Try the Android app before it launches

Mobility Mapper is finished, and it's already on the App Store for iPhone. The Android version is still working its way through Google's release process, so you can't search for it in the Play Store yet — instead we send you a personal invitation and you install the same app early. It takes about five minutes.

It starts with one short form. We can't invite you until we know the Google account your phone is signed in with.

Using an iPhone? You don't need any of this — the app is out. Get it from the App Store, and the App Guide will take it from there.

What you'll see when you download it

The download itself is where testers most often stop. Google Play puts a few notices in front of you first, and some of them read more alarmingly than they're meant to. Here's what they are, so none of it takes you by surprise.

  • Play will call it an unreleased app, or early access. That's simply true, and it's the whole reason you needed an invitation to find it. It's a statement about the app not being public yet, not a warning about whether it's safe.
  • Play may say it doesn't recognise the developer, or that hardly anyone has installed it. Also true — Mobility Mapper is brand new. Google is telling you it hasn't seen many people use this yet, which is exactly what you'd expect for an app that isn't out. It is not a virus warning.
  • The list of permissions looks alarming written down. Before you install, you're shown what the app is able to reach — including your location all the time. Seeing that in a list, with no context, is genuinely startling. It's there because it's the whole point of the app: it records your route while your phone is in your pocket with the screen off. Lock your phone without it and the recording stops.

Once it's installed, the app asks for those same things again one at a time, and explains each as it goes. Android also asks you to exempt it from battery saving — without that, your phone shuts the recording down partway through a journey. Our App Guide walks through every one of them with screenshots.

How to check we are who we say we are

You should be suspicious of anyone asking you to install something. Here's how to satisfy yourself that we're genuine — please do check.

  • The app installs from the Google Play Store — the same place your other apps come from. We will never send you a file to install, and we'd never ask you to allow apps from "unknown sources". If anyone asks you to do that, it isn't us.
  • We only ever ask for your email address. Never a password — not your Google or Apple password, not any other. Nobody from Mobility Mapper will ever ask you for one.
  • You can come at us from the other direction. Rather than trusting a link we sent, find us yourself: we're on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, and this website explains who we are and what the Bristol pilot is for.
  • If anything feels wrong, stop. Nothing here is urgent and you can walk away at any point, with no explanation. Email support@mobilitymapper.co.uk and ask us about it — we'd far rather answer that than have you push through something you're uneasy about.

What happens next on an Android phone

On Android the app comes through the Google Play Store, exactly like any other app. The only difference is that you have to join the test first, using a link we email you.

  1. Open our joining link on your phone

    Once we've added you, we'll email you a joining link. Open it on the phone you'll be testing on, not on a computer. Make sure you're signed in with the same Google account you gave us — if a different account is signed in, the page won't work.

  2. Tap "Become a tester"

    The page explains that you're joining a test. Tap Become a tester, and it changes to say you're now a tester.

  3. Tap the Google Play download link

    On that same page, below the confirmation, there's a link to download the app on Google Play. Tap it and you'll land on the normal Mobility Mapper Play Store page.

    If it says the app can't be found, don't worry — it sometimes takes a little while after joining before Google shows it to you. Give it a few hours and try the link again.

  4. Tap Install

    From here it's an ordinary Play Store install. The app appears alongside your other apps, and updates arrive on their own.

    If Play says the app won't work on your phone, your phone's software is older than the app can work with. Let us know and we'll tell you when the app reaches the Play Store.

  5. Open the app and set it up

    Our step-by-step App Guide takes it from here — creating an account, the settings your phone needs, and recording your first journey. Android asks for a few more settings than iPhone, mostly about the battery and about letting the app follow your route while it's in your pocket. The guide covers all of them.

    Start the guide at Step 2. Step 1 is about installing from the Play Store, which you've just done a different way.

If something goes wrong

These are the things that trip testers up most often. If none of them fit, just email us — you're not doing anything wrong, and it's useful for us to know what got stuck.

This is the common one, and it's almost always one of three things:

  • The wrong Google account is active. Open the Play Store, tap your profile picture in the top right, and check the address matches the one you sent us. Switch account if it doesn't.
  • You haven't joined the test yet. Open our joining link again and make sure it says you're a tester.
  • Google hasn't caught up. It can take a few hours after joining before the app appears for you. Try again later in the day.

If it's still stuck after that, email us the address you're signed in with and we'll check our end.

That's fine, but the test is tied to one specific account, so the one you send us has to be the one you install apps with. Tap your profile picture in the Play Store to see which is currently active and to switch between them.

Send us whichever address you'd rather use and we'll set the test up against that one.

Usually this means you're signed out, or signed into a Google account that isn't on the tester list. Open the link in the browser you normally use, rather than a private browsing window, sign in with the account you gave us, and try again.

We'll email you when Mobility Mapper reaches the stores. On Android it simply updates itself, and you need do nothing. On iPhone you install it from the App Store, after which you can delete TestFlight. Either way your account and everything you've recorded stay exactly as they are.

We use it to add you as a tester and to contact you about testing. Apple and Google also need it, because that's how they know your phone is allowed to install it. We don't add you to any mailing list off the back of it, and we never pass it to anyone else.

Ask us to remove you at any point and we will, no explanation needed. Our Privacy Notice has the full detail.

Telling us how you got on

Anything you notice is worth sending — a crash, a confusing screen, a word that reads oddly, or a route the app got wrong. Small annoyances are genuinely useful, because they're the ones people don't usually bother to report.

What helps us most

  • What phone you're using — the model, and the iPhone or Android version if you can find it.
  • What you were doing when it happened.
  • What you expected, and what happened instead.
  • A screenshot, if the problem is something you can see.

None of that is compulsory. "The map went blank when I finished a journey" tells us plenty.

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Worth a look before you start