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Getting Back Into Geocaching


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Wednesday 2 November 2022

 

Good Evening Geocaching Community,

 

My name is David O'Brien. I have stepped away from this fun activity for about five years do to work, and now I want to get back into Geocaching.  I know technology has changed a lot since I was involved in it. I would like to ask the Geocaching Community what equipment as well as software you all here use? Let me give you a rundown of what portable equipment I have that I use on a daily basis:

 

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Mobile (Android operating system)

 

MacBook Pro Laptop

 

iPad Pro 5th Generation 

 

I am open to ANY & ALL suggestions! I would like to inform the Geocaching Community that I am the type of person that when I go and do something, I make sure I have best proper equipment for that purpose. To me it is never the cost.

 

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read my post and replying to it. Happy future adventures in all of yours upcoming Geocaching adventures!

 

David O'Brien

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7 hours ago, davidobrienirl said:

Wednesday 2 November 2022

 

Good Evening Geocaching Community,

 

My name is David O'Brien. I have stepped away from this fun activity for about five years do to work, and now I want to get back into Geocaching.  I know technology has changed a lot since I was involved in it. I would like to ask the Geocaching Community what equipment as well as software you all here use? Let me give you a rundown of what portable equipment I have that I use on a daily basis:

 

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Mobile (Android operating system)

 

MacBook Pro Laptop

 

iPad Pro 5th Generation 

 

I am open to ANY & ALL suggestions! I would like to inform the Geocaching Community that I am the type of person that when I go and do something, I make sure I have best proper equipment for that purpose. To me it is never the cost.

 

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read my post and replying to it. Happy future adventures in all of yours upcoming Geocaching adventures!

 

David O'Brien

If you're happy with nagivating using your mobile it seems you should be doing fine with what you have. Otherwise you should ask for advice on what handheld GPSr to get, I'm sure there are people who have an opinion on that.

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Check out Locus Map for your Samsung, and splurge on the gold subscription if you like what you see.  It's a feature-packed map app focused on the hiking/biking crowd, quite likely the best such app, and it's a caching app too.

 

It'll even do auto-routing on trails ("after twenty metres turn right").

 

There are other 3rd-party caching apps too, but after finding this one I looked no further.

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Assuming that's your site, I suggest there's one caching app missing from the Android list.  ;)  I can vouch for its usability as such.

 

(By the same argument that says a communication device - phone - can also be a Garmin replacement as a subset of its abilities, a map app can also be a caching app, no?)

 

Edited by Viajero Perdido
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19 hours ago, davidobrienirl said:

Wednesday 2 November 2022

 

Good Evening Geocaching Community,

 

My name is David O'Brien. I have stepped away from this fun activity for about five years do to work, and now I want to get back into Geocaching.  I know technology has changed a lot since I was involved in it. I would like to ask the Geocaching Community what equipment as well as software you all here use? Let me give you a rundown of what portable equipment I have that I use on a daily basis:

 

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Mobile (Android operating system)

 

MacBook Pro Laptop

 

iPad Pro 5th Generation 

 

I am open to ANY & ALL suggestions! I would like to inform the Geocaching Community that I am the type of person that when I go and do something, I make sure I have best proper equipment for that purpose. To me it is never the cost.

 

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read my post and replying to it. Happy future adventures in all of yours upcoming Geocaching adventures!

 

David O'Brien

You've been out of it for five years? Be prepared that the only caches that seem to matter now, to a great many geocachers, are FTF's. Challenge Caches are now very popular, too. Here's an example: Find an earth cache in 3 countries and one in each of the 50 states. Okay, some can meet the criteria but a lot won't...like you maybe. Elitist? Popular too, are geocaches created and dedicated to other geocachers. Isn't that nice. And be prepared to hunt for a lot of newbie caches with really bad coordinates and crappy containers. Have fun! Remember, be open minded and go after the type of caches that you enjoy most. Enjoy it just for you.

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PS, with Locus I no longer need to involve the PC in caching (other than using a real keyboard to write logs); I no longer have a need for GSAK because Locus imports PQs directly and has folders for managing them.  Unfortunately, the app isn't available for iOS.

 

If you have access to an Android tablet (or the budget for one)...  I use a big Samsung tab for planning from the couch, or in front of a campfire.  Good maps on the big screen are a thing of beauty (I'm a cartophile), and with caches overlaid, even better.  At the subscription tier, Locus will sync between devices.  I load PQs into the phone, and they appear shortly in the tablet.

 

Sample from the small screen, a few years old:

e579b4ea-8c9f-42a4-b3a1-d10150991dd2.jpg

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Wanted to give this app a go to see how much I liked it,  but it is nothing from problems from the get go. 

 

Running it the first time after installation,  the Locus app infirm me that my data is all in the wrong folder and can not be used.  What data? I just opened it for the very first time. It doesn't say what data,  just wants permission to move things around on my phone. 

Against my better judgement, I agree,  but it then says it can't find my data and I need to select the circuit that has my data from an internal device folder tree. 

 

No thank you. 

 

This app is garbage, and no longer resides on my phone. 

 

Zero stars.

 

All the apps listed at GPSrChive have been thoroughly tested,  and none have issues like this. 

 

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1 hour ago, Atlas Cached said:

Wanted to give this app a go to see how much I liked it,  but it is nothing from problems from the get go. 

 

Running it the first time after installation,  the Locus app infirm me that my data is all in the wrong folder and can not be used.  What data? I just opened it for the very first time. It doesn't say what data,  just wants permission to move things around on my phone. 

Against my better judgement, I agree,  but it then says it can't find my data and I need to select the circuit that has my data from an internal device folder tree. 

 

No thank you. 

 

This app is garbage, and no longer resides on my phone. 

 

Zero stars.

 

All the apps listed at GPSrChive have been thoroughly tested,  and none have issues like this. 

 

 

Where exactly is the App list displayed on that site?  I've had trouble with "Geocaching" Apps vanishing, pretty much not ever being supported anymore by the time I installed one and paid its higher than average cost for "an App".  Did you know that some company sold a Geocaching app for $10 and then abandoned it for a subscription App?  True story!

 

I have Locus Maps on my tablet, and receive no particular errors.  It's a nice map App with unspecified future payments of "coin points" (so it's not clear if I now have plenty of "coins" for all the maps I'll ever need or if I need to buy a lot more coins first), plus there's a subscription for more features.  Hidden down inside a couple of different menu trees are "Geocaching" functions.  I never use Locus Maps for actual Geocaching, but it's a good offline cache mapping thing for landscape mode on a tablet.

 

I bought Geooh Go, which also wants a subscription.  But The Official App is fine for free, "subscription" included.  "Apps" may direct me to the parking area where I then use my Garmin to hunt caches.

 

Edited by kunarion
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13 minutes ago, kunarion said:

Where exactly is the App list displayed on that site? 

 

https://www.gpsrchive.com/Shared/How To/How To Software.html

 

Groundspeak's list of partner apps:

https://apidevelopers.geocaching.com/partner-list/

(Hmm, only mentions the older Pro version of Locus.)

 

BTW, the Geocaching4Locus add-in (which provides online functionality) seems to have become abandonware (though it still works), and in the latest beta of Locus, the author is bringing those functions in-house.  Offline functionality unaffected.

 

Edited by Viajero Perdido
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21 minutes ago, Viajero Perdido said:

BTW, the Geocaching4Locus add-in (which provides online functionality) seems to have become abandonware (though it still works), and in the latest beta of Locus, the author is bringing those functions in-house.  Offline functionality unaffected.

 

I never really used "Geocaching4Locus" for anything, except when I was trying to remember how to import a PQ and clicked on it in desperation.

 

That cache list has a bunch of missing Apps.  I should make a list of the Geocaching Apps I've bought over the years.  One had a built in friend finder which I used to meet up with somecachers at The Oldest Cache In Georgia.  Offline, of course.  I had to keep hitting Hotspots to check on them. ^_^

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1 hour ago, kunarion said:

unspecified future payments of "coin points"

 

BTW, my favourite maps are the OSM-based OpenAndroMaps which are donationware and which work fine in Locus and maybe other caching apps (Cachly? on iOS).  They're themeable, meaning you can tweak the appearance.  That's OAM in my screenshot above.

 

They're similar to Locus' own maps (IMHO slightly better); for the latter you'd need those "coins" above.  I get unlimited maps with my subscription, but don't use them in favor of OAM.

 

Edited by Viajero Perdido
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15 hours ago, kunarion said:

some company sold a Geocaching app for $10 and then abandoned it for a subscription App?  True story!


I purchased a number of such apps. Every one of them self-destructed. As a dev myself, though, I'm somewhat sympathetic to their problem. There are a few problems that inherently makes the geocaching app market work poorly.

I think it's gotten better for low-volume apps, but the OS provider (Apple, Google) gets a third of that right off the top. Now that's a fixed COGS and was hopefully built into the price model, but the dev now gets $6.50.

The twist is that geocaching apps are something a user may stare at intently two days a week instead of, say, a joke-telling app that's used a few times and discarded or even something as specialized as a map converter that you only need a few times a year. Geocaching apps are just not typical App store apps:

  • Geocaching apps are a small market. A successful app may have hundreds of installs and a really successful one may break into the thousands. So maybe that app maker made $10K. Maybe. (Download count is not the same as purchased user account...)
  • It's a demanding market. Look at the endless raging controversy over 3 vs. 4 digits after the decimal point on some Garmin firmware. If your app works differently than the user expects, you're going to get an earful. Maybe you built - and sold as such - a bare-bones "follow the arrow" navigation app. You're going to get one star reviews because the app doesn't have native puzzle-solving abilities, such as decoding caesar ciphers on the device. That actually has nothing to do with geocaching, but there's an expectation that it's there. Maybe your app doesn't think it should be involved in travel bugs (and you made no promises about travel bugs in the app listing) but someone will say their life is ruined if your app can't automatically dip travel bugs with a log that auto increments, includes the timestamp, and reports "3/14 for the day", for each log. Oh, and it needs to handle the day ending when they went to bed, not at midnight because they were caching after dark.
  • It's a moving target. Groundspeak was disrespectful of developer investment in their API and at least twice has restructured the way applications had to communicate with the server in an incompatible way. Not a minor, annoying, "let's change the spelling" way, but a major "rewrite the bottom half of the app" way. Multiple times. Cache types and log types and maximum API calls per hour and other things change (or at least did - I've quit following it) regularly. 
  • It's a localized target. Geocachers are worldwide. You'll need SI and Imperial. You'll need to know that altitude may be in feet, but ground distance may be in meters. You'll need at least most of the Romance languages supported. Individually these are trivial, but it's a lot of _stuff_ to keep track of and to exercise all the combinations.
  • It's a changing target. Even within a given API level, Cache and log types come and go. Security rules around logins change. OSes change version and deprecate some service that you were using. There are new event types to handle. You'll need to build and test on phone and tablet, probably on real hardware and not the emulator because geocaching is a physical thing and it's hard to simulate the experience in the field. You'll need to handle all the new devices coming on as well as all the old devices that ever worked because someone will have a phone identical to yours, but is on a carrier that's withholding the OS upgrade so your "identical" phones offer two different sets of features to develop, test, and support.
  • It's a demanding target. You don't control the schedule when any of this happens. OS updates get pushed and you're either on the train or your app quits working. Groundspeak changes the login process - again - and all your users are locked out. 
  • The solution space is small. You're never going to get VC funding to get an iOS dev, an android dev, a support person, a testing person, some equipment, etc. This is always doomed to be a one person operation (Every open-source attempt into this space I've seen has usually been a single-person show, perhaps after a brief flurry of introductory activity) and it's not like it's even going to be big enough money to be a full time job with insurance, etc. It's big enough to be painful (to do it well) but not big enough to actually hang a business around. Even Garmin made a run into the "geocaching" app space and eventually quietly withdrew.

Not unique to geocaching is the split of the market. While there are frameworks that help you move your app between iOS and Android, they don't really cover things like the compass and the GPS and battery issues that are all crucial in a geocaching app, but less so in others. If you're a serious dev out to capture serious market share, you can then count on basically building,, testing, and marketing your app twice: Once in Swift and once in Kotlin. (And ten years ago, neither of those languages existed, so you've probably replaced the original Java and Objective C++ versions....) So now you're fighting for relevance in two markets, on two different fronts.


I just looked at the android app store at the top paid apps from indy devs:
#1 $5 - Sync for Reddit actually shares some of these problems. However, there are 430 million monthly Reddit users. The market is actually large enough to bring non-trivial income. Yay for them. Only they also just added monthly subscription fees ON TOP OF the base app price. This didn't go over well. 
#2 $3 calendar app. 1M users. (Hint: you're never going to get 1M geocaching app users) The target market is people that need a calendar. Not sure it competes on ongoing maintenance, though.
#3 $1.39 watch faces. A watch face app is probably a weekend project. Build it once and you're done. 10K users. 
#4 $4. An application to talk to ghosts. Seems unlikely to have much tech support demand or changes from ghosts going on strike.

So all of these are apps with a WAY larger potential user base and either less ongoing required dev/maintenance/support costs, or an additional monthly subscription fee to cover that. Yet, if you build an app for $10 (the same app for $2 would drive you insane with looky-loos demanding support) users basically expect the app to keep working forever, but without an economy around it that supports this. Build a $2 fart app where the market is anyone that was ever eight years old and people will forget about the app in a week and you never hear from them again. A watch face app may get a cease and desist from Rolex about using their artwork (and that could be detrimental if executed, but you're out a weekend of development) but you'll notice that other app types in the industry don't have this whole large ecosystem that they have to live in, but can't control.

Mobile apps blew out the pricing of software. People now associate app prices with that $2 fart app, a $4 flashlight app, or the $1.39 watch face (honestly, I think the market for that kind of junkware has kind of blown over, but it still cratered consumer expectation of paying for software) and if you ask them to pay $50 for a specialized mapping program or some other market-specific tool, it's like you're a baby-killer. Yes, I was there for the wailing every time Clyde rolled out a paid upgrade to GSAK...and watched him put up with users going to great lengths to avoid paying for those upgrades, but still taking up his time.

This isn't the article I was looking for, but it cites a lot of related articles that touch on these topics. See https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167811619300473

So, yeah. A failed $10 geocaching app is just par for this course. Sorry.

If I need credentials, I've been developing geocaching-related tools off and on since 2001. I've built at least two Android apps and one cross-platform GSAK-like app for cross-platform to prototype stage. I have geocaching-specific code in GSAK and in Google Earth (drag and drop a PQ into Google Earth Pro. Thats me.). I've studied this market and I've thought about it a LOT.

Concluding advice: develop geocaching apps to scratch your own itch or do it for fun, but there's no money in it.

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4 hours ago, robertlipe said:

$5 - Sync for Reddit actually shares some of these problems. However, there are 430 million monthly Reddit users. The market is actually large enough to bring non-trivial income. Yay for them. Only they also just added monthly subscription fees ON TOP OF the base app price. This didn't go over well. 

 

+1

 

Several of the Apps have a price up front, then a subscription or add-on fee for extra features. And the App receives low ratings because it doesn't work fully without the additional Geocaching.com PM subscription. It must be frustrating for App developers to see low ratings, because that's not really a defect of The App. Every “online” game App has abandoned their old App in favor of a subscription or “coin” system. Nobody complains that Pokey-Man has no limit to what you may pay. The Geocaching App is an online game app.

 

But you're right, it's not like everybody goes around gotta 'em all Geocaches all day every day.

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Imagine that playing out in a geocaching app.

The logging module is an extra $8.
Logging events costs an additional $1 each.
Finding anything other than a film canister costs $.75 per stage. (Multis are, of course, additional.)
Logs are limited to once per 30 minutes in the free version.
GPS interface, optional so you can pay the GPSBabel guy, is $29.99. :-)

It's no longer even a fine line between charging extra for extra features as much as it is the airline model of hobbling the basic service as much as you can to get the initial price as low as you possibly can, but make the system just horrible enough that people don't immediately leave, while adding back baggage fees, use of vowels in logs, water and restrooms during a 5 hour flight, etc. The article I cited takes a while to come to that topic, but covers that.


Kidding aside, you're exactly right that ratings and pricing have basically made developers and users antagonistic with each other. Apps regularly get trashed for not having features they didn't promise. I worked on Google Earth for 13 years (and with them for a few years before that) and when I wanted my esteem crushed, I'd go read the reviews. (Yes, developers actually can read that feedback you type inside apps. It's even translated for them...) We'd get 10% of the users that would trash us for it not being real-time, even though it's forbidden by international law to be so. "I went in my yard and waved at the sky, but the picture didn't change."  We'd then see an equal amount of users fussing about the privacy invasions. We'd get the flat-earthers tripping that we were part of the hoax. We'd get complaints that we didn't have street view imagery of their house in 1973. It was a really surreal part of the experience, but overall I was proud to be part of an app that everyone knew.

The $2 flashlight app mentality really devalued software in the mind of the public.  In this century, there are very few markets left where users can justify spending more for an app than for a coffee. That's not healthy for either the producers or the consumers of software.

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On 11/4/2022 at 8:05 AM, Atlas Cached said:

 

This app is garbage, and no longer resides on my phone. 

 

 

 


 

It’s hard to please everyone. Locus is the reason why I purchased a dual frequency Android, and sold my hand held Garmins.  After trying every app on the Android, it is the only one that remains - although Cachly on the iPhone is a close second.
 

 

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These days I use the Cachly app on an iPhone and a Garmin GPSr for backup .  The Cachly app on the iPhone allows for a larger screen for easier to read maps, shows all the caches and lets you filter caches as desired  and log caches "in the field".  You can upload photos immediately.  You can easily add waypoints.  However it will not show your track and becomes much less useful when you lose the cell signal.  The GPSr is used when out of cell range and for mapping my trail.  In cold weather, I switch from a touchscreen to a push button GPSr to allow use with gloves.  iPhones are also much less useful in freezing weather due to poor battery life and frigid fingers with gloves off and "fat finger syndrome" with touch screen gloves on.  

Once home, I use my computer to add captions to the photos already on the cache page log and to add additional information to the field logs.  

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On 11/3/2022 at 12:12 AM, davidobrienirl said:

Wednesday 2 November 2022

 

Good Evening Geocaching Community,

 

My name is David O'Brien. I have stepped away from this fun activity for about five years do to work, and now I want to get back into Geocaching.  I know technology has changed a lot since I was involved in it. I would like to ask the Geocaching Community what equipment as well as software you all here use? Let me give you a rundown of what portable equipment I have that I use on a daily basis:

 

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Mobile (Android operating system)

 

MacBook Pro Laptop

 

iPad Pro 5th Generation 

 

I am open to ANY & ALL suggestions! I would like to inform the Geocaching Community that I am the type of person that when I go and do something, I make sure I have best proper equipment for that purpose. To me it is never the cost.

 

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read my post and replying to it. Happy future adventures in all of yours upcoming Geocaching adventures!

 

David O'Brien

You will, for sure, want to get a Premium Membership.

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I can certainly understand what robertlipe is saying about the community being too small to warrant producing a full featured app and keeping it updated at a price that most would be willing to pay. 

 

I just recently got into geocaching, though I have a lot of experience with navigation/GPS overall. My wife and I are having a LOT of fun.  

 

I have the same phone as the OP, a S22 Ultra.  I've also been downloading caches into a Garmin Montana 680t.  In our local area I've figured out that some cache owners are probably placing their caches with an accurate GPS. On some of those, where my phone may not get me close to the cache using the app, the 680t has placed me pretty much right on them.  For us, I am finding that using my phone to get me to the general area, and then using the 680t once close to a cache, is working very well.  In a couple areas where there wasn't cell coverage,  and I didn't have offline maps downloaded, the 680t was a necessity.  With a bit more searching, I'm confident I could find most caches with just my phone and the app. I think for folks starting out that may want to see if they enjoy the hobby, and they don't already own a stand alone GPS,  a phone is enough to have some fun and see if they get hooked.  I think it's really cool that pretty much anyone can get into this hobby at any level they like, with something they probably already have. Being a gadget guy that also enjoys navigation and such, having a GPS to use adds to the fun.

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