Tapxe

First off. It’s time to innovate. Fellow #agnerds, let’s move away from news/prices/weather apps, mappazines, one-off tank-mix utilities, and incomplete farm management tools.  Our farms, fields, and futures deserve better.  I’m surprised a bit with the big cos, but we shouldn’t wait for them to lead this revolution. Syngenta after all can’t even get a tank mix app right and we didn’t really see anything from Bayer or BASF in this list.  Monsanto seems to be on the right track (though they’ll surely ignore my point number 3 below) and Pioneer is close behind. 

Second. Design matters. Buttons should look like buttons and please don’t make them tiny. Our users drive tractors. Even expensive tractors bounce around. Ergo our users may be bouncing around and big buttons are easier when you’re bouncing! We love the Corn N Rate Calculator because with its clean layout and normal sized buttons it’s so darn easy to use - even in a bouncy tractor. Don’t make me think.

Third. Let’s think a bit more open. Every app in this list seems to be building its own walled garden to the detriment of its users.  Just using the sign-up process as an example there was not a single common way of authenticating users to be found (Facebook, Twitter, Google, oAuth, etc ).  We created almost 40 accounts and entered the same field information a dozen times to review 40 apps!  As a user I don’t want to have to enter the same field information & gps coordinates every time I want to try a new app. And my data, well, no questions asked it should belong to me. Where are the apps that let compare hybrids across brands or which lets me pipe my Ag Leader generated data into my iPad one day and mash it up with my Trimble generated data the next?

You can find Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of our ag app review on the main Yield Pop blog.