The app that asks for nothing
RacingOwl is not on the App Store or the Play Store, and that is the point. For a learner it is an app on the phone that asks for no permissions and cannot reach anything on it. For a trainer it means nothing to install at all: your site works in the browser on every screen, and the work of running it is easiest at a desk.
If you learn: an app that cannot get at your phone
Add RacingOwl to your home screen and it behaves like any other app: its own icon, opening full screen, telling you when a trainer replies. What it does not do is what makes it easy to say yes to. There is nothing to download, no list of permissions to accept, and no way for it to reach your photos, your contacts, your files, your location or your microphone. It is the website with an icon in front of it, and a website cannot get at the rest of your phone.
No permissions to accept
Nothing is asked for when you add it. There is no screen of “this app would like to”. Notifications are the one thing it can ask for, and only when you tap Turn onyourself; your phone shows its own permission box at that moment, and you can turn them off again in the same place.
Your confidential details stay where they are
It cannot see your photos, contacts or files, or the other apps on your phone. That is not true of an app you install from a store, however honest it is.
Nothing new stored, nobody new told
Your existing RacingOwl account, and nothing else. No second password, no app-store account, no extra copy of your details kept on the phone or sent anywhere. Remove the icon and nothing is left behind.
Notifications, like any app
A reply in a discussion, a mention, a message from your trainer, a quiz that has been marked — on your phone or your desktop, with the site’s name as the title. Only if you switch them on.
One app for every trainer
Not one app per trainer. Every course you are taking, wherever you are taking it, behind a single icon that opens on All my learning.
Always the current version
It is the website, so what you open is always what is live. No update to wait for, no update to install.
| An app from a store | RacingOwl on your phone | |
|---|---|---|
| To get it | Find it in a store, download it, wait | Two taps in your browser |
| Size on your phone | Tens to hundreds of megabytes | Almost nothing |
| Account needed | A store account, plus the app's | Your RacingOwl account only |
| Permissions asked at install | A list you accept to continue | None |
| Can reach photos, contacts, files, location, microphone | If you grant it | No — a web page cannot |
| Notifications | Usually asked on first open | Only when you switch them on |
| Updates | Downloaded, sometimes required | None; it is always current |
| What the trainer pays for it | A store listing, and a share of each sale | Nothing |
What it does not do: lessons are not saved for watching offline. Like the website, it needs a connection.
If you teach: nothing to install, and a desk is the best place to work
Setting up your site and building a course is not complicated, but it is several steps: a name and a logo, modules and lessons, a video link, a PDF, a quiz, a price. Each is simple; together they are an hour’s work that goes fastest on a desktop or laptop, where you can see the whole course and type with both hands.
The site is responsive, so every one of those steps also works on a phone — replying to a learner from the bus, moving a class, checking who joined. What you never need is an app from a store. A store app has to be installed and updated, and it arrives with permissions people grant once and forget. Your site is on the web: it is on every phone already, with nothing to install and nothing to grant. Your learners can add it to their home screen if they want the icon and the notifications, and that is an install too, but a far simpler one: two taps, no download, no permissions.
Build at a desk, run it anywhere
The course builder, the quiz builder and the settings are made for a big screen. The learner list, chats, marking and the classes tab fit a phone.
Your learners already have an app
You do not build one, publish one or pay for one. The day your site exists your learners can put RacingOwl on their home screen and open it on your site, and it is never out of date because it is your site.
Nothing for you to ask them to trust
The app asks your learners for no permissions, so you never have to explain why it wants their contacts. It wants nothing.
Not on a store, on purpose
A store listing is another thing to own, review and pay for, and it would put a shop’s terms between you and your learners. This is your site, and it stays yours.
Notifications are switched on at racingowl.com, the one address that knows about every trainer a learner studies with, so a learner who takes courses from three trainers is not asked three times.
How to put it on your phone
Two minutes, once. Do it on the phone you want it on — adding it on one phone does not add it to your others.
iPhone or iPad
Open racingowl.com in your browser and sign in.
Tap the Share button — the square with an arrow coming out of the top of it, at the bottom of the screen.
Scroll down that list and tap Add to Home Screen, then Add at the top right.
Close your browser and open RacingOwl from the new icon. It fills the screen, with no address bar.
To be told about replies: in the app, open All my learning, go to the Notifications tab, tap Turn on, then tap Allow when your phone asks. On an iPhone or iPad this only works from the home screen icon, which is why it comes after adding it and not before.
Android
Open racingowl.com in your browser and sign in.
Tap the ⋮ menu at the top right, then Install app or Add to home screen — browsers use one wording or the other. Some phones offer it in a bar at the bottom of the page instead; that does the same thing.
Tap Install to confirm. The icon appears on your home screen.
Open it from the icon. It fills the screen, with no address bar.
To be told about replies: open All my learning, go to the Notifications tab, tap Turn on, then tap Allow when your phone asks.
If you change your mind. Press and hold the icon and remove it, the way you would any app. Nothing is left behind on your phone, and your account, courses and certificates are untouched — the website carries on as before.
The technical name, if you want it, is a progressive web app: a website that a phone agrees to treat as an app. Every modern browser supports it, on iPhone, Android and desktop.
More: why learn on RacingOwl, why teach on RacingOwl and every feature.