BrinkGuides is an ongoing project of Brink Media. As a fulltime developer for the agency, the owner and I decided to recreate the mobile travel guide apps that we had built for clients, into a framework for Brink’s own brand of alternative travel.

I programmed an extensive and scaleable template upon which I could share common libraries to redevelop and re-skin multiple travel destinations. This enabled me to create new apps with custom graphics – for Brink or agency clients – within just a matter of hours.

After building, submitting and successfully selling a dozen such guides to the app store, Apple changed an approval policy that required a different approach. At that point, I handed the project over to new Brink Media developers. Eventually, all of the apps I built will be removed from sale in order to repackage the content into a single BrinkGuide that sells cities in-app. But in the meantime, many of the apps remain available in the store for download (though there are a few small visual bugs caused by iOS updates that will not been addressed further).

I continue to use the template I created for ongoing, periodic maintenance for the Monaco Travel Guide app, which I ported over after I completed the global travel guide framework.

IN THE APP STORE
BrinkGuide: Sicily Edition • BrinkGuide: Edinburgh Edition • BrinkGuide: New Delhi Edition • BrinkGuide: Brighton Edition

BrinkGuide: Manhattan and San Francisco Editions were removed from sale in the fall of 2012.

The FREE editions of the BrinkGuides series were an experiment to determine whether a free ad-supported app could garner equal attention and income for Brink Media. The two editions were built on the same template developed for the standard editions, simply adding in-app advertisements using Apple’s iAd service.

BrinkGuide: SF FREE Edition is still available in the app store for download.
BrinkGuide: Manhattan FREE Edition was removed from sale late 2012.

For more information about the guides, you can visit the BrinkGuides website at www.brinkguide.com