TacLogic News

FAAwait Updated

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:01:26 -0500

Apple has approved our latest update for FAAwait (1.60) and it is available in the App Store now. This update adds some workarounds for the recent availability issues with the FAA servers. It now has two backup servers that it will attempt to access if the primary one does not work. This still does not guarantee a connection, but in our testing it has improved the situation considerably. If you continue to have problems after this update, please let us know.

FAAwait Status Update

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 11:17:31 -0500

Over the past few weeks, the FAA servers accessed by FAAwait have become less reliable than they have been in years past. This has resulted in more frequent connection errors from the app, which we know are annoying to all concerned (this also seems to impact other services on www.fly.faa.gov, which can be verified via the Safari link to that site in the app itself). This problem has been exacerbated in some circumstances where the device does not connect immediately to the server once it returns. We are working on an update that can make the app more resilient in those cases, but since the underlying issues are outside of our control testing is difficult.

In the meantime, forcing the app to fully close (double-click the home button, then tap the red minus sign on the FAAwait icon) then launching it again often will correct the problem. If not, removing it from the device and then reloading it via iTunes or the App Store seems to resolve any lingering issues (note that this will not result in any additional charges from Apple). If neither of these steps works for you, please email support.

We appreciate everyone’s patience as we work through these connection issues, and hope that the FAA can get their servers back to the levels of uptime we have experienced in the past.

Even More TSAwaiting

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 07:34:16 -0500

It has now been two weeks since the TSA has updated their master wait time file. We’ve never seen a gap like this. Hopefully they will get back to updating it on a more regular schedule soon. We are checking for that elusive update hourly and will push it out as soon as it finally shows up.

Update: We were working on our backup plan to update our feed with data from the interactive part of the TSA web site. Unfortunately, all of our testing so far has shown that (despite indications to the contrary), the manual web site information is no more up to date (or at least no different) than the feed we were using. We’re still willing to go this route, but there isn’t much point until there is new data somewhere. There are other aspects of the TSA site that aren’t working as well, so hopefully they will get the whole site back to full functionality soon.

TSAwait Updates

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:07:03 -0500

Now that TSAwait has gone live, the TSA data feed has been tormenting us with data oddities and inconsistent updates these last few days. Until this week, things had been a lot more consistent with the feed, but the last couple days they are running a day or so behind. In addition, a few glitches have slipped into the processed data that may impact some users. For the most part, they should be cleared up when you do the next update. If you were unlucky enough to update this morning (9/13), you may now be seeing a data date of “(null)”, which may impact your ability to update in the future. In that case, you will need to delete the application on your device, and reinstall a fresh copy from iTunes or the App Store (you won’t be charged again).

That reinstall process can be done in any case to get back to the original/older data file which can then be updated with the freshest set. Normally, the application will only do an update if the data are a week or more old, which is a bit of a problem if it doesn’t know how old it actually is (or if there was some unforeseen glitch with the info).

Sorry for the inconvenience, and both our back-end updater and the next release of TSAwait are being hardened to better deal with these sorts of glitches in the future.

TSAwait Released

Tue, 9 Sep 2008 22:17:10 -0500

Well it was a longer time coming than we had anticipated, but what was actually our first travel-related iPhone app in development is finally out on the App Store. This is a companion of sorts to FAAwait (hence the similarity of names), in that it provide more information on another aspect of travel delays: the wait times at TSA security checkpoints. Obviously bundling up the TSA statistics is not quite the same as reporting real-time data from the FAA, but it it still can be a useful planning tool, particularly when traveling to new and unfamiliar airports. See the product page for all the other boring disclaimers.

This one was a little more complicated in that we had to get a bit more infrastructure in place to support the data feeds, and we wanted to make sure that we (hopefully) got it all right. Because the raw feed from the TSA is a bit much to digest on an iPhone (at least if you want to have the whole data set ready and available at any time), we process the TSA information and then provide it to the app for its updates. Once loaded, it has all the data for every airport in the system, and requires no further internet access for actual use.

We also have a “Lite” version heading for the App Store. The Full version actually beat it out there (we kind of expected it to be the other way around), so if you are on the fence save your $1 until you can play with the free one. Being free, it only has a subset of the airports, and is not able to do updates over the internet.