I’m not sure I understand by “fractured”. Both apps lead to the same place, so everyone will remain part of iNaturalist. There will just be a new platform for interacting with iNaturalist.
Currently people have to install Next as a completely new app. Will that remain the case, or is it possible to automatically update the old app into the new one when the old version is fully abandoned, so that if people wait long enough they’ll never need to go through the whole installation process from the start?
If not, I’m guessing @juliocesarsalad’s concern is that there will be a significant amount of people who will be left behind because they don’t realize they need to start over from the app store, or they don’t know how to do that.
For example if someone was helped the first time they installed the app, they will likely need an equal amount of help to reinstall the new version unless the transition is done really smoothly (which may or may not be possible, I have no idea how apps work behind the scenes).
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I see the issue, you are thinking about this from a “point people to naturalist” perspective
However my concern is that there will be a significant chunk of users who are not In The Know using App 1 who will never transition to App 2
The question I have is, why publish App 2 as a completely separate app instead of simply making it the next update of App 1? Like, why do there have to be two separate instances of the same app once App 2 is complete?
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This is very cool to hear. I don’t have much time currently to be following what is going on but if I could put one request forward:
Please if you aren’t already include an observation’s number prominently and easily read on each observation. It is already there for Android users but so far as I know it is absent for iPhone users on the original iNat app so this could be a chance to get that added for all.
By “observation number” I mean the unique number that is at the end of the url for an observation.
We use it to associate iNaturalist observations to their physical specimens/field voucher slips at fungi forays and it is so nice to have that number easy to spot and read especially when trying to teach new people (and get ourselves) to make higher quality collections. Bigger the font, clearer the label “observation number” and easier to spot on the page, the better.
Thank you.
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It’s under the Detail section and is copy/pasteable.
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I just wanted to say that I’ve been using this since Feb (thanks for suggesting it @tiwane) and I like it much more than the old app. It makes my personal workflow of uploading in bulk from my phone much easier.
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We’ll definitely have banners in App1 telling people to try out the new app, and other communications as well such as email, social media posts, announcement on the website, etc. We won’t reach everyone, correct, but I think a very large chunk of active users will be aware of the new app.
App2 isn’t in complete parity with App1 yet. It’s lacking at least one key feature that App1 has, which is the ability to add observations to traditional projects.
There are tradeoffs with any decision, obviously. The thought here is that the benefit of not basically forcing people into an entirely new and potentially more buggy app (most people have their apps set to auto update), especially during the busiest time of year, outweighs the downsides of confusion (why are there two apps?) and some people not hearing about the new app. It also allows us to get a lot of feedback from the general public about the new app while still keeping the old app available for people who want to test it out but aren’t ready to make the leap yet.
Of course it’s totally possible that this could be the wrong calculation, but that’s true either way and again we feel the potential benefits outweight the potential costs with this course of action.
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Is this here? :
Got a lot of things to upload, but today’s (02/04/2025) update broke me. I Can’t bulk upload various photos from the same thing showing structures at the same time. I have to go back to the observation and upload one thing at the time. After that I have to roll the photo album again till i find the other photos, 1 by 1. Will this be reversible?
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@rafapsilva, are you trying to upload multiple photos you took outside of the app? If not, can you clarify what you’re trying to do?
If you are, are you:
- long-pressing
- clicking the photo library icon
- selecting photos as shown in video under Bulk Import here?
If not, will that work for you? If so, can you describe where you’re getting hung up?
So would all my current identifications and observations remain, or would I have to re-upload all of them?
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you don’t have to reupload anything
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All identifications and observations go to the iNat platform - the apps and website are just a way to access/interact with that platform.
The only exception really is Seek, where user data is stored in an account on a phone (though users can choose to submit observations to the iNat platform if they wish).
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Hello! Thank yu for your attention! I’ll try to describe the best I can.
After I long press the green camera icon, there’s no menu like that on 2 secs of the video linked. It goes right to the photo roll selection and I can’t select multiple photos. I can’t group photos, either. When I click, it goes to the species suggestions. I can’t even choose the species, for example, nor select the area. Upload (even 1 photo) takes a very long time, sometimes with several errors that I need to try to upload again. Should I reinstall it again? Or is this a known error?
I use iPhone 11. iOS 18.4.
UPDATE: After reinstalling 3 times and getting a ‘‘signal 11 error’’ before the last install attempt, it seems fine now! Thank you again!
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Where is this feature? All I see is a list of my observations and a list of my observed species, but I don’t see a search field.
If you go to the Explore page you can tap on the filters (upper right-hand corner) and under “Filter by user” you’ll see an option to filter by your observations.
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Are you able to share accuracy statistics comparing the offline ID system to the online ID system?
This threw me too.
An update made my version of app unusable yesterday -uploading a photo wouldnt allow me to select more than one image. But I went to settings and changed advanced settings to take off the AI camera on upload and that fixed it. I presumed it was just a bad new feature oversimplifying it for new users somehow…But checked again now by reversing back to AI camera on upload option, and it seems to have been fixed
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Same for me. I can no longer upload multiple photos from my library like before-- it will now only accept one photo at a time and instantly go to what seems to be a new ID menu, which says “you observed a new species!” (I did not) and does not let me contest the ID or apply any of the features (obscure location, projects, etc.) that were available previously.
One feature I really liked from the old app (and one of the main reasons I used the app instead of relying solely on the website) is that the activity tab would show what IDs were suggested with recent activity. iNat Next only says “…added an identification to an observation by you”, much like the site does. I think restoring the feature as it was in the old app would be beneficial for the new one.
You’re probably running into a bug that we hope to get a fix out for soon. Can you share a screenshot of your app settings to be sure?