Niantic Wayfarer is 'App'ening - Discussion
NianticTintino-ING
Posts: 996Niantic › admin
Hello Explorers,
We wanted to share some exciting news with you all. Drum roll………. We are starting to build the new Niantic Wayfarer app! While it will take some time to ship to you in its best form, we wanted to give you a heads up.
The beta version of the app will include the ability to scan at Wayspots (which you can already do via Ingress or Pokémon GO) and the ability to view nearby Wayspots on a map. As a beta app, it will be accessible to Lightship developers as they start to build new AR experiences using Lightship. Ambassadors will also be able to trial beta versions for early feedback. From there we will continue adding features over time and inviting Explorers on board later this year.
You’ll see some news about the app in conjunction with the upcoming Niantic Lightship Summit on May 24 - 25, 2022. This is our first developer conference, and we’re excited about the incredible AR experiences these developers will be able to build with Lightship and some other new tools. Stay up to date with Lightship by following them on Twitter!
We’re in the process of refining the rest of the app roadmap, deciding which additional features to build first, and the right time to open it up to the community. It’s been very exciting to be working on this next evolution of your Wayfarer experience and we can’t wait to tell you more in the coming months!
Check out the discussion here!
Comments
I kinda hoped you’d started on it a while back? I wonder how you plan to convince many Pokémon GO players to scan, as they fear (incorrectly) that scanning gets Wayspots removed.
Personally I'm excited, but because some people in the community have been voicing their concerns - the app won't replace the Wayfarer website, right?
Is there an ETA as to when Lightship Developers will get it? Is it going to be a “available after this presentation”?
@NianticTintino Will this app include the full lightship map? and the ability to edit any lightship waypoint?
Personally can't review more than 5 things without getting a 2 hour cooldown, please fix the system to allow people to honestly review and do a decent amount without restrictions. We aren't bots we just want to review faster than your system allows...
@NianticTintino think you are still missing the point of a separate app.
As been raised hundreds of times on both pogo and Ingress forums. There is a general lack of interest to scan anything. Because there is nothing been applied to either game.
You simply do not need even half of the scanned wayspots to have what have been done to be have those meshes being used.
I am looking forward to Ingress getting it, but the years have come and gone.
As for reviewing wayspots, the current system works very well, and is already naturally cross platform.
I love to have app for Wayfarer. 👍🏻💙😀
Now I hope Niantic can buy IITC and allow IITC and the new owner are Niantic.
Hope we can get new app from Niantic include both Ingress and Wayfarer community. Resolve lots of bugs for mobile.
For exaple reddit app are amazing against use the web browser.
@NianticBrian-ING
For over two years now Niantic has been talking about changing the way we review Wayspots to better reflect modern day criteria and to remove some of the ambiguity that comes with questions like "Is this visually unique?"
Does Niantic plan to FINALLY implement these changes prior to the release of the app? Or will you yet again rewrite the code for reviewing similar to what was done last fall with the "new" wayfarer website (4.0 I think?) that was in many ways, several steps backwards?
Please, introduce a function, in this app, for voting/review waypoints too. This would be perfect.
Oh awesome. Will the app include the ability to review, or is this basically just a lightship map app?
For the love of all that's holy, please, please, please, allow us, the people who actually use Wayfarer, to test this app. We promise that we can be reasonable and fair if we are just included in the process from the beginning instead of having to explain how what you've done is the exact opposite of what any of us wanted.
I know you have Ambassadors for this but I'm not sure a group of 11 people is enough to meet everyone's needs.
For context, I am a Sr Improvement Advisor in the Quality and Outcomes Management department of my company. I know data integrity backwards and forwards and I understand process improvement. I have also worked in IS at other jobs, developing reports and solutions for customers. I understand requirements gathering.
Niantic don’t need to buy IITC. If they wanted to, they could do all of that, plus all the Wayfarer Tools stuff. But choose not to.
@NianticTintino would love for you to come on the wayspotters podcast and talk about the App’ening. Lol. I’m personally very excited and I know the other Wayfinders are as well.
That's a great notice!!!
@NianticTintino well on my 6th birthday i was asking for he-man. i got - big jim.
this time we asked for a wayfarer app. and we get - a AR SCAN app. Maybe instead of making this an app, you should justify AR Scanning for the community.
Otherwise this is just another sad birthday for everyone.
ABOUT TIME!!!!!
Looking forward to the app (whatever shape it is)
May the 'Soon TM' be of short duration.
Sounds cool! I hope you guys are able to take your time on it so that you get it right out of the gate.
For the love of all that is holy I hope that this doesn't deprecate the web interface. I know other people do it but I personally can't stand reviewing on a tiny screen with a single window.
Yeah mobile reviewing is much harder. One of the reasons why I only have 5500 reviews. My computer time is limited.
I just can't like it with a big screen on PC.
On mobile it is a much more pleasant experience for me. Each like the system differently
An app just sounds like a massive waste of time and resources.
The website does everything, it just needs to be updated (properly and regularly):
Once when that is done, the website will do everything and it will be one place for all Wayfarer content. Instead of having a separate platform to appease a few begging for an app for no real purpose! You already have the platform, and it can be accessed from anywhere.
Scanning isn't necessary in Lightshit, as the games already do that and give in-game benefits (stats/boosts/items), how is a Lightship App going to incentivise players better than their primary games?
Plus seeing how Niantic treats their platforms, an App is just another that thing will further stretch limited resources. How many months does it take to make a simple change of a number on the website? Now multiply that for the website and an app.
Please don't waste resources, instead put them to good use and actually listen to the community.
Wow your perspective is so different to mine. What you say is really interesting!
Perhaps we are thinking differently about the possible functionality of the the app.
Much easier to develop/change nomination/editing/reviewing processes than have to be written into games that have their own development processes.
Having a separate app means you could do radical changes to wayfarer but still have the old system running through Pokemon and Ingress.
Wayfarer needs a massive overhaul but we all know you have to keep the old system running while you sort out the bumps with the new system.
Wow, sounds good.
This is a good news.
Maybe I'll come back, this medal with wings will be beautiful 😜😍
App for reviewing is not needed, agree.
App for nominating would be useful. Show all wayspots on map while walking (currently only pogo shows lightship wayspots, and only when players are already prepared to nominate, and afaik still broken for remote nominations). Allow players to fix lightship wayspots, text and locations. Better "draft" nominations - "upload later" and "hold" functions are cool, but can be better, let players pick better pictures before submitting, etc. Add basic photo crop and resize. Make the app lightweight to avoid game crashes on low-end phones.
Most of that could be done in pogo and ingress, but their teams are too busy.
We need to be able to edit lightship portals. And having an app to do that would be awesome.
I have had many items accepted but unable to edit them as they do not appear in the game.
It would be super useful if I can provide supporting evidence for nearby submission that are either in queue or in voting via scan or extra photos. Also, I wish the app could use nearby cell and wifi triangulation to help verify locations. I felt like in-person on-location review might be compromised if location-faking is still easy to do.
@ZinkyZonk-ING One of the problems with moving submissions to a separate app is that they will lose a lot of casual submitters who can't be bothered to install and then fire up a separate app when they come across something they want to submit.
That would mean removing remote nominations and to many people wouldn't like that
i have mixed feelings about this ….. so may change mind 😎
To be fair to Nia, requests for an app is something that has been repeatedly asked for.
I’m not clear from the limited information so far as what purposes it will fulfil . Before the announcement when it was talked about I had a vague notion about an alternative reviewing app. I personally had never felt the need as I do my reviewing on an iPad so a reasonably sized screen. I wouldn’t even contemplate reviewing on a phone far too small, but I can see that those wanting to review on a phone an app may want better.
I start to get confused about the purposes of wayfarer now and in future.
i can’t see any need for reviewing to be done on a mobile basis. Excepting situations where you might be on a train or the like, reviewing is a stationary activity. So I feel really puzzled as to why you would need to scan objects - put in new data - via an app that you wouldn’t use. If I wanted to scan something I would use my normal game app. What am I overlooking not understanding?
Repeatedly we are told that resources are limited.
The single biggest issue that gets in the way of an improved database, is targeted meaningful feedback to submitters and to reviewers of their contributions in terms of quality of submissions and reviewing. Surely that should be priority?
I think people are expecting a successor to IntelMap, not the ability to view nearby Wayspots.