Like to thank those of you who wrote me emails about what you thought was missing in mobile platforms today or  want to be there when you finally buy one. 

Being a community of sharing ideas and information, I wanted to share the lessons learned.

1)  Almost everyone wanted higher resolution GPS than is native to the mobile devices today.  A fairly large number said they wanted RTK (sub 3 inch) accuracy on the mobile devices.   

2) Had no idea, but a number of you have operations in other countries and/or have workers who's second language is english.  So got a fair number of requests that the mobile application support multiple languages to allow the person to work in his most comfortable language.   There was enough of you writing in that iCropTrak will get this feature in the Jan 2013 release.  www.icroptrak.com/v3 

3) Mobile device should talk directly with the tractors so you don't have to go back to the office or pay an additional 3rd party fee to get the tractor data into the mobile device.  A few went so far as to suggest that some amount of processing be accomplished on the mobile device so you can harvest and soil sample in a single visit.

4) Mobile devices should be a consolidated display of other farm data.  A number of you asked for weather, sensors, irrigation, tractor status, and more be in one display since you are being overwhelmed by the number of individual apps to monitor and control these items.  A few talked about the challenges today of jumping back and forth between application to make a decision as well.

5) The second most requested item was an easy-to-use multi-user inventory tracking capability on the mobile devices so near real time status of silos, fuel, seed, chemicals, and other items could be available during time sensitive periods in farming such as planting or harvest.
 

If you have more feedback, ideas, or just commentary, please feel free to post them as replies here or send me an email at [email protected]   

Happy Holidays and Happy New Years,