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Build 12 is available now for Android and through TestFlight on iPhone and iPad.

What you'll see

Build 12

Build 12 looks different on every screen. The app now uses the Discover Liwa typefaces: Tajawal for Arabic and Montserrat for English. Text that was hard to read is darker, and the save bookmark on Explore cards has moved off the photo into the card, where it is always easy to see.

Much of the Arabic reads more naturally, from a first-language review of the place descriptions. Every place now shows its type in your language, and prices, dates and times inside Arabic text no longer run back to front. A range of 250 to 400 dirhams was showing as 400-250.

Your plan works harder too. An idea can go on more than one day, or twice in one day, and shows "In plan · N" instead of disappearing once placed. A shared trip image shows every day of the trip, with "No plans yet" on a free day. The festival site pin is Festival Red, and the festival dates now match the official window, 11 December 2026 to 3 January 2027.

Worth testing:

• Read a few places in Arabic. Does anything still sound translated?
• Place one idea on two different days and check both stay.
• Share a trip with an empty day in the middle and check that day reads "No plans yet".
• Check the build number at the foot of Essentials reads 12.

The four invented test places from build 11 are gone. Every place in build 12 is real.

Build 12 remains an alpha. Some of its Arabic is still machine-translated and awaiting human review. The Etihad Rail station carries a placeholder photo and no map pin until a verified location is published.

Build 11

Build 11 changes the first thing you see. The app opens on the dune-and-palm photo from the website, with the Discover Liwa mark, and "Show me around" is now a six-screen tour: real screens from the app, each with one control circled and a line saying what it is for. The map, Explore, Ideas, planning weeks ahead, your days in Liwa, and Essentials.

Etihad Rail joins the travel question. Pick "Etihad Rail" under "How will you get here?" (the Liwa station opens on 30 November 2026) and tap "About the station" to read what we know. "Not driving" now reads "Other", because the train is no longer hiding inside it.

Two smaller things: the foot of Essentials shows which build you are on, and Weeks away no longer says "-1 days away" once your trip has started.

Worth testing:

• Open the app fresh and step through the six-screen tour. Does each circle sit on the right control on your phone?
• Switch language on the opening screen, in both directions.
• Under "How will you get here?", pick Etihad Rail, then tap "About the station".
• Check the build number at the foot of Essentials reads 11.

Test data: four places in this build are invented fixtures. Do not visit Dune Whisper Pop-Up Majlis, Mirage Hollow Desert Camp, Sandpiper Farm or Wandering Ember Food Truck.

Build 11 remains an alpha. Its Arabic is machine-translated and awaiting human review. The Etihad Rail station carries a placeholder photo and no map pin until a verified location is published.

Build 10

Build 10 exists because build 9 opened in Arabic with no way to switch. Arabic is the app's default language, so an English tester's first screen was a wall of Arabic. The welcome now carries a language switch on both of its pages.

Several things you reported are fixed. The pencil on the car-hire note opens it for editing again. The collapsed panel above your day now says what it holds, "Sun, prayer, qibla", instead of leaving you to guess. "See this day on the map" is a full-width action on the day itself, so it is no longer easy to miss.

The dinner prompt has stopped looking like a warning and names the day it means: "Find dinner for Friday evening?" The banner that asks you to tap a slot no longer prints over the slot headings. The Ideas tab has "Write one down" for a thought that is not a place yet. Essentials can share Discover Liwa, which sends the download page in the language you are reading.

Worth testing:

• Open the app fresh and switch language from the welcome, in both directions.
• Tap the pencil on the car-hire note and change it.
• Open a planned day and use "See this day on the map".
• Add an idea with "Write one down", then place it into a day.
• Share the app from Essentials and check the link opens your language.

Test data: four places in this build are invented fixtures. Do not visit Dune Whisper Pop-Up Majlis, Mirage Hollow Desert Camp, Sandpiper Farm or Wandering Ember Food Truck.

Build 10 remains an alpha. Its Arabic is machine-translated and awaiting human review. The branded opening and the screenshot tour are not in this build.

Build 9

Build 9 makes the app easier to keep honest rather than adding features. If something goes wrong, the last few app errors now travel with a report you send from Report a problem, so we can fix what you actually saw. The dialog says so before you press Send.

Location now runs only while the Map is open and stops when you leave it or put the phone away, which is kinder to the battery. It uses a rougher fix until you are actually in Liwa. Prayer times use the same fix rather than asking for their own.

A saved plan that cannot be read is kept, not overwritten: you can send it to yourself as text or start over. The bookmark on a place sits beside its name now instead of over the photo, where it blended into the sand.

From this build the app counts anonymous interaction events, such as which places are opened and which links are followed. The privacy page says exactly what is counted and why.

Worth testing:

• Send a report from Report a problem after something misbehaves, and tell us whether it arrived.
• Leave the Map for another tab: the location indicator should switch off.
• Bookmark a place from its sheet and check it is under Ideas.
• Switch between Arabic and English and check the right-to-left layout of the place sheet.

Test data: four places in this build are invented fixtures. Do not visit Dune Whisper Pop-Up Majlis, Mirage Hollow Desert Camp, Sandpiper Farm or Wandering Ember Food Truck.

Build 9 remains an alpha. Its newer Arabic text is machine-translated and awaiting human review; please report wording that is factually wrong or unclear.

Build 8

Build 8 brings the trip planner into the main app. Record your dates, travel and stay, save possibilities from Explore, add your own notes, and shape each day in the In Liwa view. The app now opens on the map and includes a first-use welcome tour.

Sun times and distances are anchored on Liwa Oasis, or on your chosen hotel, rather than on the phone's current location. Each planned day can open on the map with its stops numbered in order and joined as a route.

The planning loop is easier to follow: a dinner prompt opens the right Explore results, the place you choose returns to the intended evening, placed stops open their details, and planning notes can be edited.

Worth testing:

• Use the welcome, then reopen it later from Essentials.
• Save a hotel and ideas from Explore, edit a note, and place ideas into a day.
• Add dinner from In Liwa and use “See this day on the map” with two or more stops.
• Switch between Arabic and English and check the full right-to-left layout.
• Download the offline map, disconnect, browse places and submit a report, then reconnect.

Test data: four places in this build are invented fixtures. Do not visit Dune Whisper Pop-Up Majlis, Mirage Hollow Desert Camp, Sandpiper Farm or Wandering Ember Food Truck.

Build 8 remains an alpha. Its newer Arabic text is machine-translated and awaiting human review; please report wording that is factually wrong or unclear.

Build 6

Fifty percent more places to explore: thirty ship with the app now, up from twenty, and the full live set (thirty-eight and counting) arrives automatically once you're online, no update needed. Nothing from build 5 is gone.

For the first time there are things to actually do, not just see: camel trekking, dune bashing, and sandboarding at Tal Moreeb, and an overnight Bedouin camp experience. There are new places to eat too. Essentials are now findable as well: fuel, pharmacy, groceries.

The app opens in Arabic and works fully right to left, switchable from the top bar any time. Some of the Arabic descriptions are machine-translated and haven't had a human review pass yet.

Known, and not bugs:

• Nine of the forts and towers still show a placeholder instead of a photo, the same gap build 5 had, now a smaller share of a bigger app. Everything else already has its photo.
• Four of the new additions (camel trekking, the Bedouin camp, the Liwa International Festival, and Rub al Khali itself) don't have map coordinates yet, so they're listed but not pinned on the map.

Build 5

Discover Liwa currently covers 20 places across Al Dhafra — the historic forts and towers, the resorts, and the region's key landmarks. For any of them, you can save it to your own list, get directions straight to your maps app, and share it with someone else planning the same trip. Where we have the phone number or the website, you can call or visit the site directly from the listing too.

This is an early build, and two things are still catching up:

• Ten of the twenty places — the forts and towers — show a placeholder instead of a photo. The resorts and landmarks already have theirs.
• The map opens centred on the rest of the region, and Al Dhafra Fort sits just outside that view. It's there — pan north to find it.

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