Version 1.5.0 of the mobile app is out now for iPhone, iPad and Android.
This one is mainly about signing in. It was one of the main pain points with app users, and it had a problem that we are glad to see the back of: signing out no longer deletes data you had not yet uploaded! 🎉
Here is what has changed.
Signing out no longer deletes your work
This is the big one.
Until now, signing out wiped the surveys and photos held on your device. If you had fieldwork that hadn't reached the server yet — because you were out of signal, or the upload hadn't finished — signing out would take your data with it. The confirmation box warned you, but it was still a source of anxiety for many users.
We no longer delete your data when you sign out. Your surveys and photos stay on your device. When you sign back in, they are exactly where you left them, and anything still waiting to upload starts uploading.
If you do want to clear a device — handing it on to someone else, say — you can still do that deliberately, from Settings → Accounts. It asks you to confirm, and tells you how many surveys haven't been uploaded yet.
You stay signed in
The app used to ask for your password every day. Now it remembers you for weeks. Every time you use the app it quietly extends how long it remembers you, so in normal use you should rarely be asked at all.
Signing in happens in your browser now
When you tap Sign In, the app opens the Cartographer sign-in page in your device's web browser. You sign in there, and it hands you straight back to the app:
This sounds like a small change but it fixes several things at once:
- Password managers work properly. 1Password, iCloud Keychain, Google Password Manager and the rest now fill your details in as you'd expect on any web page.
- Two-factor codes work the way they do on the web site, including auto-filling the code from your password manager.
- If you are already signed in to the web site on your device, the app signs you straight in — often with no typing at all.
The first time you open the app after updating it, your device may show a message asking whether to let Cartographer use the browser to sign in. That's expected so you can say "yes" without worry.
Several people can share one device
A single phone or tablet can now hold more than one account at a time. Each account's surveys and photos stayon your device:
You'll find the list under Settings → Accounts, and on the sign-in screen itself. Tap an account to switch to it. Swipe a row right to export a backup file of everything that account holds on your device; swipe left to delete that account's local data.
This is useful for shared or borrowed equipment such as company tablets. One person can sign out and another sign in without losing unsaved work.
Photos are uploaded at full quality
Photos now upload exactly as your camera took them. Until now the app shrank every photo before uploading, which meant the copy stored on Cartographer was always a slightly degraded version. Now we upload the original full-quality photo.
One thing to be aware of: full-quality photos are considerably larger files. If you are working on mobile data rather than wifi, or your data allowance is tight, it is worth turning on Work Offline while you're in the field and letting your surveys upload when you're back on wifi.
Smaller things
- The "N to upload" counter in the header has been replaced by a slim animated progress bar. The old counter could appear to go backwards because of the way the app queued uploads behind the scenes. The new bar is much simpler and more elegant.
- "Offline mode" has been relabelled Work Offline. The app remembers your choice properly when you close and reopen it.
- If your app gets out of date, a version warning will appear on the sign-in screen and at the top of menu screens and link straight to the App Store or Play Store so you can download an update.
- On Android, the app no longer asks permission to reach your photos — it uses the system photo picker instead, which needs no permission at all.
- We fixed a long-standing problem where a screen could stay stuck showing a loading spinner after a drop in signal, until you pulled down to refresh.
Before you update
A few things worth knowing.
You will probably have to sign in once. We move most people across automatically, but that only works if you have opened the app in the last day or so. If you haven't, you'll land on the sign-in screen after updating.
Your surveys and photos are unaffected — they are all still there. Simply enter your password (and your two-factor code if necessary) and you'll be good to go.
Signing out of Cartographer in your browser now signs you out of the app too. The two share a session, which is what makes signing in so much quicker. If the app asks you to sign in unexpectedly, this is usually why. Remember that your surveys and photos are safe - simply sign in again to pick up where you left off.
iPhones and iPads need iOS 16.4 or later. This is supported on most Apple devices from the iPhone 8 onwards. If yours is currently on iOS 15, updating iOS will usually sort it.
As always, if something looks wrong, please let us know via our contact form and we'll help as quickly as we can!