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This is, unfortunately, taking longer than anticipated but we’re working on it. Thanks for your patience, this is a pretty big project.
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Update: I can’t provide any sort of estimate, but we’re doing some in-house testing and the working parts are looking pretty good - I made some observations today and last week with it. Still a lot of work to do, but it’s been fun trying it out and we continue to make progress every day. Thanks for your patience all, I’m sorry it’s taken much longer than original hoped for.
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I thought every body can use this new app cause it is public available, isnt it? I’ve uploaded a few observations -with photos- but the Android app is much easier to use…
I did not share it, but here is the app
https://github.com/inaturalist/iNaturalistReactNative/releases
The current one works better for Android, so it was only for one day on my phone. I did upload an observation with a photo, so the main functionality wortked.
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The only function i need is that it is possible to share a photo from the gallery to the inaturalist app. I only use it for uploading photos so would be nice if there is configuration which does not need a lot of selections before one can upload a photo. (Actually i would prefer much les fuctions and much less buttons i think)
No. As I said,
So it’s just iNat staff at the moment.
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It’s very important for the new app to maintain the accuracy of coordinate detection that the current app offers. It’s the best aspect of the current app. Additionally, it would be fantastic if the new app could perform this process uninterrupted, in contrast to the existing app.
When the app automatically detects coordinates for a new observation (when doing so directly at the observation site, not afterwards), it’s being interrupted by almost any action: rotating the screen, adding a photo/audio from the device, taking a new photo/audio within the app, adding identification. As a result, for those who care about precise coordinates, some time is wasted just waiting for the app to achieve sufficient accuracy of coordinates. However, many people simply don’t care or don’t understand how it works, leading to observations with low accuracy of coordinates (sometimes 100 km, and very often a few km) due to interruptions during the detection process.
It would significantly improve the quality of data on iNat if the coordinate detection could work uninterruptedly in the background while creating the observation in the app, regardless of what is happening. Additionally, the detection process should start when clicking ‘Take Photo,’ rather than after taking the first photo of the observation. The detection process is slower in areas with a weak mobile network, sometimes taking several minutes to find precise coordinates. It only switches to satellite-based positioning from mobile network-based positioning when there is no mobile internet at all or when mobile internet is manually turned off (which I often do in the field to improve speed, though this is something very few people are aware of).
I only use the iNat app in the field because it detects coordinates much more accurately than what is indicated in the metadata of photos taken by the phone. Otherwise, I would upload them later through the browser and not use the app at all. Many very active iNat users follow this approach since using the app in the field is too slow, sacrificing the accuracy of coordinates.
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I second this. I haven’t looked in as much detail as this person, but i’ve observed that the gps points are LESS accurate and precise, and slower to obtain, than in the app a few years ago It’s always been very accurate and in the past it’s made a very tight track of points if i make observations as i walk, and lately a handful out of 50 will always by way off like hundreds of meters off to a kilometer. I am not sure if what changed is in the app or in my phone hardware or software (mine is an iPhone) but i agree that spatial accuracy is one of the highlights of the iNat map and should be prioritized.
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Excellent suggestion, including the detailed assessment what the issues and consequences of the current geolocation process are when using the app.
Multiple upvotes from my side ;-)
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Would it be due to Ukraine or Android updates ? But you experencie it with iPhone ?
Android users no longer have the geolocation pulled from photos despite having proper permissions and meta data being there.
This broke for me on August 5th after the last update. Google Play store and Facebook have similar complaints.
Ukraine? Is the Ukraine war affecting GPS accuracy? I have an iPhone.
Iti s a known issue as GPS is military. They can choose the way the sattelites move.
But i am afraid the new app will get worse if now i see this https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/seek-grabs-current-location-if-photo-lacks-geolocation/5019/13, other apps do ask a question which location should be used… Too look for a location is much more work than changing one. (Same with removing the observation fields from the observation when you copy one, it was such a nice feature)
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This sounds like a bug. Please provide specific details in a new topic at Bug Reports. A screen recording would be especially helpful.
The app is getting GPS data from the device, I don’t think we have much control over accuracy, aside from when to stop getting location data.
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yeah unfortunately i suspect iNat isn’t the cause. I feel like the GPS i use for work, recording tracks and such, is worse as well. Perhaps a military issue as someone suggested on this forum
Interruption from the rotation of screen may sound like a bug, but it’s not the point, it can’t run in the background: when switching screen from the main screen of observation creation to the screen with ID, or screen with adding photo, or screen with creation of new media (camera, recorder). It’s not a bug, it’s how it was designed. If it would work in the background you would not need to fix rotation of screen separately. Probably you’re not implying that nobody noticed this earlier or that it can work in the background on some devices while making additional photos.
But the accuracy is displayed on the locality, and it is sometimes merely a case of waiting for it to get fine enough before saving - usually if one takes two pictures it is reputedly accurate to < 10m. .
A popup stating that accuracy is still above 100m please wait a moment more before saving would be useful.
From : https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/inaturalist-mobile-app-development-news/27157/25
On 8/14/23 tiwane (Tony) wrote
Update: I can’t provide any sort of estimate, but we’re doing some in-house testing and the working parts are looking pretty good - I made some observations today and last week with it. Still a lot of work to do, but it’s been fun trying it out and we continue to make progress every day. Thanks for your patience all, I’m sorry it’s taken much longer than original hoped for.
Perhaps,2024, 2025? Surely there are some better benchmarks that could be shared with the community
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2030-2050…
It’s been in the works for long enough that it’s starting to feel like waiting for nuclear fusion to become a viable energy source.
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I like reading the notes for the developer versions that get released every 2 weeks, at least can see all the progress being made: https://github.com/inaturalist/iNaturalistReactNative/releases
If you’re very adventurous and have an Android phone you can even click on the APK and see the current state of the app for yourself (probably not with your main account in case all observations get deleted) - but a lot of things actually work, just not everything in the current Android app.
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