Category: Blog

Every so often I receive interesting questions about iHunter via email that surprise me. They surprise me because I think that I have made something clear in the app; perhaps its not clear enough, though.

Question: If iHunter and the official regulations have differences, which one is correct and which one will be enforced?

Answer: The first thing iHunter does when it is installed is tell the user that it is not an official source or legal document. We do our best to maintain accuracy, but mistakes can and do happen. Its up to the user to ensure that they are hunting legally. However, not even the regulation booklet put out by the state or province is a legal document. It is a summary, and mistakes happen there too. Only the Wildlife act (or similar legislation in different jurisdictions) is correct and enforceable. Please double check with other sources and don’t rely solely on iHunter.

Question: I have heard that iHunter has access to my Contact list on my phone. Is this true? I have also heard that iHunter shares my location with Fish and Wildlife so they can find me when I am hunting. Is this true?

Answer: No, neither is true. In our privacy policy, we outline what personal data we look at (virtually nothing). We don’t have access to your contacts and we don’t share your location (or waypoint data) with anyone (unless you choose to send it via email / text).

If you do have questions, please do not hesitate to ask them. I want to clear up mis-conceptions so you can use the app in confidence.

 

It’s that time of year again, when the success of the hunt ceases to be a dream keeping you up at night, and becomes a memory to be looked back on for years to come. Whether you were able to get your first Black Bear or a “Booner” Mule deer, when it was a hunt you want to remember, its worthwhile having that memory preserved by a professional taxidermist.

This spring, I was able to harvest my first black bear with my bow and it was a trip I won’t soon forget. I was able to share it with a couple of great friends, filmed it, and wanted my first bear done up as a rug. The guys at Dave Booth Taxidermy gave me a great quote (15% off for all iHunter users) for both a rug and a full body mount, as well as a more than competitive price on cleaning up the skull. As this bear came in quietly and curiously, I decided to go with a closed mouth rug, along with the skull cleaning.

The pictures, as great as they are, don’t do their work justice. The detail work on the face is fantastic, and the skull came out even better than I had expected.

If you have a memory you want to remember forever, have a look at Dave Booth Taxidermy’s online gallery to see some of their past work. Remember to mention iHunter and get 15% off all taxidermy work as well!

Each year, we receive reports of major issues with the app, that we try to fix as soon as humanly possible, to get people back up and running. When issues happen on iOS, its a pain, because even once we fix them, it takes Apple a week to publish the fix.

Luckily, we haven’t had one of those issues yet; but we are experiencing some reports of crashes on Android. I am doing my best to get these fixed, but in many cases, I can’t actually reproduce the crash that’s being experienced. If a user submits a crash report, it does wonders to help get things fixed. However, if they don’t include an email address in the crash report, I have no way to get in touch with them to discuss the reproduction steps, or ask other important questions. So please do include contact info.

If you do come across any other major issues (or minor ones) on either platform, please email me at info@ihunterapp.com with a detailed description of the issue. That way, I can get it fixed for the many other people that are also experiencing it.

Thanks in advance, and I hope not to hear about too many issues. Good luck to you all this season.

-Mark

One of the most common questions I get is, “I bought a new phone, how can I transfer iHunter without paying again?”

The answer is, you can if you are moving to the same type of phone (iPhone to iPhone or Android to Android), and you can’t if you are switching phone types. If you are staying on the same device type (or own multiple of the same device type), you can install iHunter (and all your in-app purchases) on multiple devices. Just use the same iTunes or Google Play account that you purchased the app with, and you can download the app for free. On Android, all your in-app purchases should activate automatically, and on Apple, you will need to press the “Restore” button on the purchase screen for each in-app purchase.

Why can’t we transfer purchases from iPhone to Android and vice versa? Because the big guys won’t let us. The terms of use of the app stores prevent us from working around the technical restrictions, and if we try to do so, the app stores could pull the apps from sale entirely. This is probably because both app stores want their 30% cut of every dollar that flows through the store. They also want you to stick with their product once you have invested money into apps and in-app purchases.

Thanks for understanding, and I hope to keep you as a customer even if you decide to switch phones.

 

Unfortunately, two of the map layers that have been available within iHunter up until now, MapQuest Roads and MapQuest Satellite, stopped working today. MapQuest has removed access to the maps as of today, and require some development work to re-integrate them.

If you are using these maps, and zoom into a new area, you will see something like this:

Until we release a new version of the app removing these maps, please select one of the other 5 base maps offered.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

As we do every year, the iHunter team is busy updating regulations and boundaries for the upcoming season. Different states and provinces release their updated information at different times of the year, so apps get updated as these are released (usually about a week afterwards).

So far, we have updated ON, SK (spring seasons only), MB (spring seasons only), QC, WA, OR, ID, MT, and CO. There are a few types of seasons in each that are still pending, such as Game bird seasons, Migratory Bird seasons, Mountain Lion seasons, etc. Once they are available, we will work to integrate them as well.

BC, AB, SK, MB, NB and PA have yet to release their 2016/2017 regulations, so we are patiently awaiting them. If you see them released before we have them published, feel free to shoot us an email at info@ihunterapp.com to notify us.

Also, as always, if you notice a mistake or something we can improve on, please let us know so we can get it fixed before the fall hunting season.

I have had a few reports for iOS users of in-app purchases becoming deactivated. Sometimes this has happened after an iOS update, sometimes after changing base maps, sometimes for no reason at all.

I can’t explain this, but can help restore functionality. Go back to the purchase screen for the feature, and look in the bottom right corner. There is a “Restore” button there. Press it, and if you have purchased that feature before with your current Apple ID, the feature will be restored. If this isn’t the problem, maybe the layer just got hidden. Go to the settings for the feature, and toggle it off and on again.

Finally, if there are any of your county maps that aren’t showing up correctly right after purchase, try restarting iHunter (press the home button twice and “slide up” on the iHunter app image). As a last recourse, you can try clearing the map tile cache by going into the settings (bottom right corner) and pressing the clear cache button.

If all that doesn’t help, try restarting the app, and then the phone. If that still doesn’t work, send me an email at info@ihunterapp.om and I will try my best to help you out.

Thanks, and good luck with the rest of the season.

It’s only the past few years that I have started really making proper use of trail cameras to prepare for the hunt. This year, with a bull moose tag in my pocket, I stepped things up and added two new “Kill’n Kams” to my trail cam setup (http://the-bone-yard.myshopify.com/products/killn-kam).

Calvin and Jason from “The Bone Yard” have stepped into the manufacturing game this year, and released the trail cam mentioned above, a new line or arrows (Kill’n Stix) and even some lighted nocks. Being an Alberta-based company ourselves, I wanted to support these local guys and give their camera a shot. And man, am I happy. Sporting a 12 mega pixel camera, with a really decent flash and support for pictures, video and a combination mode, I have been impressed with the quality and function of the cameras.

My typical setup is using the combination capture mode which takes three pictures with a 30 second video after each set of pictures. This allows me to get high quality images to use for proper identification and use in social media, with a video clip to give me more context of whats going on. I password protect the cameras to give a little security from curious hunters, and set the motion detect distance for the camera depending on how big an area I want to cover. The front facing LCD screen also makes it dead simple to set up and confirm that the camera has the right field of view. To be honest, I don’t think I would ever buy a camera without an LCD, or with an internal LCD, as they are just so much more difficult to get set up properly.

I was able to get some great photos, and narrow down my hunting area to one with a ton of moose (and deer, and elk, and bear for that matter) which ended up with me harvesting a fantastic bull. Next trailcam you buy, look into the Kill’n Kam, $199 for a 12 MP, full function camera that takes amazing pictures:

http://theboneyardstore.com/collections/gear/products/killn-kam

I just got an email that I have been dreading for a long time. A user wrote in to mention that they were hunting near a municipality, and relied on iHunter AB’s no hunting zone boundaries alone to determine where they could hunt. As iHunter does not show municipal boundaries, they thought they were legally hunting, but were in fact within a municipality’s limits. They were caught, fined, and lost their animal.

Please be cautious out there, and use iHunter as a reference, but acknowledge that there are limitations to the app and that you are ultimately responsible to ensure you are hunting legally. We will try to incorporate more data when it is available, but will never have everything. In addition, we could make mistakes, and its always prudent for you the user to double check both season summaries and boundaries when uncertain.

Thanks and keep safe (and legal) out there while hunting this year.

-M

It was only last year around this time that I (and my intern) put the finishing touches on iHunter New York as the 14th iHunter app. Since that time, it is the only state / province that hasn’t thrived (less than a hundred downloads). As NY State took their time updating their regulations, the workload for other products and projects spiked, and once released, I just wasn’t in a position to spend the required time updating the NY version.

The developer and hunter in me say to suck it up and spend the 20 or so hours it will take to update the app. However, the business man in me says to cut my losses of time and money and remove the app from the store. Thats what I did today.

If you already have the app, you can continue to use it for waypointing, tracking, satellite imagery, and zone boundaries. However, season summaries will no longer be updated, and once you move to a new phone, you probably can’t download it again.

My apologies to those few of you that did purchase it, and I hope you understand why I chose to stop working on it.