Re-Introducing State Lines for iPhone

Almost three years ago, we launched our first iPhone app – State Lines. And this week, we have done our first substantial expansion of it in a very long time, fully updating it and adding in 10 additional data points.

If you’re newer to our blog or haven’t heard about our apps, then let this be our opportunity to introduce you to one of our little side projects.

Because some things change when you cross the line…

Traveling around the USA, you may have had some of the same experiences we have…

• You pull into a new state, decide it’s a good night for a beer, and assume you can stock up at a grocery store.  You search and search, only to find none for sale… or that you can’t buy any alcohol on a Sunday… or that what is sold in stores is not ‘real’ beer… Frustrating!
• You’re sitting at a red light, waiting to make a left from one one-way street onto another. There’s no traffic…  but is it legal to make a left on red?  It may be in your home state, but what about here?
• You stop to handle some major shopping chores, and only later realize that you could have saved substantial bucks by driving another 50 miles down the road into a state with substantially lower sales tax, or even no sales tax at all… Fuel taxes can swing dramatically from state to state too!
• You’re traveling through, and just need a place to stop over for the night to catch a snooze.  Is it legal to overnight in this state’s rest areas? What about the next?
• You get a text message on your phone while you’re driving – is it legal to read and return it in this state? (Not that this is ever smart, but…  is it legal?)
• You’re taking your nieces & nephews (or grandkids) with you for a couple weeks on a road trip – what are the child safety seat laws for the areas you’ll be passing through?
• And so on…

As we’ve traveled, we’ve been struck by the sheer number of variations in state laws and regulations that affect us as travelers. We’ve noticed major state-to-state differences in everything from public smoking bans, towing laws, alcohol laws, gas and diesel taxes, special time zone rules, helmet laws, leash laws and much more.

It’s amazing how much stuff can change right under your nose when you cross a state line.

So we decided to solve our own problem by compiling all this information into one easy-to-access place, and in the process we developed our first iPhone application.

You can purchase the app on Apple’s App Store with this link, or searching for ‘State Lines’:

State Lines has now been available for nearly 3 years, and we’ve kept it updated approximately bi-annually as laws change. Since we launched, we also added in several additional fields bringing the count to 57 state laws and regulations we’re tracking.

The newest additions this month are:

• Child Safety Seats & Rear Seat Regulations
• U-Turns Rules
• Keep Right Rules
• Alcohol (Beer, Wine, Liquor) & Cigarette Taxes
• More Motorcycle Laws (Eye Protection, Day Time Headlights and Lane Sharing)

The other laws that were already included are:  state sales taxes, gas & diesel taxes, bottle deposits, time zones, towing & RV specific laws, rest area overnight parking rules, default speed limits, alcohol sales laws, smoking bans, open container laws, state park camping entrance fees, pet leash laws, bicycle and motorcycle helmet laws, cell phone & texting bans, left hand turn rules, emergency highway contact info, left turns on red, right on red-arrows, radar detectors, seat belts and more.

State Lines is location aware, so it can automatically show you information about nearby states. The entire State Lines database is integrated into the application, so State Lines works even when you are out of cellular or WiFi coverage..

State Lines is a growing project, and we welcome feedback and ideas of other useful state specific information to include in future versions. We have plans at some point to totally re-write the app to be universal for the iPad, and integrate in some new features. But as State Lines is more a labor of love than income generator, it’s a project that will come when we have time.

We are really proud of our first iPhone application, and have gitteb many marvelous comments on it over the years from fellow frequent travelers who find it an indispensable tool.

Note about Android/WebOS/Windows: As app development is not our core business, we are currently only developing for iPhone/iPad. We do however have an open invitation for developers on other platforms to port our apps, and we’ll split the proceeds.  State Lines has thus far been ported to WebOS and Windows Mobile – however sales have been very low, and thus haven’t been worthwhile keeping updated. We also tried producing an eBook version to be device agnostic, it too did not generate enough sales to merit the costs. There is probably a decent market on Android, if there’s anyone out there looking for a little side or learning project… or anyone with some cash to invest to hire someone. State Lines is however a niche travel app with limited sales potential.

Note about Gun Carry Laws: You may have noticed that we removed gun carry laws about a year ago. We found this to be very complex topic, and not well suited to the short summarization format of State Lines. Since it’s an ultra important topic and could have significant consequences , we felt it was best to remove the field. If you need to keep on top of gun laws, we’ve heard great things about the Legal Heat app, which seems to be very comprehensive and written by gun enthusiast attorneys. We’ll let the experts concentrate on this one.

State Lines is a labor of love project for us, and targeting a very niche market. We can definitely use your help in helping spread the word about this app. You can help us by:

• If you’ve purchased the app and enjoy it, please leave a positive review on the App Store – reviews definitely help prospective buyers determine if the app will suit their needs.
• Know fellow travelers with iPhones or iPads? Please tell them about (or gift them) our app – word of mouth is the best advertising there is!
• If you blog, participate in forums or groups – when appropriate, please do mention our apps if you see an appropriate opportunity.

Thank you so much! We really do appreciate help – all of our updates so far have been free to existing customers, and they are funded by new app sales.