Update: As of 9th March 2016, the Geocaching Intro App is now called the Geocaching® App and the paid app is now called Geocaching Classic. This renaming has one important addition to the unpaid app. I have added this info to the bottom of this blog post. 

The Geocaching Intro App is free to download on the App Store. There is a paid version of the app, but this is no longer being developed by Groundspeak, so hopefully the Intro App will eventually contain all the features of the paid app (and more!).

The following post goes through all the features of the Intro App and will hopefully show you how to optimise it for your geocaching needs.

Getting Started

If you search for ‘geocaching’ in the App Store, one of the first, if not the first result returned is ‘Geocaching Intro’. Once you have downloaded the app, you need to log in using your geocaching.com username and password. If you don’t have one yet, the app gives you the option to sign up or to connect with Facebook.

If you are using the Intro App and you do not have a premium member account, you will not be able to view all caches. The app will show you all the caches on the map as ‘dots’ but many of them will be grey in colour and therefore not accessible to navigate to directly from the app.

To bring up the map with caches, click on the third icon on the bottom navigation bar.

 

A basic member using the Intro App will be restricted to:

• Caches with a difficulty rating of 1 or 1.5
• Caches with a terrain rating of 1 or 1.5

If you click on a grey dot, you will see a message explaining what type of cache it is and giving you the option to ‘Learn More’ or ‘Upgrade’.

Caches that are available to navigate to with the app will appear darker in colour. Once you click on them, you will have the option to start navigating.

To narrow down which caches the app will allow you to navigate to, you can click on the below icon to bring up a list of caches, instead of showing the caches on a map. The list will only return results for caches that you can navigate to.

If you are a premium member, you will not see any grey dots on the map and all the caches will be available for you to find.

When you start navigating, you will see a number of options on the screen. I have highlighted some of these in the picture below.

To navigate to the cache using a Maps app (such as Google Maps), the curved arrow on the top navigation bar will give you this option.

If you need to read the cache description, or previous logs, or view the hint while you are navigating, you can click on the section at the bottom of the screen, which contains the cache name and type, etc.

You will notice in the above screenshots, that there is a green line at the bottom that says ‘log geocache’. If you click here, you will have three options: Found it, Did Not Find (DNF) or Write Note. If you click in to each one, there is a tip on what to write and the option to upload a photo with your log (remember not to post any spoilers!) .

Once you log your find, the app will congratulate you, remind you of your find total and also encourage you to upgrade to premium membership (which, incidentally, you can do within the app and be billed via your Apple account.)

Puzzle Caches on the Intro App

If you press ‘start’ when you have chosen a puzzle cache (dark blue dot on the map), you will be given three options: to view the puzzle, to enter solved coordinates or to go to the posted coordinates.

If you have already solved the puzzle, you can enter the coordinates and then navigate to the final location. If the unknown icon is for a nightcache, bonus cache, challenge cache or beacon cache, then you may have to navigate to the posted coordinates, in which case you  have that option too.

Multi Caches on the Intro App

For multi caches, when you press ‘start’, three dots and ‘more’ will appear in place of the start arrow. If you click here, you have the options to add a new waypoint, manage your waypoints or stop navigation.

Once you have figured out the final stage of the multi, or the next stage if all waypoints are not disclosed from the start, then you can add a new waypoint. You can rename the waypoint also. ‘Manage waypoints’ will show you all the waypoints listed on the cache page and you can click on each one to navigate to it.

The other icons on the bottom navigation bar will bring you to your profile, which shows your find number and your trackables inventory. You will also find the ‘sign out’ button here. The envelope icon is the message centre. You can email other geocachers from here and any messages you receive via the message centre will appear here also. The three dots will give you options to upgrade to premium membership, buy the paid app (clicking here will bring you to the App Store) and the help section will give you more information and tips on geocaching.

Lists

The rename of the app included the adding of a ‘lists’ section to the bottom navigation bar.  

 

This new section will show all the bookmark lists you have saved under ‘lists’ on the website, as well as any active pocket queries. 

 
The bookmarks will have a ‘last modified’ date on them and the pocket queries will have a ‘last generated’ date. For more information on pocket queries (a premium membership feature), take a look at this post.

I hope you found this guide useful. If you have any queries or topics I haven’t covered, please let me know in the comments!

Happy caching!

Sarah

© 2016 | Sarah Murphy | All Rights Reserved