Company-X got a new Amazing Race-inspired app up and running.

When Conan Magill went off course with a Vietnamese application developer it was Company-X that guided him safely to Hamilton.

Company-X chief technology officer Rob Scovell put Matamata born and raised Conan back on track after he lost his way with the Amazing Race-inspired Suburban Pursuit and Navigation Quest (SPANQ) app.

Launched this month, the app builds on Google Maps to enable users to run their own Amazing Race style game by sending players from one point to several others. They check-in at each destination as they go using their mobile devices’ built-in GPS or camera.

The person running the game can build the course on a web-based application, while the player must complete the course using the mobile application.

“We are often in a situation where we rescue a project from an offshore developer,” said Scovell, a mild-mannered Englishman, who did the analysis and project management on the SPANQ app.

“We had a user experience designer, graphic designer and two developers working on it. One developer on the mobile app, for the Google Play and Apple App Store, and the other developer for the web app.”

Now SPANQ is firmly on the map.

It was a 10-month project which Magill, director of Auckland based Little Wolfhound Ltd, worked closely with Company-X on.

He had the idea four years ago when a treasure hunt he organized for his 30th birthday involved too many of his friends to run.

“The app is designed for Joe Average who wants to organize some fun for friends and family,” Magill said.

Company-X director David Hallett said because SPANQ exclusively used Google Maps across all mobile platforms rather than, say, Apple Maps or Bing Maps, competitors were going up against each other on a level playing field.

“It doesn’t matter if you are playing on the most expensive, or cheapest, handset out there,” Hallett said.

“We designed it so they all use the same high-fidelity mapping technology.”

“Company-X did such a great job on SPANQ that I wish I had come to them from the outset,” Magill said.

Rob to the rescue

A famous engineer once said “the right tool for the right job”. And that applies to people too.

Everything about Company-X chief technology officer Rob Scovell screams stability and sense, which is what makes him so good at his job at the Wintec House based software company in Hamilton.

“I can take you from the beginnings of your idea through to a viable and marketable product,” Scovell said.

“I provide innovation architecture, planning and implementation services. I love making tech innovation happen and have been involved in many unusual and ground-breaking projects, particularly in the VoIP and mobile spaces.”

All that means you can rely on Scovell to find the right set of robust solutions during the innovation process, drawing on his 20 plus years of software development experience in a wide range of languages and technologies.

Read Stuff’s coverage: Race is on for Waikato app