On iOS it takes a long time to add photos for each observation and fill in detail.
( I find it time-consuming enough it puts me off uploading images despite taking them )
So I wondered if there could be a way to upload more at once.
The main options I wanted to request are:
For iOS weāre using Appleās built-in image chooser and Iām not sure it allows one to pick more than four at a time, Iād have to double check.
ahh right, I wondered why that was a limit
is it the one called PHPickerviewcontroller?
if so, seems like the limit might be possible to change
I guess would make it harder to do the second aspect though
I editted the title as it seemed unclear
Sure - it just takes more clicks. You have to navigate back to the original place in your photo reelā¦ ensure you havenāt already uploaded the other photos, etc.
Its already time-consuming in comparison to desktop to have to add observations one at a time,
why make it even more time-consuming by limiting initial upload to 4?
If its a limit in the built-in chooser Tiwane mentions, thatās one thing, ā¦but otherwise, I think its an unnecessary hindrance.
I agree, a ābookmarkā on the scroll screen where it goes back to the last position when you reopen it would help much more than changing the image upload limitation (though that would be good too); if I take hundreds of pictures on a hike I donāt want to scroll back hundreds of times to make each new observation. Not sure if that is technically possible but it would be great.
@brian_d - ahh right I see :)
@wildskyflower - yes, I have wondered about feature requesting that too - but perhaps it should just form part of this request then - its true this also has significant impact - especially if you are uploading a large number of observations or if you have to upload something from before the last days.
It would also be amazing if it could remember which ones you have already uploaded and grey them out (even if just with regard to uploads in the current session) imagine thats also a little more complex to implement though.
Yeah if I have taken hikes on two consecutive days and taken 1000 photos adding observations through the app is effectively impossible because of all the scrolling and guessing which thumbnail I have already added, especially because sometimes the app will randomly crash and I have to restart an observation
Circling back to this: itās possible to increase the number of photos one can import at a time, but are people often adding more than four photos to an observation? I can see increasing it to mayb 6 or so, but if you greatly increase it then youāll increase the issues caused by people who donāt know that all imported photos shoudl be for one observation.
That wonāt be happening in the current mobile apps, but some form of it is what we want to have in the upcoming new app.
If you can allow user to group many photos by observation like in website, it will speed up the whole uploading processā¦
(Especially when there are 50+ observations in one hike)
Certainly not for every observation. But yes Iāll fairly frequently add maybe five to eight photos to an observation from the iOS app, such as for a flowering plant when you want to get a couple of different angles of the leaves, flowers, fruit, stipules, overall habit, etc. Iāve often wondered why the pickerās limit is āonlyā four photos.
Yes, same. It really variesā¦ but when its a complex taxon and you donāt know whatās needed to IDā¦or yes, adding habitat, etc. Then it becomes super painful to have to stop and startā¦ especially if the app crashes halfway through!
Of course I could just upload via computer and browserā¦but then for me that kind of defeats the point of using the phone in the first place ā¦in part at least.
How will it impact this?
Arenāt most of these observations null and void whether they contain 4 or 8 photos?
Look forward to trying new app!
For users, usually new, who donāt know to separate photos to separate observations, with more photos allowed for upload/observation, you would expect fewer multi-organism observations, but with more species/observation. Iām not sure if itās better/worse. Itās harder to correct each observation, but there would be fewer problematic observation.
I do think that itās important to think about how changes like this would affect both experienced and new users. For experienced users, I think a change like this would be beneficial, but I can see it causing issues for newer users.
Maybe testing out the impact of a change like this on the iOS app now could be a pilot for how it might work on the new unified app.
Why canāt you add multiple pictures to an ob from the āupload an observationā page? I have to always manually add extra pictures after theyāre uploaded. And when I upload a lot of them at once. Theyāre already getting IDās, when Iāve not even uploaded all the picturesā¦ that really frustrates me.
Or am I just not seeing that feature? If this does exist, somebody please explain/show me how you do it.
Often, no. But still enough to want this feature! Five to six photos allowed as a maximum is probably our magic number. This applies mostly to winged and once-winged insects for us, trying to get different views uploaded. The workaround is to add the original four photos and then within the observation being created, click the + on the left of the photos and add the remaining photos.
Can you share a screenshot of what youāre referring to as the āupload an observationā page?
It should make it much more clear to users what kind of photos belong in an observation (eg all from the same encounter with an organism) but I guess weāll have to seeā¦ And itāll be easier to combine a bunch of photos into one observation before the observation is created.
I should also note that the limit is pretty high for Android, so I donāt see a reason why iOS canāt be bumped up. Made an issue here: https://github.com/inaturalist/INaturalistIOS/issues/674
I think guidance by way of a couple of brief bullet point notes above the row of buttons would keep requirements top of mind for everyone and go a long way to help inexperienced users in particular. Thereās plenty of screen real estate to do this and not feel like itās cluttering things.
As mentioned above, thereās a design for this in the new app thatās being developed. At this point weāre not really doing much work on the existing apps.
