The mobile app
The mobile app is where barn work happens. It is an installed app, not a web page, and it keeps a complete copy of your herd on the phone: after your first sync it goes on reading and saving records with no signal, and uploads your changes when you are back in range. The Android app is in closed testing ahead of its Google Play release, and the iOS app is in App Store review.
The Android app is in closed testing with a small group of breeders. There is nothing to install today; the Play Store link will be published on this page once the listing is live, so this is the page to bookmark. No release date is promised.
You do not have to wait to start. The web app needs no install — it runs in any browser at app.omniburrow.com, including mobile Safari and Chrome. Everything you put in now is already in your account when the app arrives; it just does not work offline until then.
An installed app, not a website
The mobile app is a native app you install from the store, with its own database on the phone. That is what lets it work in a barn with no signal: your rabbits, litters, weights, and health records are read from the phone, and anything you save is written to the phone first. It is not the web app saved to your home screen — that would need a connection for every screen.
What the mobile app is for
The two apps share one account and the same data, but they suit different moments:
- The web app is for sitting down — bulk entry, printing, bookkeeping, reading analytics on a big screen.
- The mobile app is for standing at a cage — scanning cage cards, logging weights and health as you go, and doing all of it with the Wi-Fi off.
After the first sync, most record keeping works offline on the phone; a short list of features needs a connection (see What still needs signal below). See Offline-First Sync for what that means for your data.
The iOS app has been submitted and is in App Store review. It is not downloadable yet, and we are not promising a date — the App Store link will be published on this page once the listing is live. Until then, an iPhone gets the web app in Safari — everything except offline.
Sign in and first sync
Sign in with the same account you created on the web — your password, an emailed sign-in link, or the Google, Facebook, or Apple button, whichever you used before. There is no sign-up screen on the phone, so if you have not made an account yet, start with Account Setup.
The app then runs its first sync, pulling down your herd along with the reference catalog of ARBA breeds and varieties.
The first sync is the one step that genuinely needs a connection. Open the app on Wi-Fi, sign in, and let it finish before you rely on it at the cages. After that it is happy without signal.
Your rabbits, litters, weights, health records, and contacts all arrive. On larger herds the app becomes usable as soon as the core records are in, and keeps filling in older history in the background.
Confirm it works offline
Worth doing once, so you trust it:
- Turn on airplane mode.
- Open a rabbit and log a weight.
- Turn airplane mode off again.
The weight saves immediately while you are offline and uploads on its own once you reconnect. Nothing is lost and nothing needs re-entering — changes made offline queue up and drain when a connection returns. To see what is still waiting to upload, open Sync Diagnostics.
What still needs signal
The phone saves records without a connection, but a few things genuinely need one:
- Signing in and the first sync. Afterwards the app works from its own copy.
- Server-backed features: pedigree import from a PDF or photo, merging duplicate rabbits, the marketplace and your storefront, the Willow assistant, analytics dashboards, export, restore and deletion, maintenance tools, and email preferences.
- Multi-account transfers, which need both accounts online.
- Emails that go out with a sale: the receipt is sent once the sale reaches the server.
- Genotype updates from a new litter. Predicting a pairing works offline from the genotypes already on the phone; a litter you record offline sharpens its parents' genotypes after it syncs.
If your account access lapses, the app keeps working on the phone but stops syncing; edits wait on the device and upload later. The row-by-row list is the Feature Matrix, and when two devices disagree see Conflict Resolution.