TheBoatAPP - Boat Maintenance & Management App

[MarineDataCloud]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn



Hang in there; it will come together.

OH yes, it will! Thanks a lot for the vote of confidence!

[Clivevon]

did anyone else's heart sink when they saw this thread - or is it just me?
As far as I understood, this is NOT a commercial marketplace - unless someone particularly asks for help & gets referred to a product or trader to solve the problem.

[tarian]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn



Hang in there; it will come together.

Not good enough if your charging people 49 euros to access , I pay for a finished product and no point does it tell you were having major teething issues ,poor navigation set up and little info of how the site works.
Do not try and sell anything if it is not tested first and works , is the first rule of a commercial business.
Also advertisers pay to be on a site that directs traffic to the site , the site was clunky took an age to finally create an account and several error messages when trying to navigate the site.
Fed up with poor service and people trying to make money from hard working people , when they cannot bother to test their wares
Seems that the boating industry with its money splashing around is an easy hit , well not to me , will not be returning nor recommending , please take this as positive feedback and from some one with 25 years of customer service industry behind me .
It is great you are trying something new , but never ever launch a product that does not work correctly

[MarineDataCloud]

Originally Posted by Clivevon

did anyone else's heart sink when they saw this thread - or is it just me?
As far as I understood, this is NOT a commercial marketplace - unless someone particularly asks for help & gets referred to a product or trader to solve the problem.

As far as we know this is Vendors' corner and they may comment here freely their products, features, etc. We do so and we do it in a very courteous way. Feel free to ask what you need related to our products.

[Alita49DS]

As someone who keeps all my manuals, files and other data for the boat in OneDrive, and uses a combination of OneNote and To-Do, what worries me about your otherwise innovative project @Marine Data Cloud is how you are going to monetise it. Free at the moment...

[Pete7]

Linky in signature line doesn't work.

Pete

[ronstory]

@MDC

If you want to hawk your wares for profit, then please become a sponsoring vendor. Also, providing SW that is actually tested before launch helps promote the viewpoint that this a real product.

[MarineDataCloud]

Originally Posted by tarian

Not good enough if your charging people 49 euros to access , I pay for a finished product and no point does it tell you were having major teething issues ,poor navigation set up and little info of how the site works.

Do not try and sell anything if it is not tested first and works , is the first rule of a commercial business.

Also advertisers pay to be on a site that directs traffic to the site , the site was clunky took an age to finally create an account and several error messages when trying to navigate the site.

Fed up with poor service and people trying to make money from hard working people , when they cannot bother to test their wares

Seems that the boating industry with its money splashing around is an easy hit , well not to me , will not be returning nor recommending , please take this as positive feedback and from some one with 25 years of customer service industry behind me .

It is great you are trying something new , but never ever launch a product that does not work correctly

To begin with, nobody is charged anything unless when they decide to. The service is FREE and only if the user wishes to support or wants some extra functionality may subscribe. Anyone can register for FREE without any payment or any details at all, except a valid email address.

Yes, we are a start up and have issues to work more on and we are, during all seven (7) weekdays, and nights too many times! If you take some time to read our story at www.MarineDataCloud.com and take a look at www.TheBoatApp.com and www.TheBoatDB.com you will release that much work has been put, and there is much more to come.

We love productive feedback and we pursue it. Especially from professionals like yourself. We are already collecting comments, and bugs reporting, and plan fixes. Should you spare some time, feel free to report any such issues at Support.MarineDataCloud.com.

Thank you.

[MarineDataCloud]

Originally Posted by ronstory

@MDC

If you want to hawk your wares for profit, then please become a sponsoring vendor. Also, providing SW that is actually tested before launch helps promote the viewpoint that this a real product.

We ARE a Sponsoring Vendor. Thank you for asking.

[MarineDataCloud]

Originally Posted by Alita49DS

As someone who keeps all my manuals, files and other data for the boat in OneDrive, and uses a combination of OneNote and To-Do, what worries me about your otherwise innovative project @Marine Data Cloud is how you are going to monetise it. Free at the moment...

We do not look for fast money. The service will remain as free with users subscribing only for some extra features and/or if they really feel that they should support. Also, data extract is available (CSV, Excel) so no dirty games to lock anybody in. We are transparent on these.

[MarineDataCloud]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Linky in signature line doesn't work.



Pete

We know we have a glitch with a firewall at our hosting provider. We hope to resolve it within this weekend.

[SVPP]

Couldn’t log in again! Am going back to my relegenDNA mobile - which is free to cruisers and works!

[CharlzO]

I can't speak to the app itself. However, I was able to register for the website directly without error. My initial thoughts:

It's very basic. Not that it isn't fluid, but there's a lot of extraneous or missing information. You're limited to a single boat being added - which is already added by default, so intuitively I went to "add" one and was told I had reached my limit. So I have to edit my "Generic Boat". There are a lot of fields you can add into the information , but it's a lot that doesn't apply to my sailboat. Instead of having it all under one long listing in the boat, it might be more helpful to have those sorts of things broken down into tabs underneath. Features, boat info (price, history), accessories, power, things like that. And like I said, limited to a single boat, yet the "Free" plan claims 3 in the Compare Plans section, vs 10 for paying the Gold plan.

I decided to try out the Trip Log feature, as that could be handy to do via an app when I get on the boat. And... blank page. Nothing to be done. No "New Log" button, no "Add a trip" - nothing at all.

Inventory list? I'm a vendor now? A way to track what you have on the boat, or at least that's what it appears? There's very little in the way of guidance as to what sections are. On a side note, under the categories, it's a little backwards to have NEW things, be the first choice in the menu. Maybe that's just me? But with the Inventory, and Maintenance and such, do we have the item / maint item to the list, and then add it? It's more helpful to have these things more self-explanatory within the task than it is to have to go open the '?' help box, go to the help center, open the knowledgebase, and then read the instructions. And you have to that from within the dashboard - from the main site, there's no link to FAQs or anything. And the search bar did exactly nothing at all when I tried to use that.

So the website, is pretty crude overall, and definitely not user-friendly for anything quick to be done on it.

The Blog? Nothing but self-promotion of the sites features. It presents as standard blog articles. "Finding the best log book software!" which makes it sound like every other review blog that would compare a bunch. Yours isn't - it just plugs your own part of the app. And that's the same for each one. Not sure about others, but a turn-off to me. Highlight the features in your About Us, or the App details, not in a fake blog format.



On to the app itself:

Let's try a new trip. Hey, this time, I have an Add new Trip button!... and a blank page. There's a check mark at the bottom, I assume this is to save my new trip. However, that's an error that fields must be filled in - but there are no fields.

And the same goes for pretty much everything I try to do. Nothing works. If you're going to have an App, that's great. but it needs to actually function. If you're going to have a website, THAT needs to function too, and be intuitive or at least have those handy pop-up tips and hints to guide you through things. And if you're going to have both an app and website that should work together, then they need to BOTH function independently of each other but sharing information between.

From my view, there's a long, long way to go on development on this, before rushing out and offering it to the masses. Take the feedback as you will. The concept is fine, and could be quite useful. But functionally, it's far from capable.

And, just to add, not sure you can blame the hosting services on what I've mentioned above. That's definitely development.

Last but not least - there's currently no readily apparent way to delete one's account once created. I realize it's the internet and all that. And that I can easily just not use it or logout and forget it, and so on. But there should still be an option for that for those that choose.

[MarineDataCloud]

Originally Posted by CharlzO

I can't speak to the app itself. However, I was able to register for the website directly without error. My initial thoughts:

It's very basic. Not that it isn't fluid, but there's a lot of extraneous or missing information. You're limited to a single boat being added - which is already added by default, so intuitively I went to "add" one and was told I had reached my limit. So I have to edit my "Generic Boat". There are a lot of fields you can add into the information , but it's a lot that doesn't apply to my sailboat. Instead of having it all under one long listing in the boat, it might be more helpful to have those sorts of things broken down into tabs underneath. Features, boat info (price, history), accessories, power, things like that. And like I said, limited to a single boat, yet the "Free" plan claims 3 in the Compare Plans section, vs 10 for paying the Gold plan.

I decided to try out the Trip Log feature, as that could be handy to do via an app when I get on the boat. And... blank page. Nothing to be done. No "New Log" button, no "Add a trip" - nothing at all.

Inventory list? I'm a vendor now? A way to track what you have on the boat, or at least that's what it appears? There's very little in the way of guidance as to what sections are. On a side note, under the categories, it's a little backwards to have NEW things, be the first choice in the menu. Maybe that's just me? But with the Inventory, and Maintenance and such, do we have the item / maint item to the list, and then add it? It's more helpful to have these things more self-explanatory within the task than it is to have to go open the '?' help box, go to the help center, open the knowledgebase, and then read the instructions. And you have to that from within the dashboard - from the main site, there's no link to FAQs or anything. And the search bar did exactly nothing at all when I tried to use that.

So the website, is pretty crude overall, and definitely not user-friendly for anything quick to be done on it.

The Blog? Nothing but self-promotion of the sites features. It presents as standard blog articles. "Finding the best log book software!" which makes it sound like every other review blog that would compare a bunch. Yours isn't - it just plugs your own part of the app. And that's the same for each one. Not sure about others, but a turn-off to me. Highlight the features in your About Us, or the App details, not in a fake blog format.



On to the app itself:

Let's try a new trip. Hey, this time, I have an Add new Trip button!... and a blank page. There's a check mark at the bottom, I assume this is to save my new trip. However, that's an error that fields must be filled in - but there are no fields.

And the same goes for pretty much everything I try to do. Nothing works. If you're going to have an App, that's great. but it needs to actually function. If you're going to have a website, THAT needs to function too, and be intuitive or at least have those handy pop-up tips and hints to guide you through things. And if you're going to have both an app and website that should work together, then they need to BOTH function independently of each other but sharing information between.

From my view, there's a long, long way to go on development on this, before rushing out and offering it to the masses. Take the feedback as you will. The concept is fine, and could be quite useful. But functionally, it's far from capable.

And, just to add, not sure you can blame the hosting services on what I've mentioned above. That's definitely development.

Last but not least - there's currently no readily apparent way to delete one's account once created. I realize it's the internet and all that. And that I can easily just not use it or logout and forget it, and so on. But there should still be an option for that for those that choose.

Thank you for the input and the time taken to put it in written, especially the very specifics you are providing (user experience). It has been flagged to be checked point by point with the Dev team (they will not be very happy I guess...). For some of the points we are aware (e.g. Account deletion) and are planned. Others are to be put in the Dev Task list.

Thank you.

[sailormed]

I installed it on my iPad. After several tries I deleted it. This what you get with an unfinished product. Client dissatisfaction!