aCar - Track your vehicles

[armond]

[UPDATED for v2.5.x]

Hi Guys,

It's a few days I've released my first Android application (aCar) to Google Android Market under "Productivity" category (for FREE). aCar is an all-in-one handy application to effectively track the fuel mileage and costs, maintenance, business (and non-business) trips/mileages and general expenses of your vehicles.

Feature List:
* Tracking the fuel mileage, fillup costs, maintenance and general expenses of your vehicles
* Tracking the business trips/mileages you're going with your vehicles
* Multiple vehicles support
* Supporting several international units: MPG (US, Canada & Imperial), gal/100mi (US & Imperial), mi/L, km/gal (US & Imperial), L/100km, km/L
* Service reminders for vehicles (both time and mileage based); will be posted on your phone status bar. They are highly customizable for each vehicle separately
* Thorough statistics of your vehicles at a glance
* Powerful searching and filtering
* Graphical charts and reports: Fuel Efficiency, Fuel Price, Fuel Costs, Service Costs, General Expenses, Distance between FillUps, Price per Gallon/Liter, Gallons/Liters per FillUp and many more (Pro Feature!)
* Comparison charts for your vehicles (Pro Feature!)
* Full manual/automatic data and application settings backup/restore (Pro Feature!)
* Importing data from various sources: Auto 3in1 application (Windows), AutoMobile application (PalmOS/Windows/Android), Mileage application (Android), MPG application (PalmOS/iOS), Road Trip application (iOS), TealAuto application (PalmOS/WebOS), Vehicle Manager application (Windows), Fuelly.com website, FuelFrog.com website, SpritMonitor.de website and any plain Excel compatible CSV file (Pro Feature!)
* Exporting records to Excel compatible CSV format (Pro Feature!)
* Exporting statistics to Excel compatible CSV and browser viewable HTML formats (Pro Feature!)

The application contains a FAQ (accessible from the main screen) where you can find the frequently asked questions. This is a good place to start with if you are experiencing any problem, before contacting me!

I will appreciate if any of you download and give it a try and let me know what you think. Whether the overall user interface of the application is intuitive and good enough, or how you would like to see it improved. I need all your feedback, comments, complaints, mentioning of pros and cons, or whatever else you would like to share about this application, good or bad! All are welcome!

More information: ZoneWalker.com » aCar

And some inline screen shots:

Thank you,
Armond

 

[jsh1120]

I've been using this app for several months. Truthfully I haven't used many of its analytic features, but it does an excellent job of keeping track of data associated with my four vehicles. (Two cars and two motorcycles.)

My only criticism (and it applies to many applications including various email clients and others) is the absence of password security to access the data. Considering that I maintain information such as insurance policy numbers, vin numbers, license plate numbers, etc. it would be extremely useful to provide an option for a user to designate a password to access the application.

 

[jvcerebro]

i been using this app for a month or so now. it was recommended by a friend. it is very useful tool. i really like it. great job.

 

[Jim 777]

I downloaded this probably right after you released it and it's the only app that I haven't touched but hasn't gotten uninstalled. Honestly I think it'll be a great tool, but I haven't sat down and input all the needed info for my vehicles yet.

Thanks for the screenshots, kind of gets a little spark under my but to start getting it set up.

 

[KZIWarrior]

Been using this since Dec and LOVE it. But there is one MAJOR issue (at least on my Droid). The auto-backup feature is useless... it creates a backup file but it is just a copy of the previous backup file (i.e. new changes/additions are NOT there)... I have to manually do a backup in order to get all the current data to save. Not sure what the issue is. It's not a big deal but it's caused me to loose data after a ROM flash several times until I figured out I had to do a manual backup before flashing (which at 2am I sometimes forget). Fix this and the app will be perfect:icon_ banana:

Oh, one question. So I have my oil-change set for every 5k I am 100 miles from a 5K mark but still have not got a reminder? I'm guessing because I haven't done one since I got the program but I would suggest adding an option of setting a 'first reminder' mark for the first change ect.

 

[armond]

I've been using this app for several months. Truthfully I haven't used many of its analytic features, but it does an excellent job of keeping track of data associated with my four vehicles. (Two cars and two motorcycles.)

My only criticism (and it applies to many applications including various email clients and others) is the absence of password security to access the data. Considering that I maintain information such as insurance policy numbers, vin numbers, license plate numbers, etc. it would be extremely useful to provide an option for a user to designate a password to access the application.

Thanks a lot for downloading and trying aCar, and thanks for your feedback. Just a few other users have requested this feature. But the problem I see is that you won't be secure enough by just password protect one or two applications (even if you can convince the developers of those apps). Generally with smartphones more and more sensitive/private data sit there on phones (photos, emails, videos, car info, address book, etc). Ideally, there should be a general way to protect the entire phone data; like a password protected lock screen (on Android) or finger print recognition to unlock the screen.

Anyways, I just increased the votes for this feature in my list. If I get high enough votes, I will go for it.

Cheers,

 

[armond]

I downloaded this probably right after you released it and it's the only app that I haven't touched but hasn't gotten uninstalled. Honestly I think it'll be a great tool, but I haven't sat down and input all the needed info for my vehicles yet.

Thanks for the screenshots, kind of gets a little spark under my but to start getting it set up.

Thanks for your feedback. For a jump start, you can import your history data all in one shot! aCar can import from various sources/applications... You can try it out in the free version (it will import up to 10 records). If you liked it, you could upgrade to Pro to fully enable this feature.

Best Regards,

 

[armond]

Been using this since Dec and LOVE it. But there is one MAJOR issue (at least on my Droid). The auto-backup feature is useless... it creates a backup file but it is just a copy of the previous backup file (i.e. new changes/additions are NOT there)... I have to manually do a backup in order to get all the current data to save. Not sure what the issue is. It's not a big deal but it's caused me to loose data after a ROM flash several times until I figured out I had to do a manual backup before flashing (which at 2am I sometimes forget). Fix this and the app will be perfect:icon_ banana:

Thanks for your feedback. As far as I know, there is not any bug on auto-backup. The backup process itself is similar in manual and auto backup scenarios. I mean the same code is executed, one is manually triggered and the other is triggered by internal device alarm (periodically). But I've seen one common point in auto-backup-file-is-empty complaints...

On one hand, the free version only supports monthly auto-backups. And there is high probability that when the first or second auto backup is executed, there are no records entered yet. The first real backup, which can contain real data, is executed at the end of first month (30 days after the first run) and this is just in case you've entered any data before then! Suppose you start entering your data after the first month. Obviously you should wait for the next auto-backup at the end of the second month, and any phone crash can ruin your data (the first month backup file does not contain any real data, just your app settings)!

On the other hand, sometimes even the Pro users do not change the default auto-backup frequency (monthly) and the same above scenario (users of free version) can occur. That's why I'm force update the default frequency to "daily" after upgrading to "Pro". You can even set it on "hourly" for maximum safety

Now in your case, while making sure you have some data entered, please change the auto-backup frequency to haourly. Wait an hour till the process executes. Go to the following path on your SD-Card where all the backup files (auto and manual) are stored there:

/data/com.zonewalker.acar/aCar-auto-*.abp

And email me the latest auto-backup file (notice the date/time stamp each file name has). I will let you know if you've captured a real bug or it's the same common story I've explained above.

Oh, one question. So I have my oil-change set for every 5k I am 100 miles from a 5K mark but still have not got a reminder? I'm guessing because I haven't done one since I got the program but I would suggest adding an option of setting a 'first reminder' mark for the first change ect.

You are quite right. You should enter at least one service record of a service type to track it. I can track all the services but imagine there can be tens of different service types there and it will be hard for you to find those who have really interested in. As a trick, you can enter the previous service record of that type (even approximately). In your explicit case, enter an oil-change service record on odometer reading of "current_odometer_reading - 4900".

Side-note for entering a past record: The date/time you enter should be in sync with other records as well. For example if you've already entered a record on "10,600 miles" for March 1, you can't enter "7,540 miles" for "March 8" (logically incorrect)! The date/time should be before "March 1" because the odometer reading (7,450) is before that (10,600).

Let me know if this works for you.

Thank you,

 

[KZIWarrior]

I'll adjust the save profile and send you the files tonight.

For the maintenance, do the reminders not pull from the vehicle mileage (I was assuming they would pull from the gas mileage)?

 

[sgdossey]

I think it is a great program, but I need Mileage logging for business trips. Is this something that you can add easily?

 

[noisufnoc]

great app. i've been using it for a while, and recently went pro.

 

[KZIWarrior]

I think it is a great program, but I need Mileage logging for business trips. Is this something that you can add easily?

+1 this would be great!

 

[MNTNBKR]

I've been using aCar since the first week of having my Droid (first week in December) and I love it. I've never been motivated to sit down and see exactly how much it costs me to drive a mile...now it's as easy as turning my phone on its side.

Great App!

 

[KZIWarrior]

Armond, check your email when you have a moment. I sent you the files as you instructed. Thanks for the time.

Edit:
K-9 is having some issues so I've posted them here for you.

 

[armond]

For the maintenance, do the reminders not pull from the vehicle mileage (I was assuming they would pull from the gas mileage)?

aCar uses both service and fillup records mileage (which one is higher) to determine the reminders. But as I mentioned earlier, for the sake of simplicity, you'll only get the reminders for the already recorded services.
Not entering any service record for a service type means you're not interested to track it as well.