Put GearPool on your home screen
One icon, full screen, and the tag scanner a tap away. It is the same GearPool you are reading now — nothing to download, nothing to sign into again, no App Store.
What it gets you
The tag scanner, faster
Open, tap Tag, point at the QR code. Four taps become one at a handover in the dark.It stays signed in
An installed copy keeps its own sign-in for 400 days. No password at the gate of an event with no signal.It says something useful with no signal
A festival site is the worst reception in the state. With no bars it tells you so instead of showing a browser error.It feels like an app
Full screen, our icon, and it taps back when something works — see below.Does it tap back?
Buttons that matter — a tag tap recorded, a listing saved, a request sent — give a short buzz so you know it landed without reading the screen. Test it here, and turn it off if you would rather it stayed quiet.
Does it move?
The site has a moving brand plate, buttons that catch the light and gold lettering that travels. An iPhone with Reduce Motion switched on — or in Low Power Mode — asks every site to hold still, and this one obeys. That is the usual reason nothing moves on a phone while the same page moves on a laptop. Choose for this phone:
Both dots should slide left and right. If the control moves and the site's does not, the setting above is the reason — pick Always on. If neither moves, this browser is not running the animation at all and the desk needs to know.
Checking what this phone reports…
On an iPhone the setting itself is Settings → Accessibility → Motion → Reduce Motion, and Low Power Mode (Settings → Battery) has the same effect while the battery is low. Whatever you pick here is remembered on this phone only, and the choice is also in the Theme menu at the top of every page.
The honest limits
- An iPhone will not install itself. Apple gives no web page a button for it, so on an iPhone the steps above are the whole path — three taps through the Share menu, in Safari only. Chrome on an iPhone cannot do it at all.
- Android does have the button, and it is the one above.
- Buzzing is Android's by right and an iPhone's only by a trick that works on iOS 17.4 and later. On an older iPhone the button will be silent — nothing is broken, the phone simply will not let a web page do it.
- A real App Store app is a different build, a developer account and a review each time. Worth doing when members are renting weekly; not worth it to get an icon on a phone, which this does today.