TOPIC: 3.6.2 Mobile Update

HIP mobile is great for room by room - punch list type reports.

However, I have no doubt that for detail inspections of properties a section by section report is more professional and appropriate for pre purchase inspections. Nearly all professional engineers, architects and experienced home inspectors use section by section reporting as the basic of their reports.

Properties by there nature have to be inspected room by room, but this is no excuse to dum down a report (because it is easier to do) by presenting the information room by room with all relevant information scattered throughout the report.

What I find concerning is that HIP mobile is treading in a wrong direction by facilitating inspectors to complete comments on the fly without the inspector having a full understanding of a property. This is a recipe for serious liability unless an inspector goes back into his report and re-edits it to allow for full / reflective picture of a property to be shown.

There is good reason why engineers / architects, for over 100's of years first recorded information about a property and only then complied a report when all this information was to hand.

Everyone wants to speed up the process as best we can but any inspection process should first concentrate on the efficient collection of all relevant data and only after this data has been collected / recorded, should the report be finalized.

In summary, HIP mobile has the basis to be a great product, but I fear their current (room to room) direction is flawed and should revert to section by section concept for data gathering.

Peter, that statement is definitely not true. The mass majority of inspectors (remember, I see work for over 4000 inspectors) use a hybrid system. Talk to your clients. We had an inspection company spend $10k on marketing research and over 90% liked the room by room hybrid as that's how they visualize the house. Investors like system templates as do agents. Even so we are CONSTANTLY trying to make all types of inspectors happy.

Peter, Bob, do you INSPECT room by room, or system by system? Every inspector I've ever talked to inspects room by room. How do YOU inspect? The software is setup by default to match how inspectors inspect, as that's going to be the fastest, matching the inspector's process. When you're standing in the kitchen, doesn't it make the most sense to comment and take a picture of everything in that room before going to the next room? Or do you only look at electrical, then run to the bathroom and look at electrical there, then run to the garage, attic, pool, etc and look at electrical there?

Bob, I've said multiple times, I like the photo slotting idea you have. It's just incredibly difficult right now with the limited mobile platform. Android/iPhone/iPad is a limited platform. There are tons of restrictions to work around. It took us over a year just to keep the program from running out of memory to run smoothly for everyone.

Bob, no one person is bending my ear.  I've been working on a few secret projects here and as you can see there's been changes to mobile but nothing massive (other than the new photo editing) while the other projects are being completed. I'm only one guy and only have 18 hours a day to get stuff done. So just chill out a bit while things get added into HIP!

Just stressed out Dom.
I am turning away business every day because of report length.

Obviously you know my reply to above is....

Who cares what majority do as we need all 3 room by room,hybrid,system by system as well because otherwise HIP is no longer for them.

I also understand you are doing your best however in the past felt you took my recommendations more seriously
Like the elimination of save idea and hope you keep up the good work.

Need to go swap my phone and if I can do photo reporting or not is a big deciding factor on which phone to get.
.

I'm still taking your ideas seriously, hence removing the save button!

Peter, that statement is definitely not true.

I will agree to disagree.

I use HIP mobile to take photos and collect details as I inspect. I inspect room by room, (area by area), but enter this data section by section and will keep my report in this format.

Entering comments is reasonably efficient as I rarely enter comments on the fly and finalise my comments the end of an inspection when I have a good understanding of the property.

Taking photos and allocating them (section by section) is painfully slow when compared with taking photos using a point and shoot camera and batch slotting them in HIP desktop.

Bob, I've said multiple times, I like the photo slotting idea you have. It's just incredibly difficult right now with the limited mobile platform. Android/iPhone/iPad is a limited platform.

I been sticking with HIP mobile and investing in android cameras / tablets and HIP mobile monthly subscriptions to give it every opportunity to work in a similar fashion as HIP Desktop, however if the android platform and your resources are limited in the short term for section by sections templates let me know so I can put this option to sleep and go back to HIP desktop.

It's not about our resources being limited, it's about the limits of the operating system and making things fast and efficient.

I've always said that batch importing pics will be faster since the extra operating system on Android takes longer just to save the picture, then return to the previous screen. We are always trying to work on techniques to improve this though.

You mention that you do inspect room by room, have you ever showed your clients a room by room or hybrid type report to see what they think?

You said you're entering comments now. If you are in that section for comments, then you're already in the correct section to take pictures right? Where is the delay then for you? It's different for Bob as he does not put comments in on site.