After 16 months of waiting and little work, I’m very happy to announce that my open source project tankste! has a new release.

tankste! is an mobile app that present you the prices of fuel stations a very smart way. I have started this project out of nonsense. My favorite app Bertha (developed by Mercedes) was shut down, and I decide to rebuild this app. I found an API to get the prices (special thanks to Tankerkoenig!) and re-use my UI from my Bar Finder app.

I only show the map with the prices. Nothing more. And after one or two days there was an new app, ready to publish. I already have access to the Play Store and the Apple Store, so I decide to upload my app and allow the other users to use my app. But I don’t expected that a lot of users will find or use my app.

Two month later I receive a support mail of a happy user, and he mentioned that he found tankste! on a news blog. I was completely beside myself: A look to the App Store analytics showed me about 5.000 downloads on last few days. I start seaching for my app on Google. And I found multiple Apple and iOS blogs, that write about my app. And the iOS community give me a lot of positive feedback to my project (4,6/5 stars by 600 ratings).

Blog entries I found:

  1. https://www.appgefahren.de/tankste-minimalistische-spritpreis-app-erinnert-an-bertha-323819.html
  2. https://www.appgamers.de/games-und-apps/tankste-neue-tankstellen-app-setzt-auf-community
  3. https://tchgdns.de/tankste-tank-app-ios-android/
  4. https://www.itopnews.de/2022/09/app-des-tages-tankste/
  5. https://www.mobiflip.de/shortnews/tankste-tankpreis-app-wird-open-source/
  6. https://www.iphone-ticker.de/tankste-app-zeigt-preise-google-maps-spart-sprit-197612/
  7. https://iphone-tricks.de/apps/111281-gratis-tipp-mit-dieser-app-tankt-ihr-billiger

Of course I had to continue the project now. I added a station detail page and publish the source code to Github. But my hard work was stopped by bureaucracy. For implement new features and solve the limitations, I need a own backend as data source. Because Tankerkoenig is limiting the requests to their (free) API. I decide to request access to Germany’s cartel office API. To do this you need an application, and a lot of time to wait. 12 months and a lot of telephone calls laters, I get access to the data end of last year.

And today the new version including an own backend server is published, and you can download the new tankste! version in the stores.

What is the mission for this project? I want to bring this project to more countries. Looking for fuel prices should not only available in Germany. For now I’m not sure how I will solve the common problems, but to go forwared I will add countries and station that provide their prices already. After that I will have a look to the other ones.

I’m very excited to move my very first open source app to the future. The next features are more countries and the Car Play support. Stay tuned!