In Myallo HotList, “People” are persons whose Hotness you have chosen to track.

This diagram shows the various parts of a Person “tile”, which you can see on the Radar Screen, People Screen, Person Screen, and Explain Screen. It applies equally well to Place tiles, which can be seen on the Radar Screen, Places Screen, Place Screen, and Explain Screen.

All information on a Person or Place is updated dynamically. Myallo HotList scans the External Services periodically, and if any more recent data than that shown is found, it is updated. The most recent information found is what is shown.

Name

The name of a Person is usually shown in black, but it is blue if it represents you, or orange if it represents a “discovered” Person or Place. See the Known Icon for more information.

Status and Status Source

The status, if there is one, is taken from one of the External Sources associated with the Person or Place. For example, it might be part of a Note in the Contacts, or the latest Tweet from twitter.com. The most recent status found is shown. The small icon to the left of the status line indicates the source from which the status came. For example, in the illustration above, the icon shows the status line came from Twitter.com.

Location and Location Source

The location is the most recent one found. Actually, two locations are kept. One is the text location seen here. The other is a set of map coordinates – longitude and latitude – that are used to place the “blip” on the Radar. These two locations are kept in sync though a “geocoding” mechanism. The latest location found for a person is kept, geocoded to the other form, and the text location version is shown here. Geocoding is performed via a service over the Internet, and it may take some time to do, or may not be possible at all if there is no Internet connection.

You can tell something of the status of the two locations. If there is a text location, it is shown here. If there is an equivalent , internally kept set of map coordinates, you will see the direction and distance information below it. If there are no map coordinates, the information will be blank (and the “Show on Radar” item on the Person Screen will be unavailable).

The small icon to the left of the location indicates the source of the location. In the illustration above, the location came from the Contacts. When a Person or Place is added from Contacts, if there is an address, that is used as the starting location. This won’t change unless you update the Contact or associate another External Service such as Twitter from which a new location can be obtained.

If the Person represents you, the source of the location is the device itself, is updated very frequently, and the small icon will be a blue dot. The device reports map coordinates. Geocoding will yield a street address, which will be shown. If you are moving, have a good Internet connection, and keep the device awake, this location can be updated more than once a minute. Note that on the Radar, the blue blip that represents you is usually up to the second, as the blip is placed according to the coordinates, though the street address shown may lag behind.

Distance and Direction

If map coordinates for the location are available, Myallo HotList frequently  computes and updates direction and distance information. The distance is the straight line distance from your current location to their most recent location. The direction gives you a basic idea of the compass direction from you to them. Note that you can get actual directions from you to them via the “Map Directions” item on the Person Screen – that will close Myallo HotList, open the Map application, and display driving, walking, or public transit directions from your location to theirs.

Note that on the Options Screen, you can adjust a Weight that can vary how much importance is given to distance from you when Myallo HotList calculates Current Hotness.

Location Freshness

This indicates how old the location information is. Your location is always up to date, so this whole line just says “This is me”. But for everyone else, the location information can range from up to the minute, to many months old. For example, if add your friend from the Contacts and the address there is used as the location, the freshness will be based on the date you last modified that Contact, and this can be quite old. If on the other hand you added your friend and associated them with Twitter, and they frequently update their location there, the location freshness is based on the time of their last Tweet and can be only a few moments old – and will slowly age until an updated location is seen.

Note that on the Options Screen, you can adjust a Weight that can vary how much importance is given to the freshness of a location when calculating Current Hotness.

Hotness and Hotness Type

This, of course, is the Hotness of the Person or Place. It ranges from a fiery 99% to a dull 0% and farther down to an icy -99%. There are two kinds of Hotness. Basic Hotness is the value you set on the Person Screen. Current Hotness is calculated by Myallo HotList and updated frequently, based on Current Hotness, distance from you and other People and Places, the Hotness of those People and Places, and other factors.

“Basic” Hotness is shown when you set it, and up until a Current Hotness is calculated that is different from the Basic value.

Known Icon

This icon appears if the Person or Place is “known”. That means you yourself added them via the Person Options or Places Options screen. If instead Myallo HotList has “discovered” the Person or Place, the icon is missing, and the name will be shown in orange. Discovered People or Places are temporarily added by Myallo HotList when an External Service says they are near your current location. For example, the Yelp Service may indicate several Places are nearby. They will be added as discovered places. They will be automatically removed once you move yourself out of their radius of influence (a few miles).

You can set an option saying if you want to see discovered items on the Radar Options, People Options, and Places Options screens.