The Android App Is Now on Google Play
OurSharedPlace for Android is now a public open beta. You can install it from Google Play and sign in with the OurSharedPlace account you already have. Contact Us if you find a bug or have a feature request. Make sure you specify which platform (Android, Web or iOS.) We want to hear from you.
How to join the open beta
Open this link on your Android phone or tablet, then install it like any other app. Sign in with the same email and password you use on oursharedplace.com.
Get it on Google Playplay.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oursharedplace.android
That is the whole process. Reading this on a computer? Send yourself the link, or search the Play Store for OurSharedPlace.
The Process
The iPhone app shipped in May. Since then the most common request we have received, has been some version of the same sentence: my relative has an Android. A shared property is a group product. It works best when the whole group can get in. So we set about building the Android app, and we are now ready to let anyone install it from Google Play.
Google requires new developers to run a closed test before an app can reach the public store. We did that over August with a small group. Their reports helped improve the app. Now the Android app is listed publicly, and anyone can install it. Just like the iOS app, there's no extra charge for the native client -- it's designed to work with the same OurSharedPlace account you already have.
What's in it
Close to all of it. This is not a read-only companion — you can create and change things from the phone, and the Android app talks to the same server as the web site and the iPhone app. A booking approved on an Android phone is approved everywhere, immediately.
- The shared calendar, three ways. Month, list, and a full year at a glance. Everyone's stays are color-coded. Request dates, approve or decline incoming requests, send an offer back to an outside inquiry, or block dates for cleaning and maintenance.
- Library. Photos, how-to articles, and file uploads, in folders. Take a picture of the new water heater label and put it where the next person will look for it.
- Tasks. To-dos and reusable checklists — the departure list, the winterize list — run from the phone while you walk the house.
- Contacts. The plumber, the cleaner, the nearest doctor, the neighbor with the spare key — grouped by role, with a tap-to-call button. This is the screen you want at 9pm when something is leaking.
- Messages and Requests. The members' discussion board, with pinned threads and unread markers, plus the guest request lane for questions and problems reported by people staying at the property.
- Finances. Shared expenses, revenue, and running balances. Log the propane bill from the driveway instead of from memory three weeks later.
- Members. See who is in the property, and invite the ones who aren't yet with a single share link.
- Push notifications. A new message, a booking request, or a guest question reaches your phone as it happens — the same notifications the iPhone app sends. Grant the notification permission when the app asks and you are set.
- Access Codes. Issue and manage the codes that let guests see their stay details without an account.
A look around
What “open beta” means
It means the app is finished enough to use every day, and rough enough that we want to hear about it. Here is what we know is still missing.
- Billing lives on the web. There is nothing to buy inside the Android app. Start a trial or upgrade a property at oursharedplace.com, and the app picks it up.
- Invite links open your browser, not the app. That is a known gap and it is on the list.
- Android is a lot of phones. Expect rough edges on unusual screen sizes and older versions. We have tested on far fewer devices than Android actually contains.
- Crash reporting is on. If the app falls over, we usually see it before you tell us — but tell us anyway, because what you were trying to do is the part we cannot see.
Nothing about the beta puts your data at risk. It reads and writes the same records as the web site, through the same permission checks.
Your account carries over
Everything is already there — your properties, your members, your calendar. There is no separate Android subscription and no extra charge. Subscriptions are sold per property and cover everyone you invite, on whichever device they happen to own.
If some of your group is on iPhone and some on Android, that now works the way it always should have: same property, same calendar, same answer to “who has the house in July?”
Tell us what breaks
A beta is only worth running if people report things. If something looks wrong, write to us and say what you were doing when it happened. Naming your phone model helps more than you would think.
Install the Android app
Open beta, on Google Play, free for current OurSharedPlace subscribers.
iPhone users, the app is already in the App Store.