Since introducing the first full translation of our mobile app about a year ago we’ve being working hard to include an ever growing number of language options for TruckcomMobile. In fact, at the time of writing TruckcomMobile supports 14 languages: French, Dutch, Icelandic, Polish, Swedish, Russian, Romanian, Czech, Finnish, German, Spanish, Hungarian, Italian and Lithuanian.
These translations are available on all platforms (Android, iOS and Windows Phone) and can be enabled for existing users by navigating to Settings -> Languages in Truckcom. For new users it couldn’t be easier, for any device with a non-English localisation the first screen the user sees is the language selection form shown below.
One of the goals of these translations is to make our application ever simpler to use. With that in mind we have been careful to build these translations into our systems in such a way that no language packs or updates will ever be required. Any new languages or changes to existing phrases can be pushed to devices remotely and will seamlessly appear in the app.
The custom user guides mentioned in a previous blog post go hand in hand with the app and haven’t been left out of our multi language push. A full user guide is available in the languages above to make getting started as easy as possible.
If there is a language your drivers need not currently supported please contact us for more information.
It’s a big month for us all at Truckcom. The company has been trading for ten years and the future is looking very bright.
We decided to celebrate with a day out in London. This started with a climb over the 02. Yes, this may seem a bit bonkers, but we thought it would be something that we would all enjoy and might be a bit of a team building exercise too. Led by our guide, Carolina, we all donned our “space suits” and special footwear and set off, ably led by Carl, our appointed leader for the day!
The weather was kind to us and the views across the city were fantastic, especially from the viewing platform at the summit. We would strongly recommend this experience to visitors to the capital.
Obviously this level of effort required a period of recuperation with a cocktail or two and a good meal. Cheers!
Happy 10th Birthday Truckcom
Truckcom Lockdown is our kiosk mode application which has been available on Android since the initial launch of Truckcom Mobile. It’s core purpose to is to hide the native operating system functionality from users and helps prevent unintentional changes to device settings. It also prevents usage of data intensive applications such as YouTube which often come preinstalled on phones, usage of such applications may lead to an unexpected high mobile bill if the allocated data limit is exceeded. So in summary lockdown ensures a phone is not used for anything else other than Truckcom.
A challenge we faced when Truckcom Mobile was launched on Windows Phone was the inability to lockdown the phone. Due to the restrictive nature of the Windows Phone operating system we were unable to simply develop a custom kiosk application like we did on Android. For many months we thought kiosk mode on Windows Phone was not possible until we recently discovered Microsoft Intune.
Microsoft Intune is a cloud based mobile device management service that helps organisations manage their smartphones remotely. It has various features one of which includes application restrictions, the ability to choose what applications users have access to, this is effectively lockdown. There is however a per user monthly cost of $6 which is charged by Microsoft for use of the service.
The screenshot below is of a Windows Phone locked down device using the Microsoft Intune approach. As you can see three applications have been disabled however Truckcom Mobile has been left enabled meaning Truckcom Mobile can be launched but the three disabled applications cannot.
Hauliers looking to purchase phones that will be locked down now have a wider variety to choose from because they are no longer restricted to Android phones, they can now also purchase Windows Phones.
