iPod/iPhone App for railfanning.

I have been wanting to get into Mac OS and iPhone/IPod Touch development and over the summer I managed to teach myself a good deal of Objective-C (used to create applications) via a book and hopefully begin a book on iPhone/iPod Touch app development soon.

Having always been a railfan I was thinking what could I make that would benefit the hobby. A few ideas came to mind, but the main one centered around this…

A lot of times as I went railfanning I noticed many people who log information in regards to the trains they watch, creating their own timetables for a certain area. Perhaps I could make an app that could do something such as that. The user of the app could enter information about the trains they spot at a given location such as; Arrival Time, the Consist, Origin, Destination, Road Name/Locomotive types, Notes, Images (if you have an iPhone you could take a picture and use it for the logged information), ect… and based on that information the app could calculate a predicted weekly schedule when and what trains can be spotted at that given location. Calculating the average arrival times of a train would do this. The other information entered for each train could be stored and used for later reference aswell.

Ess

When you do a lot of railfanning and take photos and video, you can use that information in conjunction with data from other railfans to create a timetable for your favorite railfanning spot. Here’s mine for Worcester, MA. (link)

Obviously an iPhone app would be easier to use, but I think it would take a LONG time to compile enough information for a complete and mature list to emerge. My list took me several days to compile, and over half of the information came from online, and a lot of that online information cannot be found by an iPhone, since it requires contacting people as well as advanced searches.