We first gave you a look at Thrill Seeker 2.0 back in September and since then it's come on leaps and bounds. I'm pleased to tell you that the app is now nearing completion and will hit the app store next month!

So, time for a big update on some of our main features. Here it goes...

First off the gallery is now 100% complete and we've enlarged the thumbnails to fit three photos per row:



Here's a photo that's selected, you can either swipe to scroll through or use the arrow buttons at the bottom right hand corner of the screen. The action button at the bottom left of the screen brings up the option to save the image to your camera roll:



Next up, the nearby screen. It's now fully working and has been re-designed to show the exact distance to each item:



Search is also now implemented. You can perform a text search and use the A-Z index to scrub through results. This screen now displays the category of each item too:



Maps have been a highly requested feature and they've been fully integrated as a method of browsing through a park. Just like in the list view, you can filter what's displayed too. Here's a map showing all of the rides at Alton Towers:



If you change the filter to show more than one type of item, the pins on the map become colour coded. Here's everything in the Forbidden Valley area of the park. Rides are in red, attractions in green and facilities in purple:



Tapping a pin brings up the name of the item, along with its category, and you can tap the arrow to the right to navigate to that item's screen:



You may notice that our hand drawn maps are not yet implemented - 'Why!?' I hear you cry! Well, unfortunately they won't arrive until 2.1 due to some technical restraints. We want our own maps to be very high resolution and we want to allow them to be stored on the device for use without a network connection. We're going to take the time to get this right and we're sure it'll be worth the extra wait. To help soften that blow, here's a teaser of the kind of thing you can expect:



Finally, our much improved directions feature. This has undergone a total overhaul and now includes text directions, an annotated map, estimated walking distance remaining and a compass:



Directions are faster an more intelligent than ever. Here's a more complex route taking place across multiple theme parks within Walt Disney World Resort. The route is from the Classic Carousel in Downtown Disney to Kilimanjaro Safaris in Animal Kingdom and makes use of the resort bus routes:



You can even tap on parts from the list and the map will zoom in and highlight that part of the route:



So, that's a shed load of screenshots covering Thrill Seeker 2.0 to keep you all up to date! There's still some features we've not uncovered so keep checking back for more in the run up to the big 2.0 release. Remember, you can subscribe to our mailing list to be notified when it becomes available.

With all of our efforts and attention currently being directed at Thrill Seeker 2.0, it's easy to forget the success of Towers Guide. Towers Guide, of course, was the first app we released. For those of you that don't know, it's basically got all of the Thrill Seeker functionality but just covers Alton Towers - and it's free!

We're delighted to report that on 29th January Towers Guide received it's 5,000th download. That means that Towers Guide is installed on over 5,000 iPhones/iPod touches, which thinking about it, is pretty awesome!

Here's to the next 5,000!

One of the most requested features for Thrill Seeker has been the addition of photos to the app and today I'm pleased to be able to tell you that the implementation of photos is virtually complete!

Thrill Seeker will download photos from our server, displaying them in a way very similar to the native 'Photos' application that comes with all iPhones and iPod touches. Once a photo has been downloaded, it's cached so that you don't need to download it again. If you're viewing lots of photos, then the cache can of course grow quite large, so there's an option to clear the cache if you're running low on space - or disable it all together.

Here's a shot of the Photos screen for the Oblivion ride at Alton Towers:



You can navigate through photos just like you do in the native 'Photos' app, by swiping left and right with your finger. There's also a button at the bottom left of the screen which brings up the option to save the current image to your camera roll:



We'll be busy populating Thrill Seeker with 1,000's of photos between now and the launch of the app and can't wait to deliver some multimedia to our users.

As promised, it's time for an update on the progress of Thrill Seeker version 2.0. For those who aren't aware, Thrill Seeker is currently being totally re-written from the ground up as we build in a host of brand new features and improve upon the ones already there.

A month back I posted the first screenshot of version 2.0 and today I will reveal some others. It's worth noting that the screenshots below are far from complete articles, but I'll try to explain where we're at.



The above screenshot shows the screen you come to when you navigate into a theme park. The first thing to note is that the title bar is an ever so slightly different shade a blue (a touch darker), the tiniest of cosmetic changes we know, but we think it looks better!

We've made quite significant improvements to make finding the rides, attractions and facilities you're after much easier. Firstly, each item now has a subtitle which describes the type of entity it is. After all, if you're at a park you're not familiar with, how are you supposed to know what "Arctic Express" is? You'd probably think it was some sort of train ride, but with version 2.0 of Thrill Seeker you'll be able to see that it's a take away thanks to the accompanying subtitle.

The button found at the bottom right of the screen will eventually take you to the park map(s), but there's not much to show in that department just yet. The button on the bottom right of the screen opens up something new - filtering.



Filtering is the second big change to browsing. With version 1 of Thrill Seeker you could select from a set of three buttons whether you wanted to see "Rides", "Attractions" or "Facilities". With version 2.0 you'll be able to select from a whole lot more! Tapping on the bottom left button (don't worry - the button icons will change!) will bring up a list of possible filters - as shown in the screenshot above. Selecting any of these filters will immediately return you to the previous screen with the selected filter taking effect.



Moving onto the final screenshot, you can see the current state of the item screen. As you can see, all rides/attractions/facilities will now have a small thumbnail icon accompanying their description. You'll also notice a re-shuffled menu of options, including the addition of "Multimedia" which will eventually offer photo and video galleries. There are actually quite a few things left to add to this screen, which we think will be super-useful, more on that as they're developed.

So, I hope that's enough to raise those excitement levels once again! Nothing quite ground breaking to show yet, but lots more exciting things are on the way so remember to keep checking back to this blog for the latest Thrill Seeker news.

Since our last blog entry just 3 weeks ago, a further 2 parks have been added to Thrill Seeker: SeaWorld Orlando and Busch Gardens Tampa.

Busch Gardens Tampa includes Adventure Island and Busch Gardens Africa whilst SeaWorld Orlando includes Aquatica, Discovery Cove and SeaWorld - bringing the total parks we cover up to 19.

As with all updates, the addition will automatically appear within Thrill Seeker the next time the app checks for updates. To get the new parks immediately, you can set Thrill Seeker to check for updates every time it launches from within the 'Settings' app.

A version 2 update will be posted soon, as I promised in the last entry. Stay tuned!