CityApp is a mobile multimedia guide for visitors and residents of a city or region. More than 50 iOS and Android applications have been delivered to German, Austrian and Swiss cities such as Salzburg, Linz, Augsburg or Luzern in the past 4 years. See Mobile and More Software Development UG.

The application content, including the device database and all multimedia files, can be used online and offline. Users can select to download these files from our remote server or delete all from the device. The size of the complete database and multimedia content is in the range of 25 – 250 MB.

Database and multimedia files on the remote server are managed by content editors using Content Manager (CMS) desktop applications. Each city – i.e. each CityApp application – has dedicated CMS and servers that are run by local staff. Small towns are organized into regional applications.

The presentation theme and skin can be changed by the editors at any time. Each CityApp is dynamically customizable both in theme and content. Only application icons and other initial images, like toolbar and navigation bar icons are embedded into the application bundle as fixed image.

The structure and content of the menu navigation is read from the device database. The number of menu levels and number of items on a menu level is not predefined and changes frequently. Practically it increases as the content is growing. An average size city requests around 1,000 individual menu items.

Users can generate customized ad-hoc lists such as favorites, around me, route planner or search result lists. The app does not control how many menu items are added or removed from these lists.

The content of the Point of Interest (POI) pages are also read from the device database. A POI usually contains on-demand downloadable images and addresses with step-by-step navigation link as well as some tabbed HTML pages. None of the POI items are embedded into the application. All POI images and text are added by the content editors and can easily be changed. New or changed images and text content is downloaded from the server and online links become available. An average size city requires around 5,000 POI items.

It provides foreground and background location and iBeacon detection services for users by presenting relevant and location dependent information on businesses, shops, museums and public institutions of the given city/region. It offers step-by-step navigation instructions to the selected or nearest points of interest and offers a route planner. iBeacon data is edited by the CMS. Route planner is an ad-hoc list that is customizable by the device user. Location, iBeacon, notification and download options can be enabled or disabled by the user.