I sometimes use my phone (an Android) for identifying observations. Under “Explore” I have access to most of the search settings available on the website, including the option to filter by type, e.g. Plants/Birds/etc.
Missing from the list of types is “unknown”. Searching “Life” just gets me everything.
I’d like to be able to add IDs to observations that have none. But I can’t selectively search for such observations on the app.
I would like this functionality as well. Sometimes I want to be able to ID from my phone since my son is laying on me sleeping and be able to do the easy ones where they are Unknown so I just have to put Plant, Fungus, etc.
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Please! I pretty much exclusively ID via the app, since it’s what I have with me outside and about. This would be A++! (Won’t get into the extensive issues of the app in general…)
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This seems like it should be doable (granted, I don’t know much about app development). You could also try opening iNat’s Identify portal from your phone’s Internet browsers. It has its own quirks, but you can at least sort for unknowns.
You might also be interested in these related feature requests:
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I tried using my phone browser, but it’s agonizingly slow, a bit buggy, and the UI isn’t good for the small screen. I think that’s a known issue, and would be much more difficult to change.
Thanks for the links!
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You can specify which high level taxon you filter for on iOS. At the end of the little icons for the taxa is a question mark in a dotted leaf outline. That filters for Unknown.
Nobody has raised this in a while, so… Bump
I like to give back, when I engage in a community. I am grateful for the ID suggestions of others, and would like to reciprocate (isn’t that part of what iNat is all about?)
So I would think that being able to search for “something” / Unknown, or “Needs ID” would be important. Right?
Hi @pjfayer, welcome to the forum!
The app is primarily for data collection rather than adding IDs / looking at other people’s observations, so features related to the latter seem to be generally lower priority.
If you use a computer and haven’t tried it yet, I recommend using the Identify page on the website: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify There is a quick video tutorial here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/video+tutorials#identify
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I would like to add a +1 to this feature request.
I find it easier to ID through my phone app, due to the brilliant “Compare” feature. Additionally, I like to use iNat to ID observations late at night when I’m in bed. I find it relaxing, however, the phone does not have the ability to search unknown. If it did, during that late night ID’ing time, I could help categorise the unknown submissions. Even if just into family or genus it will help others. Thanks.
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welcome to the forum!
That’s new isn’t it?
nice! thank y’all for the update :)
I’m not a regular Android user, but it looks like it was added in March: https://github.com/inaturalist/iNaturalistAndroid/issues/705 I’ll close this topic since it’s been implemented.
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