CompetitiveAnalysis-Geobio Boo

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The One Line Summary

This fishing journal will allow fishermen to track the fish they caught for journalism purposes and to assist in analyzing patterns that suggest better probability of fishing.

Competitors

  • Fishing Calendar
  • http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fishing-calendar/id305708971?mt=8
  • Organized as a Calendar, with a Calendar View. Focused on prediction, with target group being pretty much any fisherman who believes fishing is moon-cycle dependent. Charts fish caught (user reported) to the lunar cycle, and laid out as a calendar. Limited perspectives in the way to analyze information. Offers moon cycle (aka, tide), pictures and weight of fish, and GPS aware location. Personal note: success in catching fish depends on MANY factors, much more than just tide. Our app should include more factors that fishermen believe have a correlation to the success of fishing.
  • iSolunar
  • http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/isolunar-hunting-fishing-times/id365780014?mt=8
  • Another generic app targeted to anyone (aka, not much of a target group) and focused on solar/lunar cycle. Not targeted to journaling, but rather for predicting based on solunar trends. Offers limited tracking (its "trophy room") and uses GPS for tracking. Offers significant functionality, in calendar style, of the weather/tide/solar/lunar conditions, with details information such as sunset, sunrise, moon set, underset, etc. From reviews, it seems lunar information is necessary for certain types of fishing.
  • Fishing by HuntFishTracker
  • http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fishing-by-huntfishtracker/id348872989?mt=8
  • Target group is anyone who wants to track location and basic fish details. Offers a map view with mostly auto-filled information pulled from GPS. Tracks fish weight, pictures, time, weight, rod, bait, and other details. Allows fish to be logged into "trips" and also allows filtering of fish. Also has weather info, and "analysis"--not sure what kind of analysis. Has web sync. However, overall app is rated 2 stars because it is unreliable, crashes, or does not work.
  • After The Catch
  • http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/after-the-catch/id322854204?mt=8
  • App is very similar to Fishing by HuntFishTracker (see above), but is a post-fishing journaling app. Overall, description seems very similar to Fishing by HuntFishTracker. Rating is much better though--and from what I can tell, its just a less buggy version of the app, that they listed separately to avoid the previous low-star reviews.
  • Gone Fishing
  • http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gone-fishing/id298967170?mt=8
  • A very basic app, tracks fish caught, but only displays it as fish name and weight. For more details, its necessary to click on that specific fish caught. Also, weight is entered as spinny wheels (I hate spinny wheels), and details are hard to fill out. Overall, missing a map view, and easier ways to list information. Our app will offer far more functionality in terms of perspectives to analyze trends. Lacks ability to group by fishing trip.
  • FishMate
  • http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fishmate-fishing-times-tight/id349856174?mt=8
  • Targeted not mainly for journalism, but tries to be a all-in-one app needed to plan the trip. Does offer journaling in "but 'uns" for major catches. Offers weather, tide, moon, sunset, etc, fishing news from other organizations. The journaling part is not as huge--and clearly the target group is not for post-fishing. Offers tracking of fish caught (picture, lure, location) and offers emailing photos to other people.
  • Fishing Days
  • http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fishing-days/id381831022?mt=8
  • More for predicting fishing than journaling, but for different fishermen who want to fish what is currently available. App "tracks" fish and based on current conditions, suggests what to catch, and provides information and where the fish can be found. No journalism option--however this app may be successful if it added ways to mark the success of a fishing trip (based on the suggestions of the app).
  • Fishing Guide
  • http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id332453287?mt=8
  • Another app the help fishermen learn about places to fish. Includes very detailed maps (looks like it was pulled from a book), a comprehensive guide, suggestions, charts, fish types and locations, etc. Basically, its a complete fishing book in an app.
  • A very comprehensive guide, with maps, suggestions, details, fish types, charts, etc.

Summary

Other apps already include details, including weather/tide, fish type, weight, time, location (GPS aware, shown as pins on maps, lure type, etc. Together the apps covers most of the conditions that affect the success of fishing. One thing I noticed is that many apps have low ratings due to unreliability and crashing. Also, the apps that had more information required a lot more data input. Also, many apps had pretty bad UI design, so I think a primary focus for our app would be UI design, simplicity, ease of use, but also useful information (enter enough, not too much work, and for the purposes of analysis--make it easy to find relationships between successful fishing trips and factors (eg. weather, tide, bait). To best design this app, it will be targeted to a specific user group and for a certain purpose (eg. logging at the end of the fishing trip, rather than after every catch--this would lead to less information (loss of time and weather, and difficulty to incorporate a fishing trip were the user changes location), but easier and less obtrusive while fishing. Also, it might incorporate common fish types, which requires it to be very targeted, maybe just for Northern California fishermen on the shoreline (excludes ocean and freshwater fishing). The value for our app, and differences from other apps, has yet to be determined since there are other similar apps. However, it will focus on UI, ease of use, and sufficient ways to properly analyze correlations and trends to help the user see when fishing was successful.

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