Ancestry's iPhone app, "Tree To Go", is not so portable after all.

Yesterday I did a review of the new Ancestry.com app for the iPhone, "Tree To Go".  After writing the review, I decided to get something to eat.  My wife and daughter were sick so I went to Panera to get us some soup.  One great thing about Panera Bread is that they offer free wifi Internet access while you are in their store.  So, while I was waiting for my order, I started playing around with the Ancestry app some more.

Let me give you a little background on the iPhone and the iPod Touch, just in case you are not sure of the difference.  The two are essentially the same thing except that the iPhone makes phone calls and uses ATT's 3G network.  The 3G network gives an iPhone user the ability to get on the Internet from anywhere within the 3G coverage area.  You have probably seen the commercials on television where Verizon picks on ATT because their coverage map is better.  Despite ATT's claims that their coverage is as good as Verizon, they are misleading you.  ATT has great phone service but their 3G network is spotty.  Verizon ads show the 3G maps.  ATT ads show their phone coverage maps...two different things.  Where I am in Virginia, ATT 3G service is terrible.

As for the iPod Touch, it cannot make phone calls and cannot access the 3G network.  I should also mention that the iPhone has a digital picture and video camera installed, at least the newer ones do.  So, what does this mean for the Ancestry app?  A LOT!

While in Panera it dawned on me that I had not tried the app while being offline, without any Internet access.  I only have an iPod Touch, not an actual iPhone, so I went outside of Panera where there was no wifi service.  I then launched the Ancestry app and my dreams were somewhat crushed.  For as many good things as I had to say about the app yesterday, I have just as many negatives now.  If you do not have an Internet connection, you are out of luck!

I found out very quickly that, if you cannot get online, you have only very limited use of the app.  You cannot add photos or make any changes to the people.  It does let you look at what the app has already downloaded from the server.  You can basically see the tree as it was the last time you were online.  You can see the people, dates, locations, etc. but you cannot make changes.  So, what does this mean?  If I go to a cemetery, I cannot take a headstone photo and put it directly into my family tree if I do not have 3G service.  In most cases an iPhone would do fine, as long as you are in the coverage area, but an iPod Touch would be useless.  I also could not enter the dates I found from the tombstone because, there again, I am not connected to the Internet.

What Ancestry could do is redesign the app so that it stores your changes and then syncs with the online version the next time you have an Internet connection.  That becomes a bit complicated if you have made changes to both the app file and your online file, which one is right and which is out of date?  It could be done but that involves a lot of work on their part.

I do not want to come across as bashing the app.  It is a great step forward for Ancestry but it still needs work.  I want to be able to fully use the app myself, I just do not know if it is worth getting an iPhone at $300 plus $80 per month for the next 2 years!  I can renew my Ancestry membership for the next 14 years for that kind of money.

Ancestry.com iPhone and iPod Touch App Review

I was extremely excited to hear that Ancestry.com put out an iPhone application within the past few days.  I was even more ecstatic when I found out that it was free.  The download was quick and simple.  The only thing required when I launched the app was my Ancestry.com user name and password.

Unless you are an Ancestry.com member, the app is pretty much useless for you.  It pulls your Ancestry.com online family tree into the program for use.  So, unless you have a family tree on Ancestry's web site, you are out of luck!  It is key to remember that this is an Ancestry app, not a Family Tree Maker app.  You do not need Family Tree Maker to use the app, but you MUST have an Ancestry.com membership.  I guess you could use it with a free trail, but that would only last until your trial period was up.

I personally have an Ancestry.com membership but I actually did not have any trees online.  With that in mind, I had to upload one before I could do much with the app.  If you do not have a tree already, it will prompt you to create one at the Ancestry site.  Trust me - the screen on an iPhone or iPod Touch is too small to do much data entry.  With that in mind, I opted to start Family Tree Maker on my computer and uploaded a small tree to the site, a file with about 60 family members.  Despite the small file size, it took a long time for it to upload.  Maybe the Ancestry site was busy last night with extra traffic, becuase of the new app.

It took about an hour for my file to upload but after that, the app ran quite fast.  It found my new tree automatically and opened right up.  The color scheme is nice, typical Ancestry green and antique white.  All of the basic data entry functions that you would expect are there.  You can create and edit people in your file.  You can write and edit notes and even upload photos to your file.  This is a neat feature if you have an iPhone with a camera.  You could take a picture at a cemetery and put it directly into your tree.  The best part is that the file on your iPhone is synchronized with the tree your have on Ancestry.com.  When I added a photo to a member of my tree, it was on Ancestry's site instantly.

There are a few weaknesses that I see right off.  There is no way to see an actual tree, at least that I have found.  There are no reports and I do not see any way to share/export/email information to your friends.  I also do not see how you can delete someone from your tree.  The idea here is not to be a Family Tree Maker substitute but instead a way to view and work on your tree from the road.  In that respect, it was better than I expected.  For a new app, it is very clean and looks great!

As would be expected, the app is a little buggy.  When you look at a person's photo gallery, the images are not cropped properly.  It also gets stuck between images sometimes.  It is almost like all of the photos are connected end to end, instead of being separate files.  When you scroll across the gallery, it moves like a roll of microfilm and does not seem like individual photos in an album.  I only played with program for about an hour and it did cut off inexplicably once.

I will continue to play with the app for at least the next few days and let you know if I have any other thoughts.  As of right now, I think it is a great tool.  It might actually encourage me to put my entire tree on Ancestry's site, just to get the functionality out of this app.  The only negative about putting my tree on the site is that it does not sync with my Family Tree Maker file.  I would therefore have two family trees going, one on my computer and one online.  When Ancestry gets their online trees to sync with the at-home version of Family Tree Maker, then the app will be one hundred times more important to me than it is today.