

I looked around and OpenStreetMap has benches (obviously not all, and the quality of the data depends on the zone). Using OsmAnd I could, after fiddling with the user interface, see the benches. But it was complicated and not user friendly.

At the same time my grandfather had mobility problems because of his age. I thought that in years to come I might have the same problems as him, and at that point I better have an app like Benches so I can get out and when I need I can search benches nearby to take a break. He won’t use it because he is not into gadgets and technology, but when I’m old I hope that I’ll still like playing with phones or the technology that we will have at that time. So I thought I should start the app now and keep adding benches as I go because when I’ll be 80 years old I might need the benches there, and not adding them.

So, if you like, search for “Benches” on the iTunes store and test it. If benches are missing in the app you can add them in OpenStreetMap (using the usual OpenStreetMap tools) and in about one week they will be imported into the Benches app.

Ah, and last but not least: Benches app also shows drinking fountains and toilets. We might add more things or show other things in the future but we want to keep it simple and not reimplement OsmAnd or a mapping app.