Aaron’s Time Machine

The Concept

Aarons Time Machine allows users to explore 1827 London on their iPhone. The centre piece of the application in an old original hand drawn map that I've integrated into the iPhone in a Google Maps like manner, along with over 160 points of interest that have taken place around London over the last 2000 years. The application is best known for allowing users use their phone's GPS feature to pinpoint their current location in a London before the likes of Trafalgar Square and Shaftsbury Avenue ever existed.

The Technology

I wrote the app in Objective-C within Apple's Xcode, utilising the iOS SDK. As no method exists within the SDK for implementing a custom high-resolution map, this has to be created from scratch using a customised implementation of CATiledLayer along with all the associated transformations to give it that "iPhone feel". Core Data is used for managing the library of historical events that have occurred around the city in a very memory efficient manner.

I also created a bespoke Content Management System in PHP and MySQL, allowing non-technical users to directly update the historical events contained within the application. There is also an associated promotional website written in PHP.

All the points of interest were compiled and written by Gwyn Headley.