BestRoute is back
An (unexpected) fresh start for an old app.
It’s been 5 years since the last update to the old version of BestRoute, and uploading apps on the Google Play Store has gotten a lot more complicated in recent times.
In an effort to get everything ready for the release of the new app we set up the Play Store listing with some dummy mock ups and descriptions. One of the last things we did was to try to setup a Beta testing program.
Unfortunately, after we submitted our changes for review (just about every change needs to be approved nowadays), the app was unexpectedly approved and all of a sudden everything was live!
What happened to the old app?
The original version of BestRoute was released in November 2010, a little over 6 months after I left my last ‘proper’ job.
I used to work in IT for a large consumer goods company. As part of my job I supported our salesforce all around the world. During my travels it was clear that the sales associates that regularly visited retail stores had to spend a lot of time planning who they were going to visit on any particular day, what order they should visit them in, and when were they likely to get back home to their families. This was true no matter which country they were based in.
When I knew I was going to leave the company I spent some time thinking about what I wanted to do next: in the distant past I had started my career as a programmer and I decided that I would like to do that again. At the time the iPhone was taking off in a big way and Android was just starting up. I decided to teach myself how to develop mobile apps and settled on becoming an Android developer.
I chose to learn to develop on Android partially because it was the newer platform and therefore less people were skilled at it already, and partially because I reasoned that most of my potential customers were probably going to using cheaper Android devices rather than fancy and expensive iPhones.