Version 1.8 Release
Version 1.8 of Backseat Geologist is now available on the App Store and Play Store. This version translates the app into five new languages to serve geology lovers across the globe.
New Features
Internationalization
This is a belated blog post since 1.8 was released about a month ago, itâs been a busy summer! This update brings new languages to the app with the addition of French, Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese as the first set of new languages added to the app. The app will speak about the geology in your native language based on your device settings. Most of the geologic data is still in English but descriptions of the rocks are now generated in the device language. The user interface is also translated to each of the supported languages. My hope is that people across the world can now better access and understand the geology around them! Of course there may be mistranslations and rough edges so there is a new feedback mechanism in the app settings to contact me about any incorrect translations, bugs, or feature requests.
To go with the languages, I also worked on the maps in some parts of the world. Mismatched map scales could cause some areas to not show in high detail depending on the map quality availability. I worked to upscale (probably) hundreds of thousands of map tiles to smooth out coverage and increase the zoom level of where the geologic map will show. This was extensive across large parts of Europe and South America.
Bug Fixes
After 1.8 was released I received some great feedback on some nagging issues that were fixed in versions 1.8.1 and 1.8.2. Maps now load faster and repeated unit descriptions in explore mode should now be fixed. As always, please reach out if you encounter bugs and I will work to get them corrected as soon as possible.