Fossickers / Prospectors - iPad / iPhone / Android App in development

[gcause]

Hi All,

Just need to clarify my motives here as I want to be as up-front with you all as I can be.

I am writing this App for profit. I am currently unemployed and need to make a living.

I have offered the App to the members of this forum in return for their assistance with its development by providing me with a set of requirements / ideas for the App.

It will be available for sale on the Apple App Store and Google Play store for anyone else to purchase.

My original idea for the app sprang from an incident where we lost one of our fossicking group out in the bush. We managed to find him after a few hours safe and well by driving around and using the horns on our cars and UHF radios to stay in touch. He was able to walk to the sound of the car horns and find the group.

I am trying a similar strategy using the capabilities of the mobile devices we all carry. I want to use all the sensors on the mobile devices to enable us to find lost group members. i.e. GPS, Accelerometer, Camera, Video, SMS, Phone, Bluetooth, WiFi.

As we cant always rely on having a telephone signal out in the bush I want to use the devices we all carry to setup a WAN (Wide Area Network) with each of our devices acting like a mobile phone tower or server. In that way we will all cover more ground in the search for the lost person by combining the radius of our devices signal range which unfortunately is limited to about 70 metres by themselves but with 3 people thats potentially 210 metres, 5 and its nearly half a kilometre, the more in people in the group the better the chances of finding someone. When their mobile device comes within range of our devices we will be able to get them help from the group or guide them back to the group.

If the device still has a telephone signal or gets one at some point then there will be an option to declare an emergency and it will act like a beacon to bring emergency services to the area by sending out its GPS co-ordinates to them. At regular intervals it will send out predefined SMS messages to your predefined mobile phone numbers and dial the emergency services and advise them of your location. This is only for when someone is hurt and cant dial the emergency services themselves all they will have to do is hit a large red button and the device will call for help a bit like the SPOT device.

Its not intended to be a complete solution as nothing is ever certain and many things can cause these sorts of connections to fail and the range is limited. But I see this as just another tool to aid people from getting lost out in the bush.

I hope this clarifies my intentions with this App.

Cheers,

Grant

 

[Jaros]

What your doing is fantastic Grant. If we have a Garmin Etrex or such they can go flat or faulty so a backup is always handy and in this case probably easier to use.
Thanks Grant--i don't care how much you make, you have spent a long time on this development.
Jaros :|

 

[Prospector B]

If the app is anything like the website then it will be good! The site flows really nicely on the iPad mini and works well over the cellular network. Its got some nice clean styles to it as well. It's good to hear you have reduced the platform specific code, should aid the reliability and robustness of the app across all the different iPhone and android phones out there. I hope it's a money maker for you!! I haven't read the user input so if it's been asked then I'm sorry, but can you use PDF makes in it?

 

[gcause]

Hi ProspectorB,

Did you want it to output a PDF file of the Map being displayed? Or how would you want to use the PDF feature?

Cheers,

Grant

 

[Ramjet]

Of course you need to make a profit on it. I imagine it's a ton of work. Never expected it to be free. Best of luck with it.

 

[Buzz]

Great work Mate hope it's goes well, saving & printing pdf maps with your pin marker & info would be great

 

[Prospector B]

Grant, I was thinking of using the PDF as the map. I was trying to figure out what maps would be used by the app. Awhile ago I purchased through the vic government some pdf topo maps which can be read by a PDFs map reader and then it plots where you are on it. If you like I can look up the links. Hope that makes some sense..

 

[gcause]

Based on the discussion thread "Picture Post Warning" on the forum I will add a feature to remove the EXIF information from any photos attached to finds. i.e. old mine site, gold nugget, coins, etc.
That way if you choose to share the photos with someone they cant work out where the finds came from.
This feature will be able to be turned on or off from the app settings.

 

[gcause]

Grant, I was thinking of using the PDF as the map. I was trying to figure out what maps would be used by the app. Awhile ago I purchased through the vic government some pdf topo maps which can be read by a PDFs map reader and then it plots where you are on it. If you like I can look up the links. Hope that makes some sense..

Ok understand now its called "Georeferencing" an image overlay. I will have to read the PDF and extract any images in it and then allow you to "georeference" it. Its a little tricky but should be doable.

 

[gcause]

Great work Mate hope it's goes well, saving & printing pdf maps with your pin marker & info would be great

Ok will add that to the feature list.

May have to print the find info as a list below the map referencing a numbered pin marker on the map.

 

[G0lddigg@]

Creating more work for yourself mate

 

[gcause]

Ok the option to remove EXIF info is now added

 

[Jaros]

Great work Grant.

 

[gcause]

Hi All,

As you may now be aware my circumstances have changed recently so its now to the point where it is getting harder to fund the work on this app by myself.

I have had to do a lot of soul searching and have a long hard think about how I might continue with this work and for better or worse here is what I have come up with.

I propose to launch this product as a KickStarter project.

[video=480,360]http://youtu.be/AfJnPp_pBM4[/video]

The link below is the proposed KickStarter project. It is not live yet.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gcause/1656251607?token=3fc3ba3c

If you are not familiar with KickStarter the gist is people pledge money to help reach a funding goal for the project within a specified number of days.

In return they get a reward. Usually it is the product being produced by the project.

The KickStarter project must then adhere to certain rules and be accountable to those who pledge funds.

The funding goal is an all or nothing deal, if the goal isn't reached in time the project is not funded and no one pays any money towards it.

If it reaches its goal then KickStarter provide the funding to the project creator after taking out a 5% administration fee and around 3-5% for any credit card processing. The creator then completes the project and provides the rewards to the people who pledged funds.

I wanted to keep the cost of the pledges as low as possible so I have limited the pledge values to the equivalent cost of one, two or four cups of coffee.

Here are the relevant details for how Pledges work.

https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use#section4

As I stated up-front I want to involve you all in the development of this project so I want to get your feedback before I proceed down this path.

- do you think this is a good idea or not?
- do you think the rewards on offer are fair?
- do you think the pricing of rewards is fair or not?

This is not something I do lightly and if circumstances had been different I would not have gone down this route but needs must.

Regards,

Grant

 

[LC76]

I think its a great idea.

As much as that video was fun to watch i would consider either you are someone you have chosen to appear in a new video and introduce us to the "App" and tell us what it will do and why we need it.

I think most of if not all do understand that nothing comes free and a project like this isnt easy,so would be more than willing to help out a little.

Maybe offer those who pledge,something like a map package or a spare copy to gift to a friend??
Or maybe just getting it done is enough for everyone.

 

[lucky streak]

Can you incorporate a nugget finder mate?

And also make it easy to add photos and video if you look up on google play type in topo maps you can overlay different layers maps. Cheers good luck

 

[G0lddigg@]

Morning Grant

Great idea going down the kickstarter project path, it has certainly helped some great businesses get off the ground.

Im not sure that the video has much info that would attract an audience im thinking sunsets, waking up camping, fish on the end of a line that kind of thing stirs emotion in us and we spend on emotion.

But from a marketing point of view i know you are saying this app is for everyone but everyone is not going to buy it. You really need to pick a target market and focus on that to get it off the ground. You cant please everyone but you can develop over time.

If its for prospecting make it a prospecting app if its for bike riders make it specific to them... i.e videos of go pro action from first point of view show a rider stopping and taking a photo fron thier phone before riding on.

People get distracted really easily and if its not specific to them they will find something that is. 80% off all apps downloaded are build once and rehashed to suit market segments most of these are launched by Marketing professionals not developers.

I work with alot of companies that have trouble penetrating a market and its always the same issue... the project becomes something that could be used by everyone and so its never finished or the marketing is too general.

If you want to have a chat about any of this im happy to talk with you mate.

Final point id like to make and i know you wont like it. . Andriod market in Australia has just under 60% apple just over 1/3 making something for 1/3 of the market first is another up hill battle. I reckon if you did a survey alot of members will be andriod.
2014http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2014/09/a...in-market-share-over-apples-ios-in-australia/

2015 http://australiaonlinenews.com/android-vs-ios-market-share-2015-pros-cons-216/
By the way .. excellent one page theme great styling

 

[user 794]

I'm happy to support this way. I'd use my Android phone I think rather than buying an Apple product just yet.

 

[gcause]

Morning Grant

Great idea going down the kickstarter project path, it has certainly helped some great businesses get off the ground.

Im not sure that the video has much info that would attract an audience im thinking sunsets, waking up camping, fish on the end of a line that kind of thing stirs emotion in us and we spend on emotion.

But from a marketing point of view i know you are saying this app is for everyone but everyone is not going to buy it. You really need to pick a target market and focus on that to get it off the ground. You cant please everyone but you can develop over time.

If its for prospecting make it a prospecting app if its for bike riders make it specific to them... i.e videos of go pro action from first point of view show a rider stopping and taking a photo fron thier phone before riding on.

People get distracted really easily and if its not specific to them they will find something that is. 80% off all apps downloaded are build once and rehashed to suit market segments most of these are launched by Marketing professionals not developers.

I work with alot of companies that have trouble penetrating a market and its always the same issue... the project becomes something that could be used by everyone and so its never finished or the marketing is too general.

If you want to have a chat about any of this im happy to talk with you mate.

Final point id like to make and i know you wont like it. . Andriod market in Australia has just under 60% apple just over 1/3 making something for 1/3 of the market first is another up hill battle. I reckon if you did a survey alot of members will be andriod.
2014http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2014/09/a...in-market-share-over-apples-ios-in-australia/

2015 http://australiaonlinenews.com/android-vs-ios-market-share-2015-pros-cons-216/
By the way .. excellent one page theme great styling

Hey Golddig,

Thank you for the advice it is greatly appreciated.

I think you are right about the target market I started with the intention of making an app for fossickers / prospectors so I will keep it to just that market.

There does seem to be a lot of forum members who are using Android and I may be missing the mark as your info on the market size is different to what I had seen in the past.

I think your idea of conducting a poll of the membership to see who is using what phones is a good one. Thank you for creating this survey for us

http://freeonlinesurveys.com/app/showpoll.asp?qid=617904&sid=f5oskbho8nvu9ej617904&new=True

Cheers,

Grant

 

[gcause]

Can you incorporate a nugget finder mate?

And also make it easy to add photos and video if you look up on google play type in topo maps you can overlay different layers maps. Cheers good luck

Hey Lucky,

The ability to add photos and video, and the topo map overlay is already on the list of features.

Note: nugget finder is not included but sure wish it was

Cheers,

Grant