Pup & A Way - The App

A Work in Progess!!

We're so excited to be able to launch this app, and hope that you enjoy using it and are able to benefit from all the great features!

The is very much a rough draft, and I wanted to write a little disclaimer as Pup & A Way is not a big established company, or remotely organised in any way!! It is just one man's hobby that has evolved from the website and got out of control, and now I'm trying to make the features all the more accessible to everyone!

Given this, the app has been built on a budget! I had a whole host of features that I wanted to include and whilst I'm really pleased with the first release, there are still parts that I am aware of that need improving, so I please ask for your patience and kindness especially if leaving reviews and take this into account!

It has taken a crazy amount of time to get to this stage, so now that we've got to where we are hopefully we can get more people using the app, and if I can generate a little revenue from advertising then I can re-invest and improve and add as we go!!

So contrary to standard sales pitches I am going to list known things that are wrong with the app! Just so you know we are aware too, and if you have any additional suggestions we'll happily take those on board so please get in touch.
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• Speed!! Sorry I know sometimes navigation is a little slow, and it bugs me too! With next versions we can upgrade our hosting to sort this!
• Reward Points. Currently the whole app is Free, but further down the line there will be premium features for paid subscribers only which will be a small annual fee, including a donation to a dog charity (TBC).
  However, contributors will earn reward points for each walk they add, they can use these points to pay for the annual subscription. Initial plans are that if you add 5 walks, this will be enough for an annual subscription so for regular contributors there will be nothing to pay for premium features, and will increase the walks on the site and quality for everyone.
  Even now though, Reward points can be collected by users for submitting walks and will roll over whenever the launch of premium features are ready!
• Saving Walks. When you have completed a walk, then you have an option to publish, or save for later for when maybe you have more time to add the descriptions etc. and aren't sat in your car with a wet dog licking your ear! Either way, chances are you are in a location without WiFi and probably poor signal, and saving the walk relies on internet connection so can take incredibly long to save, or will just give you a 'Saving' screen until it detects a signal. In testing I have done many of these, and if the app closes because it takes too long, once you have WiFi please go back into the Start My Walk section and the route will still be there don't worry, and you can continue to complete the details.
  This isn't ideal however I know, so we are working on a way to save the walk to the phone in the meantime as opposed to having to wait for Wifi.
• Feature Icons. These are rubbish, I apologise! Currently they are water, terrain, beach, woodland. However they just don't work how I wanted them to. This is a feature I want to explain on to improve search ability - you'll be able to search for only walks with beaches, or without livestock etc. Please bear with us on this one!
• Adding Way Points & Photos En-Route. This is a really important feature that I do think works well, so when you're adding or viewing a walk you can see specific locations of Way Points (hazards/stiles/view points etc.) or pictures taken in that spot. However I would like to improve this by combining the two, so being able to add photos with comments on, and a clearer key on the map view to quickly be able to identify and view.
• Tide Times & Secure Fields. These are two features currently on the website but not yet incorporated into the app - watch this space
• Improved Camera Functions: When adding pictures you can either use your phone camera, or the camera through the app. When using the camera through the app the functions are a lot more limited, you can't use portrait or special modes for example. You can still add them from your gallery, but means having to use your main phone camera so leaving the app. If we can improve this it will mean less skipping around between apps.
• Map Search Clarity: If you're looking for a walk in an area where there are lots of walks added already, the map screen can look a little congested and clumsy - I want to improve this and is on my list!
• General Design: Without boring you too much with the back story, this app has taken a couple of years to get to where it is now! In that time there have been lots of changes and developments, and personally I feel the overall design of the app needs to be tweaked in several places to make it more visually appealing and user friendly - in line with the new website design. I'm on it!

Thank you!

If you've got this far, then thank you for reading my How-To guide in how not to market your brand new app!!

It's a project of passion though and I want to make sure it is the best and most functional it can be, this whole idea started as I wanted to find an app exactly like this but couldn't, so as long as I'm not the only one who feels like this then I can keep working on it and improving!!

Thanks, and hope you enjoy!!

Paul & Hank