Closed beta

Beta testers wanted

Dram Notes is finished and ready for Google Play, but Google asks every new developer to run a closed test first: at least twelve people using the app for fourteen days in a row. If you taste whisky and own an Android phone, you can be one of them.

What you get

• The full app, installed from Google Play like any other, with updates arriving the normal way.
• Every Pro feature free for the beta. Say you'd like it and your account is set up so the purchase costs nothing.
• A direct line to the person who builds it. Misreads, ideas and odd behaviour all get a reply.
• Nothing leaves your phone. The beta build is the same private-by-design app as the release: no account, no analytics, no adverts.

How to join

1. Email dram@wildsitecreations.co.uk with the subject Dram Notes beta and the address of the Google account you use on your Android phone. That is the account the Play Store app is signed in with, usually a @gmail.com address. It has to match exactly, or Google won't let you in.
2. Wait for the reply. It comes with the opt-in link once you have been added, usually within a day or two. The link only works for accounts on the list.
3. Open the link on your phone, accept the invitation and install Dram Notes from Google Play. From then on it behaves like any other app you own.

Your email address is used only to add you to the tester list and to reply to you. It is never shared, and the list is deleted once the app is in general release.

What helps most

• Keep it installed for two weeks. Google counts testers who stay opted in for fourteen continuous days, so leaving early means one tester fewer. You don't need to use it every day.
• Add a few real drams the way you would anyway: a bottle label, a tasting list at a festival, a shop page pasted in, or just the form.
• Tell us when something's off. A scan that put the wrong text in a field, a crash, a screen that doesn't make sense. "Report a problem" in Settings starts the email with the app version filled in.
• Say what you'd change. Which flavour tags are missing, what the dashboard should show, anything the app could do better.

Requirements

Android 8.0 and up, a Google account on the phone, and a camera if you want to scan. A tablet is fine but the layout is designed for a phone. iPhone owners: not yet, sorry.

Leaving the beta

Open the opt-in link again and choose to leave the programme, or simply uninstall. Your drams are yours either way: back them up from Settings first if you want to keep them.