UncleJimbo

^This I'm shocked that the app's developers haven't been spending 100% of their time on migrating critical features from the Classic app, like field notes. Instead, a new feature that will be seldom used* has been given higher priority. I won't even go into the laughably-incomplete definition of GeoTours used in the app or the ongoing usage of gratuitous and time-consuming animations. Boy, whatever the situation was that caused Groundspeak to hastily retire the old app and rush out the alpha-level-at-best new app, it sure screwed over both Groundspeak and the users. I'm just glad I do most of my caching with a handheld GPSr! *seriously, how many people are going to look at the GeoTours online, find the one they want, find the Help Center article, look up the GT code, and then search for it in the app? Thankfully the old ("Classic") app still works. It is baffling to me why so many features (e.g., pocket queries) vanished from the new app. Why rush out an alpha version of a "new" app that does not even have the current functionality of the previous app?

Thanks for your reply. Upon further searching, I found the newsletter in my Gmail bit-bucket. Not sure what happened there, but I did get it after all.

Was there an issue of Geocaching Weekly Newsletter for Feb. 23, 2012? If so, I never received it. Is there a way that I can request that it be resent? Thanks

I am sure that regular members would like the Google Maps back, too, but since that is not an option (Groundspeak cannot afford it), people are suggesting alternatives. It does not seem fair to raise the price of Premium Membership to cover the cost of Google, and then turn around and give these expensive maps to people who do not pay for them. Regular members would be free to upgrade to Premium if they wanted the maps. You missed the point entirely. The maps were *never* a premium perk. If your going around dreaming about Google maps, why make them a premium perk now? You can have regular member, premium member and then the optional map membership for who ever wants it. And I really don't care to pay more for my premium membership just so you can have Google maps. Forget the higher priced premium membership to bring Google maps back. You missed the point entirely. Most of the "premium perks" were not premium perks at some point in time. I am sure there are premium members who do not use some of the perks and wish they could pick and choose which to pay for, but currently Premium Membership is not a la carte. If Groundspeak wanted to make it a three tier system (e.g., Regular Member, Premium Member, and Super Premium with Google), then that would be a viable solution.

I am sure that regular members would like the Google Maps back, too, but since that is not an option (Groundspeak cannot afford it), people are suggesting alternatives. It does not seem fair to raise the price of Premium Membership to cover the cost of Google, and then turn around and give these expensive maps to people who do not pay for them. Regular members would be free to upgrade to Premium if they wanted the maps.

Yeah, I noticed this. It seems to be centered on the screen now, not the map as displayed. Kind of annoying.

This highlights my fear of relying on OSM. Look at all the crap on Wikipedia. How can I trust what is in OSM if anyone can add to and/or update the maps?

You don't have Google maps? Strange, I do. Negative, no google. However i'm not so much upset about the maps themselves, i don't mind the openstreetmap view, however the change greatly reduced how well the caches show up on my map. They used to render just fine, now if i move my mouse half the time they don't even show up. If the cache's and map function themselves operated at the same quality level as before i'd be content adjusting to the map change itself but when function lags because of it i'm not impressed at all. And i'm on a 4 month old decked out iMac so it's certainly not a hardware issue. Perhaps you should spend a little time poking around in the Geocaching Topics forum. Why do you keep beating around the bush in your posts? Telling people to poke around randomly does not help anyone. I assume you are talking about the GreaseMonkey script for Firefox? If so, why don't you say so. If not, then what are you talking about?

Performance. Checking for all notifications every time a cache is published or otherwise logged is a much harder database hit than a once-a-week listing of nearby caches. Also, notifications aren't especially useful at larger distances in most areas. I suspected as much. As others mentioned, many notifications are for FTF hounds (a miniscule fraction of geocachers), but I only wanted an expanded radius for Events. I will just have to remember to check the Weekly Newsletter for these. Cheers Since you're a premium member you can also create a pocket query that just returns events with a radius up to 500 miles and since Events are always published well in advance of the event there really isn't any need for an instant notification. I've an Event PQ that I created but don't even put it on the schedule, but I can preview it any anytime and get a complete list of Event within 100 miles. This is a good suggestion. I would actually have a regular use for a PQ other than for the the few times a year that I travel.

Performance. Checking for all notifications every time a cache is published or otherwise logged is a much harder database hit than a once-a-week listing of nearby caches. Also, notifications aren't especially useful at larger distances in most areas. I suspected as much. As others mentioned, many notifications are for FTF hounds (a miniscule fraction of geocachers), but I only wanted an expanded radius for Events. I will just have to remember to check the Weekly Newsletter for these. Cheers

Yes. 50 miles. Actually, it's 80 km. Any idea why? Just curious since the radius used in the Groundspeak Weekly Newsletter is much larger.

Yes. 50 miles. Thanks. I also found this unwritten rule mentioned in this thread: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=277015&view=findpost&p=4758761 I wonder why Groundspeak does not spell this out on the Instant Notifications set up page? http://www.geocaching.com/about/premium.aspx#anchorNotify

I searched around the site and forums for an answer, but could not find one. I am trying to increase the radius from home for which I will receive instant notifications (for event caches). I can't seem to get it to go higher than 50 miles (in fact, anything 50 miles or greater gets set to 49.7 miles). Is there an unwritten limit?

I finally got around to checking out the new maps. For my area, they are OK. I could live with them if I had to, at least for local geocaching. However, the Google Maps are better, and I would be willing to pay $5-$10 more per year to have the Google Maps back.

. Geocaching.com boasts 5 million geocachers worldwide I'm sure there ate more than 96,000 premium members a lot more I jumped to cacherstats.com Only 75,000 cachers have found more than 500 caches. There may be 5,000,000 accounts, but the vast number are casual users, that find a few caches a year. Yes the hard core cachers, or those that do it regularly are members, but most are not, and only find a few caches a month. Plenty of us Premium Members only find a few caches a month and have fewer than 500 finds. Not everyone is after the numbers. The bigger question is not what is the precise number of Premium Members, but what fraction of the daily Google Maps calls are made by Premium Members? If Premium Members are only responsible for a fraction of the Google Maps calls, then the increase in P.M. dues would not be large if Google Maps were reinstated for P.M.s.

The point is that yours has not been left alone. Today Google Maps were removed for everyone. I'm talking about my fees. ...and I still have Google Maps for geocaches. It's called GSAK. GSAK is not an option for some, but I see your point. I use Google Maps outside of Groundspeak for most of geocaching planning, but I would still be happy to pay $10 more per year for P.M. if it kept the site in the 21st century.

The point is that yours has not been left alone. Today Google Maps were removed for everyone.

Sounds great to me. By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, this could double the cost of Premium Membership as a worst case scenario, but more likely it would only increase Premium Membership cost by $10 or less per year. Count me in.

Sounds great to me. By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, this could double the cost of Premium Membership as a worst case scenario, but more likely it would only increase Premium Membership cost by $10 or less per year. Count me in.

If I am reading Google's new pricing structure correctly, and if Geocaching.com really uses 2,000,000 map loads per day, then the cost would be US $8-10k per day. How many premium members are there? Divide $10,000 by the members and you get the cost per member per day. How many premium members will there be after the price hike? Lather, rinse, repeat. Well, as others have suggested, if only Premium Members are allowed access to Google Maps, then not only would this encourage, and perhaps boost, premium membership, but it would also drop the Google Maps loads per day from 2,000,000 per day to some (much?) lower number. Thus, for perhaps $10 or less per year more in membership fee, Premium Members could go back to using Google Maps. My suspicion is, however, that Groundspeak will not want to implement Google Maps for Premium Members only, but we will see.

If I am reading Google's new pricing structure correctly, and if Geocaching.com really uses 2,000,000 map loads per day, then the cost would be US $8-10k per day. How many premium members are there? Divide $10,000 by the members and you get the cost per member per day.

I am so happy to see nano as a new size. I have been wishing for this for a long time. Having nanos lumped in with micros has been annoying at times. Thanks!

Are you sure the CO didn't just enter the hint in rot13, so it would appear unencrypted when the site displayed it rot13? Yes, sneaky! Since most software decrypts by default, the text will be displayed as encrypted. It's possible. I will ask the CO when I get a chance.

i do not have this issue, it still works in IE8. A new cache in my vicinity lists with the hint decrypted by default. No idea why, but perhaps it is related to this update. http://coord.info/GC351MV

I stumbled upon this new feature this weekend when logging a list of trackables discovered at an event. Incredibly useful feature! Thanks!