The National Park Service has a new park app for your phone.

The National Park Service has a new app that's intended to cover all the units of the National Park System, but that's a tall order for parks that lack staff to provide robust content.

The app, available for free via your preferred app store, admittedly is in the early stages of development. One sign is that New River Gorge National River is listed, not New River Gorge National Park and Preserve.

"We are in beta testing and will roll out more publicly in the coming months," said Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles, the Park Service's assistant director for communications and chief spokesperson. "We’ve asked parks to wait to promote until then."

Unfortunately, word of the app got out last weekend via a story in AndroidPolice. The early reviews have been mixed. Along with the usual complaints about bugs with the app, several early reviewers complained about the lack of content.

"A fair start, but of relatively limited utility so far. Even for major parks like the Great Smoky Mountains NP, this offers little more than a handful of photos, a brief description, a few different ways of listing where the visitor centers/campgrounds can be found and their amenities, a map, news index and a very basic calendar," wrote Michael Tompkins in a Google Play review. "There's no way to list trails beyond browsing the map, let alone trailheads and their parking info, nor any way to locate scenic points at all."

"A bit disappointing. Couldn't find maps for each park that I looked at," added Jim Pendergast in another review. "Also, not sure that the list of 'things to do' is complete. For example, the only thing to do at Mammoth Caves was hiking, and nothing about the caves."

To both complaints the Park Service reply stressed that "(S)ome parks have more content than others at launch. Parks are continuously adding content to their sections of the app, so always check back to see if favorite parks have added more info."

The app lets you search for parks by name, find those nearby you if you have your locator function on, or by state, activity, or topic. Those parks with the most information on their websites have the most information on this app.

To access available details for a park, once you navigate to the park you want to explore, tap on the park photo and a page opens that provides a park overview with a photo gallery, list of available activities, themes or topics the park explores, and basic information such as fees. There's also an "Explore Full Park" button that leads you to more in-depth information on the park.

Some parks have more information than others.

For instance, the Arches National Park selection has sections on hiking, museum exhibits (in this case, the visitor center exhibits), scenic drives, and stargazing. The stargazing section recommends where in the park to view the night sky, and contains a page that discusses ranger-led stargazing activities at Arches and Canyonlands national parks, as well as nearby Dead Horse Point State Park.

There's also a section that shows parking areas in the park, amenities (restrooms, biking, safety, transportation, souvenirs, etc), and even some recent news releases.

But not all park pages are so detailed. The only activity listed for Cape Lookout National Seashore on the Outer Banks of North Carolina was kayaking. No mention of beach combing, swimming, fishing, or searching for the horses on Shackleford Banks. And, as Tompkins mentioned, there is a lack of trail information for some parks. But additional details likely are on the way.

You also can search the app for specific activities you want to pursue. For instance, select "paddling" and the app lists 107 units of the park system where you can float by canoe, raft, or sea kayak, from Alagnak Wild River in Alaska to Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, also in Alaska. Click on the photo of your chosen park, and the app takes you to that park's page.

There's also a section for you to list the parks you've visited, see the National Park Service's central daily newsfeed of releases from participating parks, and even a page that showcases the webcams in the park system.

There's more to do at Cape Lookout National Seashore than this app currently lets on.

You can download park information for off-line reading, and there's an audio service to assist "blind and low vision visitors in experiencing most points of interest and interpretive exhibits within the park." That service is designed to "work with the voiceover screen reader on your phone or tablet."

You can even create a postcard from photos you take that you can email to friends and family. 

This app has the potential to be a robust resource for your travels around the National Park System. But you might want to hold onto the existing individual park apps you already have downloaded, or at least compare them to what's on this new app, before deleting them. This app is indeed a work in progress.