“In open source, we feel strongly that to really do something well, you have to get a lot of people involved.“ These are the wise words of Linus Torvalds. And now, Snowdog is thrilled to share some exciting news: Wander App is officially open source! Wander App was created with a simple goal in mind - to make travel easy and enjoyable. We wanted to provide a platform where people could create and share their unique stories. Today, we are embracing the power of the community by going open source. We have made our Android and iOS apps available on our GitHub page. We invite everyone to join us in shaping the future of this project. Together, we can make Wander App even more amazing!
What’s Wander App?
Well, I’m glad you asked. Have you ever felt like you have nowhere to go while exploring a new city? I have, on multiple occasions. At the same time, I recognised the value of knowing what makes the city unique. If you’re like me, then you probably know two possible solutions to that problem. First one — research Tripadvisor, Culture Trip, Foursquare or Wikipedia and bookmark 1000 links to intriguing spots in a given city. Then lay them on the map and solve the travelling salesman problem. The second solution is to hire a local guide. An excellent solution only maybe except for the cost, lack of privacy and tight timetable.
So what if there was the third solution? Well… now there is!
Wander app is an interactive guided tours platform. Tours are made up of a wide range of interactive tasks. While exploring, you could be asked to reach a particular location or wander around the area to find and examine a city map. Wander is designed for tourists, that like getting into engaging stories. It is also made for people who like sharing those kinds of stories. The app allows users to travel on their terms because it lets them chose the path to follow.
Where did the idea for Wander App come from?
The idea for Wander came to me after the Munich Research Open debating tournament. It was a cold evening that day. My friends tasked me to take them for a tour around the town. I remember my fingers freezing while I did research about what interesting stories Munich has to offer. After reading a dozen different stories, I was about to give up. Then I read about the Beer Putsch. The anecdote about a failed coup d’état fascinated my friends. Particularly, since we were standing in the very spot where it happened. This story made me consider the following.
How many other great stories I may have missed?
I saw a need for an app that would help me with that problem.
Shortly after the trip, I stumbled upon the MyGalileoApp competition. Its goal was to design, develop and commercially launch a mobile app that would use user location. Lucky! I sat down with
Artur and prepared a sample design draft for the app. He even wrote an article about the proposed navigation
We had a revolutionary vision for this one. Minigames, achievements, social features, co-op missions were just one of the several features proposed. 3D object tracking? What a remarkable idea!
I devised a business model — Udemy inspired 50/50 split of profits between Wander and guide creator. Then I prepared estimations for the app and encapsulated them in Gantt chart. Submission was sent.
We felt incredibly relieved when the results came back. We qualified for the second milestone. The European Space Agency validated our idea. Wander, and 29 other projects were picked out of 150 total submissions. That was a real kicker. Since that point, our team could completely concentrate on delivering functioning beta in two months. Simple. We had confidence both in our tech and the idea itself. The second submission was sent. We qualified for the final top 10. The only thing left was to present a winning pitch on the 7th of November in Prague.
Unfortunately, we did not win. The jury did not believe in one of our fundamental presumptions, that a community of travellers will contribute their stories.
What’s next?
Now my main goal is to try to rewrite some of the code to SwiftUI. I would love for this app to convert fully into SwiftUI, so if you share my vision go ahead into our GitHub repo and try to refactor a view or two :)
Also, soon we will be adding new missions in Porto, Barcelona, so if you are from that area please send me a message! It would be great to have somebody test run our guides.
Why open source?
Hence the decision to go open-source. We strongly believe that finding passionate people is just a matter of time.
If you believe in our vision — contribute to the project. Start small and send us a mission or feature idea. We would love to get in contact with everyone that is interested.
You can find project repo here: github.com/SnowdogApps/Wander
You can drop me a message at marcel.mierzejewski@snow.dog.
One more thing…
A big thank you to everyone from Snowdog that was involved in Wander App’s creation. Special thanks to Clara, who helped me every step of the way. From initial designs to creating and uploading content to the app. Additionally, big thanks to Artur and Piotr, who were respectively iOS and Android leads in this project. I also have to acknowledge Bartosz and Bartłomiej’s work — you held watch over this project’s timeline. Much appreciated. 💪
