Actually, this looks like a really nice app. Just downloaded it today. I can keep both my wife and my gear together in the master list, and then create separate trips, such as "Yosemite – John" and "Yosemite – Bonnie) for the same trip. This will make handling shared items easier (for example, when i hike solo I use her smaller backpack, but when we both hike I use a bigger backpack. I can just have both backpacks in the master list and select which one to use for that trip). I like that you can list the location of the items, which should be particularly helpful for filtering then things I need to get at the grocery store just before the trip. This should make customizing my favorite food items easy. I also like the trip history, which will help me compare what I've brought in the past.
Best of all, I can make changes during the trip. In the past, I'd have to scribble notes, and then come home and input the changes into my spreadsheet. Often these changes were specific to that type of trip. Plus, more than once I have forgotten to update my spreadsheet, and I then forget all those amazing gear change ideas I had on the trail. With this app, I can make the changes right in the field, by changing the "Need it," "Good to have had," and "Did not need" statuses. The "Maybe" status will be helpful for gear I might need (i.e. bring it in the car) but it is dependent on the pending forecast just before the trip.
I remember a few years back BPL having a spreadsheet contest for checklists. All of the useful ones were rather complicated and required a more thorough understanding of Excel, and with the simple ones you had to be careful not to duplicate or delete your primary data, particularly if you change the gear and food lists for each trip.
This phone app seems to solve a lot of these problems, and gives you the flexibility to update your lists when at the grocery store, the gear store, or on the trail.
Things I would like to see improved:
1) I really like how you can tag both the category AND the container. I usually sort my lists based on how I pack them; therefore what goes on the top of the list is what goes in the bottom of the pack. But I know most people sort by type of gear. This app let's me have both; I can look at all of my clothing and my wife's clothing at once, yet I can specify that my insulating jacket is contained in my waterproof stuff sack.
What I would like to see is the ability to organize/filter by container. This way I could create a basic list based on category, but then when it comes time to verify I have everything, I can check off that each bag and stuff sack has everything it needs before I zip it up and call it complete.
2) Export to Excel/data backup program. You can post your list to their website and then copy/paste into a spreadsheet app, but this seems like an odd workaround to backup your data.
I definitely get the sense that this was designed by a backpacker for backpackers, and I would be interested to heat what others think about this app. It might be nice to pull together some user tips specific to the lightweight backpacking community and see if we can get them submitted to the developer.
