A must have for your NZ roadtrip!
We recently had a 3 week family roadtrip through New Zealand and we heard about this App from Christian Hull so decided to give it a go.
We subscribed for our South Island park of our trip and from the start it was great! Effectively having a personal tour guide offering up local historic and cultural information as your driving was far better than googling every location.
I only have two negatives.
The app volume output is about 50% quieter than whatever music your device is playing so I found I was constantly pausing music or adjusting volumes while driving. It would also be handy if you were able to pause/rewind narration.
Pricing structure.. Having separate subscriptions for each Island wasn’t ideal. It didn’t make sense to subscribe for the last few days we were in the north island. Instead of 45 day subscriptions to each island it would be better for a monthly subscription for all of NZ..
Regardless, I would still be recommending the app to everyone I know traveling NZ.
We subscribed for our South Island park of our trip and from the start it was great! Effectively having a personal tour guide offering up local historic and cultural information as your driving was far better than googling every location.
I only have two negatives.
The app volume output is about 50% quieter than whatever music your device is playing so I found I was constantly pausing music or adjusting volumes while driving. It would also be handy if you were able to pause/rewind narration.
Pricing structure.. Having separate subscriptions for each Island wasn’t ideal. It didn’t make sense to subscribe for the last few days we were in the north island. Instead of 45 day subscriptions to each island it would be better for a monthly subscription for all of NZ..
Regardless, I would still be recommending the app to everyone I know traveling NZ.
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Loved what I learned
Loved the idea of a history narrator and the cultural folklore. Worked only some of the time. Sometimes it would start fine and cut out. Sometimes it would repeat and I couldn’t stop it. Needs some glitches worked out but still worth it. It enhanced my experience in New Zealand!!!
Good. Almost great.
Used it for a South Island trip and it worked great for the most part. It was fun hearing stories and history of the areas we were in. My few suggestions are to have the audio play sooner. Sometimes I would be past the landmark before I had enough info to know if I wanted to stop. And I liked the random facts that were unrelated to the area I was in. I’d add more of those. I’ll be using it again for my next trip to north island
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A fantastic app to road trip to
We are absolutely loving this app as we cruise the South Island. It’s so well put together and a great mix of history, geology, and stories. We just wish we had the option to manually replay some episodes.
Excellent content, unpolished app
Content: 4/5
App: 3/5
TL;DR: The information in the audio clips was interesting and the app worked well when it worked but I ran into several annoying issues throughout my trip.
Content: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The content was fairly comprehensive and informative. I enjoyed hearing the history of locations as we passed through. Some of the stories (eg the one with the serpent that turned into a river) were difficult to follow; I think some copy editing and possibly audio mixing could help with clarity and comprehension. Additionally, several of the audio tracks were too long and got cut off by the beginning of the next track.
App: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The app fulfilled the basic need of playing audio when you reach a location but there were several usability issues.
- There is no clear button to stop the app from playing content. I burned through all of my preview messages before I even set out on my trip. I think the trick is to disable the “background GPS” switch when you want to pause the playback.
- Downloading offline content takes a while, even on a fast internet connection. There’s no way to prioritize a specific route and download the rest later, and no indication how much data the downloads take.
- Similarly, there’s no map view to see where there should be audio clips to play.
- There is no way to view the playback status, pause a currently playing audio clip, or rewind to hear something you missed. This would’ve been helpful when one track gets cut off by another one, or when you need to take a break.
-————
Technical feedback for the app team (I could not find contact info within the app):
- The "commentaries" view frequently freezes or shows a gray box instead of the list of downloaded content. I tried to time the download on a WiFi connection but I got the gray box again.
- There's no overview status of downloading, eg, 35/156 or wherever, so you can’t tell if the download is still working, or how far along you are.
- When content is playing, a Google Maps announcement will stop the audio and, at least in my car, switch the input to the radio.
- When you have music (eg, Spotify) playing and the app plays a tour location, it will duck the Spotify audio instead of pausing. When Kruse finishes playing, it does not un-duck the Spotify audio. May be an iOS issue
App: 3/5
TL;DR: The information in the audio clips was interesting and the app worked well when it worked but I ran into several annoying issues throughout my trip.
Content: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The content was fairly comprehensive and informative. I enjoyed hearing the history of locations as we passed through. Some of the stories (eg the one with the serpent that turned into a river) were difficult to follow; I think some copy editing and possibly audio mixing could help with clarity and comprehension. Additionally, several of the audio tracks were too long and got cut off by the beginning of the next track.
App: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The app fulfilled the basic need of playing audio when you reach a location but there were several usability issues.
- There is no clear button to stop the app from playing content. I burned through all of my preview messages before I even set out on my trip. I think the trick is to disable the “background GPS” switch when you want to pause the playback.
- Downloading offline content takes a while, even on a fast internet connection. There’s no way to prioritize a specific route and download the rest later, and no indication how much data the downloads take.
- Similarly, there’s no map view to see where there should be audio clips to play.
- There is no way to view the playback status, pause a currently playing audio clip, or rewind to hear something you missed. This would’ve been helpful when one track gets cut off by another one, or when you need to take a break.
-————
Technical feedback for the app team (I could not find contact info within the app):
- The "commentaries" view frequently freezes or shows a gray box instead of the list of downloaded content. I tried to time the download on a WiFi connection but I got the gray box again.
- There's no overview status of downloading, eg, 35/156 or wherever, so you can’t tell if the download is still working, or how far along you are.
- When content is playing, a Google Maps announcement will stop the audio and, at least in my car, switch the input to the radio.
- When you have music (eg, Spotify) playing and the app plays a tour location, it will duck the Spotify audio instead of pausing. When Kruse finishes playing, it does not un-duck the Spotify audio. May be an iOS issue
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