I’m curious for others’ thoughts on this choice. I really like the new app for all its added functionality (thank you especially for adding the ability to withdraw IDs without adding a new one! This was something I’d been wanting on the “old app” for a long time…)
The only part that I wasn’t sure about was the choice to make the observe button open the camera immediately and then provide a secondary option to open the Camera Roll and add my photos. I personally always take photos, click through them to pick the most in-focus, and crop as necessary, before uploading anything- so I doubt I’d ever want the camera to open up in-app to take a photo and go straight to uploading without reviewing/cropping a series of images first. Am I the weird one for doing it this way? There must be a lot of users taking in-app photos for the camera to be the default thing that opens when clicking Observe. I suppose it’s not really any extra “clicks” to open the camera and then click the camera roll button, but I was surprised by this choice.
Maybe it’s just my own anxiety about having a camera open up on my phone repeatedly when I’m lying on the couch in a less-than-photogenic form uploading the day’s sightings that makes my gut response one of “ew, make that go away”. So maybe this is a question for my therapist more than the iNat forum, but I am genuinely curious how many users actually use the “in-app camera” functionality as opposed to photographing first, editing second, and uploading later.
I have wondered this also, but you can change it to show all observation options instead of opening the camera immediately in the settings, so I don’t think it is a big deal.
I prefer to take photos with the camera app, rather than taking photos in-app. This is a current trend with apps generally – that you take photos inside the app, and then it saves to your camera roll. It’s designed to make it more convenient for the user.
Do you think it depends on the experience of the iNatter? A new user who just wants to ID a flower might use the in-app functionality, compared to a more experienced iNatter, who might meticulously photograph the leaf nodes, the stem, the underside of the leaf, etc.
I regularly read a blog about internet security . . . I’m not accusing iNat of anything, but it’s safe IMO to assume that all internet-connected devices are spying on you at all times!
I’m with you; I never use the in-app camera when observing with my phone. It just feels easier for me to go straight to the default camera app, since there are gestural and button shortcuts for opening the camera app directly from the phone’s resting state; and with animal subjects at least, time is of the essence. I often take multiple photos, too. Then I just go select the best photos from the camera roll when making a new observation.
I’m glad to hear there’s an option to change this behaviour in the settings, though! I imagine some people might be confused or bothered by this and not realize there’s a setting to address it, but hopefully considering it’s a new app, they’ll be curious enough to go look in the settings for options.
Thanks for saying this! I also never ever ever use the in-app camera and was off-put by this, but I couldn’t find a setting to find it. The “all observation options” list is way too long to realize it’s how you change this.
I often take one picture using the app, as a placeholder to lock in the location/date/time, then later when I’m uploading observations I add the rest of the pictures from my camera roll. I rarely upload each observation “on the fly” when I’m out for a hike, either because there’s no cell service or because I want time to confirm IDs or add the good pictures.
you should be able to add things without cell service. you could in the old app and it’s needed functionality in the new app too - it seems to work sometimes, but not always, right now. I always take photos from within the app, i personally find that much easier. But i keep getting the frog screen telling me to let the app save to the phone album. I don’t want to, so i don’t click yes, and it keeps showing the frog screen, which feels like nagware. A ‘don’t show this again’ option should be added and it should be possible to tell the app not to save photos to any album if you don’t want it to.
