Future of Locus and Geocaching

Inspired by a comment in https://help.locusmap.eu/topic/39323-geocaching-solver , I would like to start the following thread on the topic of "The future of Locus and geocaching".

In the past I advised a lot of my Geocaching-friends and other people within Geocaching-forums to have a look a Locus. Since it is the leading-edge app not only regarding offline Raster- & Vector map's use but also including Geocaching. Back then it has been the only app to reliable enable offline Geocaching without the need of Internet connection. We have been able to use detailed offline Vector maps. We have been able to update Caches and download its Spoiler-images for offline use. We got the chance to even expand Locus built-in features by using Add-ons like the "Solver"-Addon.

Thats all still true. But why lots of people are changing from Locus to C:geo - which is also my observation:

1. It's mostly -not- paying a small fair annual fee for Locus 4 although on the other side use of C:geo is completely free
2. it is that C:geo nowadays includes everything which have been unique to Locus in the past (offline maps, Solver, offline Caches' database, Live-Map)
3. C:geo integrated features which Locus does not yet support (detailed support of Adventure Labs. individual Stages, stage texts, questions - not just displaying Header Coordinates of a Lab), Wherigo-Player
4. Probably most important: Many of my Locus-user-friends told me that they don't have the feeling that Geocaching bug reports are taken seriously and the team work on fixing Geocaching-errors in a short time

Just some of yet unsolved bugs or ideas commented by myself within the last year:

• https://help.locusmap.eu/topic/38822-adventure-lab-gc-offlinizer-not-working-anymore
• https://help.locusmap.eu/topic/38822-geocaching-list-gpx-child-waypoints
• https://help.locusmap.eu/topic/37967-geocaches-add-to-watchlist-or-other-lists
• https://help.locusmap.eu/topic/38937-geocaching-additional-images
• https://help.locusmap.eu/topic/24201-adventure-labs-in-locus
• https://help.locusmap.eu/topic/37816-improve-update-of-geocaches
• https://help.locusmap.eu/topic/24315-friends-who-found-the-geocache
• https://help.locusmap.eu/topic/37173-geocaching-title-of-images
• https://help.locusmap.eu/topic/35411-additional-geocaching-quick-button-options

These people are going or already have been switched to C:geo and certainly never will come back to Locus again, which is a pity.

Partly I understand them, cause also myself got the feeling that Geocaching is not one of the priorities of Locus any more. I've the feeling that Bug reports aren't quite reproduced or understood. Even tiny bugs which could be solved by changing just a few lines of code like https://help.locusmap.eu/topic/38822-geocaching-list-gpx-child-waypoints aren't fixed. C:geo people would have fixed such a tiny bug within a few days. Maybe Locus lacks manpower or there aren't people who are active Geocachers and hence understand Geocacher-problems (maybe with the exception of Menion).

Finally: I don't want to blame Locus and its developer team. It's the opposite: I'm a Locus user since lots of years, since I'm geocaching using Android phones. I applied for Locus in dozens of talks with my Geocaching friends. I opened quite a lot of Geocaching-regarded bug reports. I answered lots of Geocaching-related questions of colleagues within Locus' forum. But the development and future of Locus regarding Geocaching-scene people finally switching to other apps makes me thoughtful and sad.

Maybe this thread could be an eye-opener how to deal with Geocaching people in the future - if Locus don't wants to completely lost this segment of users.