Today I am with Jonas Witt from Metaquark, the company behind Berlin Trip Planner (German: Fahr-Info Berlin), an iPhone app which recently had to remove their maps, because the BVG (Berlin transport company) complained they were under copyright. Thus, while the app is still incredibly useful and much more useful than BVG’s own mobile site, it has now become much less useful without the maps.

Why did you decide to make the Berlin Trip Planner?

I was pretty clueless what to do with my iPhone developer privileges up until about two weeks before the App Store launch back in July. The idea to write a trip planner application was inspired by Johannes Plunien, author of the brilliant MVV Dashboard Widget (which covers Munich public transport), when we exchanged some AppFresh-related support mails just about at that time. I rushed to get the application accepted in time for the App Store launch, and that worked out pretty well. You can read more about the whole process on my blog entry, The App Store Experience.

Why did you decide to make it free?

I decided to make the application free since I wanted people just to use it and enjoy it, and nobody had the slightest idea how App Store pricing would be perceived and I thought it wouldn’t generate a lot of revenue anyway, given that it’s intended for a very limited audience. The zero price tag lead to a lot of impulse “buys” which gave me a good reputation, since most people loved the application. The small amount of time I invested in that application has more than paid for itself since.

Can you elaborate on what exactly the BVG complained about? Were they just complaining about the copyright of the maps or did they want you to remove the maps altogether?

The copyright notice on their website bvg.de (where the PDF map is from) states that you are allowed to use the website’s content for personal and non-commercial use only. Shipping the PDF with my application is no personal use, and I didn’t ask for permission to do so, so they made me remove the maps from the application.

I have also read that the BVG is trying to remove your app from the App Store altogether. Is this true or just a rumor?

That’s a rumor. [Editor's note: I later discovered this was an English mistranslation/overexaggeration of a heise.de article and has since been corrected (heise is basically the German equivalent of slashdot).]

I read recently that they are working on their own application that would work across all platforms. Do you think they are going to develop their own iPhone app or not do anything with the iPhone altogether?

I can only guess here, but that “will work on all platforms” bit makes me think it will be a Java application, which couldn’t run on the iPhone since it doesn’t support Java. I’m not sure if they’re gonna make a separate iPhone application, but I don’t expect either application to become available soon.

What are your future iPhone plans?

I’m currently doing contract work on several iPhone applications, there are Mac projects that need to be continued (AppFresh), and university demands my attention from time to time, so there aren’t any concrete plans right now. It’s definitely a fun platform to write applications on, though, so Fahr-Info won’t be my last.

Thank you for the interview and I hope the BVG soon comes to their senses!