Field Updates

The photo has to match the machine

When you pick a machine from a bar's list and snap its display, the app now reads the cabinet name in your photo. If the photo is of a different machine, it says so before anything is saved and offers to switch to the machine it sees, keep your pick, or cancel. Nothing to set up; it only speaks up when something looks off.

Fewer questions when adding a machine

At a bar with no machines yet, Add goes straight to the camera. At a bar that already has five, the only question is which machine is gone. In between, Add machine is the big button, with Replace machine and Duplicate machine underneath for the rarer cases.

A simpler heads-up when jackpots have hit

When a reading comes in lower than the last one, the app no longer asks you to type what each level hit at. Instead it shows one screen listing the levels that dropped and roughly what each one hit at, based on the last reading and how fast that level usually climbs. Close it and carry on. The "Don't show this again" box is still there.

Retired machines drop to the bottom

A machine someone has reported as gone now sits at the bottom of the bar's list, under the machines still on the floor, until it is confirmed.

Manual entry that stays out of your way

When you tap an amount field, the Submit button now stays put at the bottom of the screen instead of jumping up and covering the other levels. The row you are typing in scrolls above the keypad, and a Done bar above the keypad closes it when you are finished. Tapping anywhere outside a field closes it too.

Adding a machine, not a "new" machine

The first option when you add a machine now reads Just add it. A machine can sit in a bar for years before anyone logs it, so the wording no longer implies it just arrived. Replaced and second-copy options are unchanged.

Hit reports you can trust

When a reading is lower than the last one and the app asks what the jackpot hit at, the amount you enter now has to be at least the last recorded reading. Anything lower cannot be a hit, so the app tells you instead of quietly discarding it. If you ticked "Don't ask me again", you can turn the question back on under Settings, in the new Contributing section.

Small fixes from the field

Locked bars on the home screen no longer show flames; heat is part of what a contribution unlocks. The "No locations yet" message no longer appears when your only saved bar is the one you are standing in. A bar with a machine awaiting retirement no longer counts it, so the header cannot read "6 of 5". And behind the scenes we tightened who can change what on the server, so shared data like machine photos and jackpot levels can only be edited by the people who should be editing them.

A cleaner home screen

Your current location and your saved locations now use the same card. Flames on a card show how many jackpot levels are hot at that bar: orange for recorded hits, purple when only the crowd's estimate says so. Free agents see a lock before the bar name and how many days of intel remain. The two buttons at the bottom of the screen, Find location and Find machine, stay within reach no matter how long your list gets.

Tap the small menu on a saved location to pin it to the top of your list or remove it. Pinned bars still sort by distance among themselves.

Settings has a home

The gear in the top corner of every screen opens Settings: Undercover mode, Ghost Mode, your clearance, blocked agents, sign out, and account deletion. Your Profile is now about you: identity, stats, your locations, and your recent contributions.

Cards you can read at a glance

Every location and machine card has a purple tab on its right edge. Tap anywhere on the card to open it. On a location screen each machine shows its status, a chip for each hot level, and a Contribute data row with Photo and Manual. On machine details, tap the thumbnail for a full-size photo of the cabinet. History sits right above the level cards, and Photo and Manual stay pinned at the bottom.

A touch more contrast

The background is now a very light purple, so white cards stand out instead of relying on a thin border.

Tools are taking a break

The Tools card and the "Log a session" button are gone for now while we rework what they should do. Nothing you logged has been deleted.

A cleaner machine list

Every machine at a location is now one card. Tap the card to open the machine, or tap the small camera icon on it to start a reading in one tap. The Photo and Manual buttons that sat under every machine are gone, so the list is easier to read at a glance. Each card shows the machine's hottest level on the new strike-zone bar.

Add a machine now sits at the bottom of the screen and stays in reach, even at a full five-machine bar.

One way to read heat

The app used to show "hot" in several different ways. Now there is one strike-zone bar: the track is the level's usual range, the last stretch is tinted, an orange fill means real recorded hits put it in the zone, a purple fill means the crowd's estimate does, and a flame shows only when it is in the zone. You will see the same bar on location cards and machine details.

Machine details, tightened up

Photo and Manual are pinned to the bottom of the screen. Each jackpot level now reads as three lines: the amount, the strike-zone bar, and one row with the forecast, the last hit, and the confidence score. The score is now labeled, like "Confidence 6/10 · 2 hits recorded", so it is clear what the number means. History sits one tap below the levels, still grouped by level with your own reads highlighted.

A better question when a jackpot hits

When your reading is lower than the last one, that level hit. The app used to ask whether it did. Now it says so and asks the one thing you might actually know: what did it hit at? Enter the amount if you saw it, or tap Not sure and move on. A known hit amount is the best evidence there is for where a level pays out.

Tired of the question? Tick "Don't ask me again" and it stays quiet on that phone.

Steadier camera

A second tap on the shutter while the photo was still being taken could show a "Failed to take photo" error even though the reading went through. The shutter now locks while it works and shows a spinner, so one tap is one photo.

Your submission always lands

Some agents hit a frozen screen while sending in a reading, especially on slow bar wi-fi. Fixed. The app now shows you what it's doing while it saves (uploading photo, saving your reading, finishing up), keeps your success screen waiting for you even if you switch apps mid-save, and tells you clearly if the signal is too weak instead of spinning forever.

If you ever see the weak-signal message, check the machine's history first: your reading may have made it through.

Rankings stay fresh

The Crowd Watch screen now refreshes itself every time you return to it. Send in a reading that puts a machine in the strike zone and it shows up in the rankings right away, no pull-to-refresh needed.

Confidence scores that tell you why

Every jackpot level now carries a confidence score out of 10 with the reason right next to it, like "2 hits recorded". One recorded hit is a lead, five is a pattern, and the score now says which one you're looking at. Levels the network has only seen hit once no longer show a full progress bar, because one data point isn't certainty.

Higher scores mean the predicted hit range is backed by more real hits at that machine.

Machines that prove themselves, level by level

A machine's badge now says how much of it is proven, like "Established · 2 of 5 levels", instead of calling the whole machine established when only one level has real hit history. And where the app used to say it was "gathering intel", it now tells you the truth: more contributions get that level to a forecast faster.

Smarter machine matching

When a photo of a new machine looks close to one the bar already has, but the name on the glass disagrees, the app now asks you instead of silently guessing. Fewer mixed-up machines, cleaner history for everyone.

Tell us what you're adding

When you add a machine, the app now asks a quick question first: is this a brand new machine, or did the bar swap out an old one? Your answer keeps every machine's history pointed at the right cabinet, so the predictions stay honest when bars shuffle their lineup.

See the match happen

While you review a photo, the app now shows you when it recognizes a machine the network already tracks, before anything is saved. No more wondering whether your add is about to create a duplicate.

A second look at odd readings

Jackpots only climb until they hit. If a reading comes in lower than the last one, the app now asks you to double check it. That catches typos and misreads on the spot, and when the number really did drop, that usually means a jackpot just hit, which is exactly the intel the network wants.

Hold it upright

A small hint now appears if you tilt the phone sideways at a machine. Upright photos read the jackpot displays more reliably, so you get fewer retakes.

Clearer when you're first on the scene

The rankings screen now tells you when a bar has no crowd readings yet, instead of just looking empty. First agent in gets the fun of putting it on the map.

Sign up in seconds

Getting in is faster now. Use Continue with Apple or Continue with Google and you're in with one tap, no password to create. Prefer email? We send a 6-digit code right to your inbox. Type it into the app and you're verified and signed in, without ever leaving the app or hunting for a confirmation link.

Pick your code name

Right after you join, we hand you a few spy code names to choose from. Tap one, or shuffle for more, or type your own. It's how other agents see you in the field.

A simpler start

The opening screens are trimmed down so you get to the good part faster, with tips that show up right when you need them: the first time you contribute, the first time you add a machine.

Your account, your call

You can now delete your account anytime from your profile. Your personal details are removed; the jackpot readings you contributed stay part of each bar's history, no longer tied to your name.

Keep the network clean

See something off from another agent? You can now report or block them right from a machine's history. Blocked agents simply stop showing up for you.

Fewer false hot machines

If you removed a reading you entered by mistake, that machine no longer keeps showing as "hot" off the bad number. The Hottest list now reflects what's actually there.

Two identical machines at one bar? Now handled.

Some bars run two of the exact same machine side by side, and until now adding the second one quietly merged it into the first, mixing their jackpot histories together. Adding a machine the app already knows now asks: same machine, or a second identical one? Each unit gets its own name ("Skyline 3 (2)") and its own tracking. And when you contribute at a bar with twins, the app matches your photo to the right unit by the jackpot amounts on screen, asking you to pick only when it genuinely can't tell.

Clean readings submit themselves

When your photo reads perfectly, every jackpot level recognized and every amount clear, the app now just saves it and shows you a receipt of what went in. No more confirm tap for a read that didn't need one. Spotted a wrong number afterward? Tap "Fix a value" right on the confirmation to correct it. The wrong reading is set aside automatically.

Photo won't match at a full bar? Pick from the lineup.

Machines with rotating screens can fool the camera. At a bar where all five machines are already tracked, a photo that doesn't match now shows you the bar's lineup, with pictures and game lists, so you can pick the machine you're standing at instead of hitting a dead end.

New: a private session tracker

Track a play session: log money in, jackpot readings as they climb, and anything you cash out. You'll see your session's win/loss live, plus how fast the jackpot rises per dollar played. Your session log is completely private. No other agent, and nobody running JackpotSpy, can ever see it. How to use it: open any machine and tap "Log a session", or find your history under Tools on the Home screen.

Find a bar by the machine you love

Want to play a specific machine? Tap the search icon on the Hottest screen and type a machine or game name, even a nickname, and you'll see which tracked bars have it, closest first.

Hottest screen: filter out the small stuff

Only interested in the bigger pots? A new amount filter on the Hottest screen hides jackpots below the floor you pick ($100+, $250+, $500+, $1k+). It remembers your choice.

Polish

Your captured photo now survives an accidental tap on the bottom menu mid-contribution. Recent Hits are grouped by location, closest first. Machines keep the name that's actually on their glass (no more "wait, that's not what it's called" moments). And setting a personal target on iPhone now has a proper Done button above the number pad.

Recent Hits: see what's actually been hitting

The Hottest screen now has two views: Crowd Watch (which jackpots look ready right now) and Recent Hits, a feed of jackpots that recently hit, each with the story of its climb and reset. The time filters let you look at just the last day or week. How to use it: open the flame tab and switch to Recent Hits at the top.

Reporting a swapped machine is one tap faster

When you photograph a new machine at a full bar, the app now recognizes it during the swap flow: pick which machine left, and if the camera already identified the new one you just confirm it. No more browsing the catalog. Browsing is still there as a fallback when the photo isn't enough.

Readings come from the bar, not the couch

To keep every bar's intel trustworthy, contributing now checks you're actually at the location. If you're nearby-but-not-quite (bad GPS happens inside buildings), you'll get a quick confirm instead of a block, but clearly remote readings are turned away. Your fellow agents' forecasts are only as good as the readings behind them.

Android: menu unburied

On Android phones the bottom menu could sit partly behind the system navigation bar. It now clears it on every device.

Contribute at a bar, see how close its jackpots really are

Snapping a reading at a bar now unlocks more than before: for the next 7 days, every machine at that bar shows you the exact percentage of the way each jackpot has climbed, plus the range where it typically hits, so you can see at a glance which ones are getting interesting. A small countdown chip shows how many days of access you have left; another reading resets the clock. How to use it: contribute a reading anywhere at the bar and the whole bar's detail unlocks for a week.

Contributing shows you how close it is. Premium tells you when.

Exact predicted dates, confidence levels, and what the crowd is calling stay part of Premium. Your contributions show you how close a jackpot is. Premium turns that into when it's likely to hit.

Bar swapped a machine? Now you can tell the app

Wisconsin bars can only have five machines, so when a new machine shows up it usually means an old one left. When you add a machine at a full bar, the app now asks which machine it replaced. The old one is retired with its history kept, and the new one starts fresh tracking immediately. No more dead ends at full bars. How to use it: add the new machine like normal. If the bar is full, you'll be asked which machine it replaced.

Retired machines stay honest

A machine that's been reported as replaced shows a clear banner on its page and stops accepting new readings, but its jackpot history sticks around. Your past intel is never thrown away.

Photos now fly on bar wifi

Bar connections are famously terrible, and photo uploads were the thing that suffered. Photos the app sends are now about 8× smaller, with reading accuracy verified unchanged on real bar photos, so snapping a reading works in spots where it used to spin forever.

No more mystery spinner

When the connection really is crawling, the app now says so and gives you a Cancel button so you can retry without retaking your photo. No more staring at a frozen screen wondering if anything is happening.

Browse machines by picture, not name

When you add a machine and pick it from the catalog, you now scroll big photos of each machine with its list of games, because the name on the glass often doesn't match what a machine is called elsewhere. Match what you're looking at, not what it's labeled.

Your machine isn't in the catalog? Send it to HQ

If you're adding a machine and can't find it anywhere, there's now a "My machine isn't here, send it to HQ" button. Your photo comes straight to us, we add the machine to the catalog, and it becomes trackable on a future visit. How to use it: add machine → browse the catalog → the send-to-HQ button is at the bottom of the list.

Clearer answers when you add a machine

The app now tells you exactly what it saw: "The photo read [game name], matched to [machine] in the catalog." And when amounts weren't visible in your photo, it says so and asks you to type what the display shows instead of leaving mysterious $0s.

The photo reader got new glasses

We upgraded the AI that reads jackpot amounts off your photos. In side-by-side testing on real bar photos, the new reader got every amount right, and even caught a couple of cents-level misreads the old one had let slip through. Decimal points matter when agents are timing a jackpot, so every photo you snap now goes through the sharper reader. Machine identification when adding a new machine runs on it too.

Fresh brains for the code-name generator

New recruits' spy code names now come from an upgraded generator. Same wit, newer brain. Existing agents keep their names. A good alias is for life.

Clearance levels arrive

The app now has two tiers. Free gets the facts: current amounts, full history, hot flames, last-hit dates, and rough timing ("due soon"). Premium gets the intelligence: exact forecast windows, the usual hit range in dollars, confidence ratings, crowd estimates, and the Hot List across every tracked bar. Tap any lock in the app to see the full comparison.

Beta pioneers keep Premium for life

If you're in the beta, you're a pioneer. Your readings are building the intel network. For that, your account holds Premium for life. It's already on your account; nothing to do.

Fresh Intel: your readings pay you back

On the free tier, contributing a reading at a bar unlocks full Premium-grade forecasts on every machine at that bar for a week. Your intel, your insights. How to use it: snap or enter one reading at a spot and the whole location opens up in full detail.

Ghost Mode

A Premium perk for agents who like to work alone: flip on Ghost Mode in your Profile and your submissions become invisible to other agents. They never appear in machine histories. The predictions still count every reading, and you always see your own history in full.

Smarter machine naming

Adding a machine no longer risks it being named after words on its jackpot display (one machine briefly went by "GRAND JACKPOT". Sorry, champ). The app now recognizes prize labels for what they are and uses the machine's real catalog name.

One prize, many machines, finally tracked as one

At many bars, several machines feed the same top jackpot: one shared prize pool with one dollar amount, shown on every connected machine. The app used to track each machine's copy separately, so they could drift apart. Now they're linked: a reading on any connected machine updates the shared jackpot everywhere, and every machine shows the same number, just like the glass does.

Sharper predictions on shared jackpots

Because every connected machine's readings now pool together, shared jackpots build history faster and payouts are much harder to miss. The app even went back through past readings and caught payouts that single-machine tracking had overlooked.

The whole story in History

Open a linked jackpot's history and you'll see readings from every connected machine at that bar, each labeled with the machine it came from, so the jackpot's climb reads as one story. Linked jackpots wear a small "Shared" tag so you know at a glance.

A quick question when you add certain machines

Some machines rotate through their jackpot displays, so a photo can't prove which jackpots they carry. When you add one of those, the app now asks one quick question: "does the display show the top shared jackpot?" It links it for everyone if you say yes. How to use it: just watch the machine's screen cycle for a few seconds before you answer.

Two kinds of "hot"

Flames now come in two colors. An orange flame means the app has actually watched that jackpot hit before and it's back in the zone where it usually pays, a proven pattern. A purple flame is a crowd watch: the community believes it's getting close, but no hit has been observed yet. You'll always be able to tell proof from prediction at a glance.

Crowd watch on the Hot screen

The Hot screen gets a new section listing the machines the community is watching, clearly separated from the proven ranking so the two never mix.

"Last hit" on every tracked jackpot

Each jackpot level now shows when it last paid out and how often it typically hits, for example, "Last hit Jul 12 · typically every ~9 days."

Past the ceiling

When a jackpot climbs above the point where it usually pays, the app now says so plainly instead of hiding it. That's the most exciting state a machine can be in, and the prediction adjusts to "due now."

The machine tells on itself

Some machines literally change a meter's label to "MAX JACKPOT" when it can't climb any higher. The app now reads that straight off your photo and marks the level AT MAX, the strongest "due now" signal there is.

Your target, upgraded

When a jackpot passes the personal target you set on it, its card now lights up "passed" so you know your number came and went.

How to use it: open any machine, tap "Set your target" on a level, and enter the amount you think it hits at.

Fair-play crowd estimates

Once enough agents have set targets on a level, the app shows what the crowd expects, but only after you've committed your own guess. That keeps everyone's predictions independent instead of everyone copying the first number they see.

Welcome briefing

New agents get a short briefing on first launch: what the beta is, how it works, and how to reach HQ.

Shake to report

Found a bug or have an idea? Shake your phone anywhere in the app and a report form pops up. Your note lands directly with the team, with the technical context attached automatically. No screenshots or long explanations needed.

How to use it: shake your device, or go to Profile → "Send Intel to HQ."

Entered wrong? Fix your own entries

Typo'd an amount? For 24 hours after any entry you can mark it as a mistake (and undo that, too). The history stays honest and the predictions recalculate right away.

How to use it: open the machine's history, find your entry, and tap "Entered wrong?"

Sturdier photo uploads

Spotty bar Wi-Fi? Photo uploads now retry automatically instead of failing on the first hiccup.

Better photo capture

A taller framing guide makes it easier to line up jackpot displays, and you can skip the cropping step entirely when the shot's already good.

Undercover mode

Prefer full anonymity? Flip on Undercover mode and your contributions show to other agents as "Undercover Agent" instead of your code name.

How to use it: Profile → Undercover mode.

Privacy-friendly timestamps

Other agents now see rough times on your contributions ("this evening," "2 days ago"), never the exact minute you were somewhere.