[Dave Flanagan]

Does anyone have any experience of the Vertical Life guidebook app from a user or publisher point of view?
I have just installed the app as they approached me about publishing some guides through it. From a quick glance the guides which you can buy on a regional or crag basis seem really expensive. (Aplen en bloc 1 is €60, Cresciano €38, Magic Wood also €38).

[user deactivated]

Someone asked to borrow my 'paper' guide the other week cos their phone battery had died.

[remus]

Hadn't seen it before so just had a quick look.

I don't think the prices are as bad as they first look. It looks like all the prices are in 'credits' which you buy for 20-40p a go, depending on how many you buy at once. That puts mot of the topos at about £15 - £20.

[Stu Littlefair]

I've used it; they have a nice system whereby when you buy some paper guides they come with a single use code to enable the guide in the app.

The app itself is pretty nice to use, but I wish it wasn't integrated with the whole zlag-board thing

[dave]

I've used it; they have a nice system whereby when you buy some paper guides they come with a single use code to enable the guide in the app.

I think this is the way forward for guides, esp given the sizes of some guides these days - keep the paper copy for the coffeetable, then use the app at the crag. Keep a few photocopied pages in your bag as a backup.

What would be really smart (in fact such a good idea that I'm going to demand a cut of the money when someone finally does this) is to use a kind of pokemon-go augmented reality thing, where you point your phone camera at a crag or boulder, and the app superimposes the topo lines in realtime. Would be good for the kind of guidebook no-paint bouldering circuits like some of the BMC guides feature already.

[sdm]

What would be really smart (in fact such a good idea that I'm going to demand a cut of the money when someone finally does this) is to use a kind of pokemon-go augmented reality thing, where you point your phone camera at a crag or boulder, and the app superimposes the topo lines in realtime.

You might already be too late for a cut.

There was a German guy in Font in the autumn who was collecting photos, GPS and drone shots for an app guide that would do exactly that.

I think he was still a fair way off from publishing, sounded like there was still a lot of code to finish and topos to gather.

[miso soup]

I downloaded it last week having got a code with the Kalymnos guidebook. The fact that you can't actually download the topos and have to be online for it to work makes it virtually useless to me, but I suppose if you're the kind of person that walks around with unlimited 4G data constantly on and you're at a crag with signal then it might be okay.

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[SA Chris]

I think this is the way forward for guides, esp given the sizes of some guides these days - keep the paper copy for the coffeetable bog

Who are we kidding. I don't even have a coffee table. My guidebook shelf is right outside the loo.