Flyfish44

Totally agree Phil. As with my comment previously in this thread, I am not participating enough to justify the subscription $ but dont necessarily see it as totally a grab for $ by Groundspeak. Despite frustrations with the iphone app and website the whole family is enjoying the occasional excursion. We have bought geocoins and started a family race, bought some for relatives to teach them too and even bought official cache containers to put in a few more of our own. My 6yo daughter loves the concept and what a great educational tool for a day or so every 4-8 weeks we seem to adopt as the extent of our caching. It fits in with other hobies such as walking and riding. I do have trouble justifying the subscription but am enjoying what we do and so far interactions with other ccachers on the whole is rewarding enough to persist. If this was an every weekend job, perhaps we might consider differently. Am curious, can anyone really describe any benefits of paid app over the freebie? Am curious to have app on wife's Android for another reference deevice out in the field, but then we are up for 2 paid apps on ios6 and android systems...... Guess you can see dilemma in justifying purchase as we do not understand any benefit as documentation on itunes etc fails to explain difference. However the free app seems buggy, taking several attempts to post logs and only shows a few caches nearby in a close radius..... not in a location one is planning to visit, or more than 2 or three kilometres at a particular time. We go to the website at home for this, but would like to be able plan caches to find "out of town" and tranfer this to the phone. Not a full road trip, but say 3 r 4 caches in an area we plan to visit one weekend. Freebie app does not allow this. The freebie app we bought appears to be a genuine Grondspeak app. I grabbed it a couple of years ago and have only started using it late last year. It has updated to Groundspeak Geocaching iPhone App v6.1. Would value anyones opinion... is the $ for the paid version app worthwhile given we are having problems operating the free app.

I have a few concerns that are preventing me from becoming a financial member and upgrading membership. Web site is buggy and often "freezes" When recently trying to log a cache, it took more than a dozen attempts before our first cache was successfully logged for review. Too often we get a server error message, or a timeout message from geocaching website. When tying to post logs from website often the previous messages make it difficult to post logs. This was particularly frustrating when trying to communicate with moderators when attempting ot register our first cache. Too often data already typed is lost. This is regardless of via phone, or at home using broadband connection. iphone app is buggy. It frequently takes several attempts to log finds and\or they work only to have the log attempt listed as unsuccessful on my phone and be made undeletable without restarting phone. Several logging attempts have to be made on either phone or at home. I have no such problems using any other app on the iphone and I have about 50 apps loaded. Yes I know how to maintain phone and close apps etc. Geocache free app is only app I have trouble with. My wife cannot download a free app on her android phone.. it is only a $12+ app. She is relucatnt to spend such money when I have so much trouble using the free iphone app. Nothing suggest paying the $12 app will give better access/ease of use. Cache owners logging/approval system is intimidating. Because we had so much trouble listing the cache in the first place, some data wwas lost simply scrolling backwards to review before listing. This caused a few errors. I felt in some cases date was acually lost between editing and saving attempts and the listing was overwrittien. Where it became intimidating is the reviewer seemed to look at one issue at a time. This made for several re-submissions and unnecessary email traffic. Data seemed to go missing between edits. I felt like a school boy once again. Final straw came when it was clear another reviewer from original blocked the listing without reading all the submission details. The cache is 2 hours drive from home, but near our holiday house so maintenance was not a problem. This reviewer did not read this comment and placed a block and followed with a multi page email directly quoting policy on travelling and hiding caches policy as if it was a dressing down lecture. This was definately taken as an unecessary belittling of ourselves as members. Attempts to communicate were complicated by the problems logging comments that would have made for much more timely correspondence. Final confusion came when we received notification of acceptance. The approval for listing was posted AFTER the first find was logged. Invitation to upgrade is confusing, bordering on deceptional. Is is simpy upgrading the app from free to the paid app on itunes? if so why is there talk about a subscritopn. More clarity is required as to deiiference between free/paid app and the subscription. The only description of a premium membership does not sound good value for money in the light of current difficulties experienced. Sure one can say subscritions go to maintaining the system, but as it is presented and operates for us, the service provided is not encouraging anything more than an occasional hobby/interest.