Hello world, and introducing a new orchid management app

[Orion]

CambriaWhat:

Please allow me to assure you that this is not a scam of any kind. The beta test will be done via Apple developer program's TestFlight app. The only information I am asking for is an email address and the iOS device type (i.e. iPhone 6) and the iOS version (i.e. iOS 9.2).

I will post screenshots of the app once I gain the privileges to post images or links, and hopefully that will address some of your concerns.

[Whimgrinder]

Originally Posted by Orion

CambriaWhat:

Please allow me to assure you that this is not a scam of any kind. The beta test will be done via Apple developer program's TestFlight app. The only information I am asking for is an email address and the iOS device type (i.e. iPhone 6) and the iOS version (i.e. iOS 9.2).

I will post screenshots of the app once I gain the privileges to post images or links, and hopefully that will address some of your concerns.

You can always post screen shots to Flickr or PhotoBucket (or similar) and link to them here, for those who are concerned. :-)

[Orion]

Let me try to see if 5 posts will allow me to post links or images.

Edit: Guess not.

[Whimgrinder]

Originally Posted by Orion

Let me try to see if 5 posts will allow me to post links or images.

Edit: Guess not.

My very first post included image links. Are you grabbing the right snippet of code?

[estación seca]

Welcome to the Orchid Board. I have an Android phone.

[RosieC]

Originally Posted by Whimgrinder

My very first post included image links. Are you grabbing the right snippet of code?

Some people seem to be able to straight away, and others not. I've never worked out why At 5 posts you should be able to though. If the problem carries on let me know and we'll see if we can work out why.

Orion, did ask if it was OK to post about this application before this thread was started and I agreed.

I have now added the link for the app to the first post because Orion is having problems adding it.

[Tschimm]

Thanks Rosie

Orion: this looks promising. Looking forward to test it.

Will the wiki be open to users?
I mean is it a kind of crowdsourcing thing ?

[Orion]

Thank you Rosie! Seems like I could post images and links fine now.

estación seca: Thank you for the welcome! Regrettably iPhone only for now, but maybe in the future!

Regarding the wiki:

Yes, it is intended to be open and crowdsourced, similar to Wikipedia. Photo contributions would be particularly appreciated!

As a start, I have seeded it with culture information for some of the more common orchid species, so while it's not starting from zero, it is incomplete and there are a lot of opportunities for improvement.

At the moment, you could load and edit the culture information for your own plants, but changes made locally won't sync back to the server, and you can't contribute photos just yet. Syncing correctly isn't too easy, so I am planning to work on this during Christmas, and hopefully it won't be too long until it's ready.

In the future once the app is complete, if there is interest, I will look into putting the wiki on the web, so it could be available to more people. One step at a time.

[AKNicolle]

Looking good so far, Orion. Good luck with it, especially syncing! That's fiendishly difficult, though if you're hosting everything on a server and not locally on-device, it'd be more manageable.

If I were you, I'd be cautious about making it a free app, unless you have deep pockets. Too easy to get eaten alive by hosting costs! It's also hard to maintain something like this for years without being able to offset the costs. Ads aren't a good fit for apps like this either, in my experience.

In any case, it'll be cool to see how this takes shape.

[Orion]

Good news everyone! The app's got a name - OrchidSense, and it's just been approved by Apple for beta testing! If you are interested, please PM me your email address and I will send an invitation your way.


AKNicolle:

Thank you for your encouragements, they means a lot to me!

I have actually started with Parse, storing everything in the cloud, but there were a few quirks relating to its offline store that just didn't work well. Now I am working on a hybrid CoreData and Parse based solution, so the app can be used with limited functionalities offline. It's an interesting learning curve to say the least...

As for the costs, I have a bit of Parse and AWS credits to cover the server for a few years, so that shouldn't be a problem.