Finish three of the four steps on iseeido’s setup checklist, then delete your only map. The card that read 3 of 4 now reads 0 of 4, and its first step, Add a map, is the next one again.
Nothing has gone wrong. The checklist never wrote those three ticks down.
Four steps on a card
The checklist is a card headed Get set up, on the Go and Maps tabs. It lists the four things between a new user and a first journey: Add a map, Place it on Earth, Mark the door, Take your first journey. The step that’s next carries a line of explanation and, where there is something to open, a button. Under Place it on Earth, the line begins: “A map knows its own shape but not where it is.”
It arrived in build 10, in place of a spotlight tour. The tour dimmed the screen and swallowed every tap until you did what it said. The card blocks nothing, and you can hide it.
The plain way to build a checklist is to record each step when it happens. iseeido’s records one step out of four.
What each tick reads
Every time the card draws, it looks at your library of maps and at their placements on Earth, and asks three questions.
- Add a map is ticked if the library holds at least one map.
- Place it on Earth is ticked if one of those maps has a placement good enough to route to. That means the estimated error in its position on Earth is under 60 metres.
- Mark the door is ticked if one of those placed maps has a door.
Only the fourth step is remembered. Starting a journey, or being guided inside a place, saves one fact: a journey was taken.
- 4steps on the card
- 3worked out afresh each time the card draws
- 1remembered: a journey was taken
What that buys
Deleting. A deleted map leaves the library and waits in Recently Deleted. The placement and the door only count for maps that are in the library, so all three ticks go together. If you had already taken a journey, that tick stays, and the card reads 1 of 4.
Other routes to the same place. Since build 10, a placement someone shared with you opens from Files, AirDrop and Messages. Open one, and Place it on Earth ticks without the line-up screen ever being seen. The app’s Help puts the rule in a few words: each step ticks itself off when it’s done, “however you did it”.
Rough placements. A placement too rough to route to puts nothing on the Go tab, so it doesn’t earn the tick either. The card and the Go tab ask the same question.
Practice. Design Centre, the sample building, is made up and ships with the app. It’s kept in a store of its own, apart from your library, so lining it up and marking its door tick nothing. The demo journey doesn’t count as a first journey.
The one thing it remembers
The fourth step is a saved yes or no, and it is set in two places: when a journey starts, and when guidance begins inside a place. One group gets it without doing anything. If the app’s History already holds a navigation from before the checklist existed, the step starts ticked. They have already been somewhere, and the card doesn’t send them again.
The goodbye is handled with the same care. After the last step the card says You’re all set, until you tap Done. It only says so if the checklist was once on screen with something left to do. Someone whose places were all ready before the checklist existed isn’t congratulated for nothing.
With the phone in your hand
The card describes your phone as it is now, not a list of things you once did. Restore a deleted map, or mark a door from the map’s own screen, and the card catches up the next time it draws.
With VoiceOver, each row carries its state in words: “Add a map, done”, “Mark the door, next”. On the Go tab’s list the whole card is one line, which begins “Get set up, 3 of 4 done”.
To put it away, open Checklist options and choose Hide this checklist. To bring it back, open Settings with the gear on the Maps tab and, under Learn, choose Show the setup checklist. The support page says the same.
The fine print
- Good enough to route to: the estimated error of the place’s position on Earth is a finite number under 60 metres. A satellite line-up with no door still passes, because the street route can go to the building.
- The checklist saves four yes or no values: hidden, a journey taken, shown with something left to do, and goodbye dismissed.
- When the step that’s next is Place it on Earth or Mark the door, its button names a map: “Line up” or “Mark the door of”, followed by the map’s name.