DMV Test Prep

The Ford Motor Company Fund is investing an additional $1 million to expand the company’s comprehensive Ford Driving Skills for Life National Tour. Teens in high schools across 15 states will be taught proper driving skills via free hands-on driving clinics with professional drivers at their own high school parking lots.

The goal of the program is to reduce traffic crash fatalities involving teenage drivers, focusing on building the skills of young drivers in the areas of driver distraction, speed space management, vehicle handling and hazard recognition.

A study just released by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety finds that the overall crash rating of a vehicle for side impacts have a significant effect on survivability during a driver-side crash. It’s not just whether a vehicle has side-impact airbags that matters, but the overall rating based upon the institute’s crash tests. Other factors such as strong side support structures influence the overall safety of the vehicle.

The study includes only passenger vehicles with side airbags, demonstrating that airbags, while crucial, are far from the whole story in side crash protection.

So don’t forget to consult the IIHS’s ratings before buying a vehicle.

The report can be found here.

There was a glitch in the iTunes App Store which has been preventing users from downloading paid versions of DMV Test Prep. If you tried to buy our apps you’d get a message saying “The item you tried to buy is no longer available.” It turns out that Apple’s ‘agree to our latest updated version of our contract with you’ had expired, which prevented new purchases.

Everything has been fixed and downloads will be active again soon. Sorry for the inconvenience but this came to us without warning or communication from Apple.

Tracking the gas mileage of your car is a great way to detect maintenance problems, and to improve your own driving habits towards economical driving. That’s important because it saves you money. Pen and paper is how I tracked mileage as a young driver, and still it was worth the effort. But today we have iPhone apps to transform tedium into simple, fun, and powerful.

Gas Pump [itunes, $4.99] for iPhone is super-easy to use and has built-in graphics to visualize your mileage log. But what’s really cool is cloud sync. Your mileage log and car info can be shared with other iPhones (or any iOS device). Great if more than one person is driving the car.

If you’ve got an extra moment it’s worth checking out on the App Store now.

This week we’ve been rolling out updates to the localized versions of DMV Test Prep, which updates the apps to universal with support for both iPhone and iPad. Now that iPad support is coming to all apps there’s no need to maintain a separate iPad-only version. Therefore the standalone DMV Test Prep for iPad app has been removed from sale. The same content, iPad UI, and StudyBox support can now be found in selected localized state versions, and eventually all state versions.

DMV Test Prep apps for the United States have been downloaded more than 150,000 times. Our customers are thrilled with the results they get. Now, we’re pleased to announce that we’ve been hard at work producing a version for Canadian provinces.

Our first release is for the Ontario Level One (G1) driver test. It comes with over 200 practice questions and answers, along with nearly 100 road signs, all in multiple-choice format. This test is designed specifically for Ontario with targeted questions directly from the manual. The initial release is for iPad only but soon we’ll be updating this to a universal binary which works on both iPad and iPhone/iPod touch.

[iTunes link]

If iPhone makes a good platform for mobile education, then iPad makes a great platform for learning. To really take advantage of what iPad can do we built a new app from the ground up especially for iPad. This isn’t just a blown up version of the iPhone app, but a complete rethink of how we’re doing things.

The most exciting change is LessonsMob, a cloud services platform we built which allows content updates on your device with just a simple sync. We can update existing practice questions and add new ones as state laws change.

We’ve also added the ability to bookmark questions which you’d like to review later. You can even write your own notes.

The biggest feature is how we took advantage of iPad’s larger screen. We were able to eliminate all navigation to different screens. The smaller size of the iPhone screen required moving around different screens to get things done, which is a significant distraction when you’re focused on learning.

In fact, the redesign is entirely focused on reducing distractions while you’re studying. The subdued white metallic theme, no ads, lack of hyperlinks in study material, annoying popups urging you to write a review, and the hyper-clean single screen design are all intended to help you study better… without distractions.

And one more thing… the price is still the amazing low at just $2.99.

[App Store link]

For 2010 we decided to consolidate all the localized editions into a single app which we call simply DMV Test Prep [iTunes, $2.99]. This edition will contain all the DMV Prep features we currently have available together with a greatly improved UI, all at the same price as the localized editions.

We decided to do this because the feature set was getting to big to maintain across 50 separate apps. Going forward we will be able to offer new features faster than ever before. Soon, we’ll have Facebook and Twitter integration so you can share your progress.

We’ve had a lot of positive feedback on the flashcard feature we implemented for road signs. Who doesn’t like flashcards for study? They’re simple, effective, and fun if you can get a group of friends or family together.

With that idea we’ve developed an entirely new app to help driving students prepare for the permit or driver license test, appropriately named DMV Flashcards. It was developed using the same test questions and answers database used in other DMV Prep products, so you know it’s proven.

It should be available for download early next week, baring any snags with Apple’s approval process. We’ve got a very good track record with Apple regarding approvals and haven’t had any issues for 7 or 8 months. The price is just $2.99 for all 50 states.

Update: DMV Flashcards has been released on the App Store and is available for download [link]. Check it out!