App version number, if a mobile app issue (shown under Settings or About): I don’t know. There is no version info listing in the iNat app’s Settings. But the app version works.
Browser, if a website issue (Firefox, Chrome, etc) : Chrome and Safari
URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages: N/A
Screenshots of what you are seeing (instructions for taking a screenshot on computers and mobile devices: https://www.take-a-screenshot.org/):
Description of problem (please provide a set of steps we can use to replicate the issue, and make as many as you need.): When using Chrome or Safari to create observations on my iPad, the photos I select from the Photos app do not get their metadata loaded. If I use the same photos in the app, they do load. This has been happening for at least a couple of months, although I don’t specifically remember using the iPad this way before. Maybe it never worked… I normally upload observations on my Mac laptop, where I’ve never had this problem, but recently started using the iPad when I travel.
Step 1: On Safari or Chrome apps on the iPad, log in to the iNaturalist website.
Step 2: Upload an observation and select photo(s) from the Photos app. I have the same problem with photos taken with my iPhone or my Sony camera.
I’ve just checked the photo from the observation in the screenshot, and it doesn’t seem to contain almost any metadata (except the resolution and some other related stuff), so it actually shouldn’t work even in the app
The website isn’t really designed to work well on mobile devices, and that includes iPads. So there are issues with using the website on a mobile device’s browser. The app is designed for uploading observations from a mobile device, so I’d recommend using that to make observations with photos on your iPad.
If the observation was made via the iOS app, it won’t really have any metadata on its page.
Perhaps I don’t mean metadata. I just mean the date and location of the photo, which is in the photo.
That’s what I’m doing for a few select observations when I’m on a trip. But I strongly prefer the interface in the web site, so I wait until I get home to my laptop to do the bulk of my uploads. I usually have to do some of the observations multiple times because I accidentally touch outside the boundaries of the new observation window or scroll the wrong way when selecting photos. Both of those mistakes terminate the creation of the observation, so I have to start over. I am a real klutz on a mobile device. Thanks for the speedy response.
I have this problem, too (IPadOS v16.5); iNat is not grabbing the location data attached to my photos when I use the website upload option, which I prefer because I can upload multiple obs at once. Is there really no better solution than “use the app”?
If that’s the case, I guess my best choice when I have only the iPad with me (as I do now) is to continue to use the website for bulk uploads, “select all” and set the location to, for example, “Costa Rica” (my current location). I just don’t see myself loading thirty or forty (or more) obs one-by-one with the app.
The other solution is “Don’t use the website uploader on a mobile device”. The website uploader is optimized for non-mobile usage and the app is designed for usage on mobile devices so users’ experiences will be best when using iNat in that manner. The app specifically is designed for making observations in the field in real time, so that is its strength. It will be less effective when uploading observations after the fact (and yes, not great for bulk uploads afterwards).
Of course, the website functions do work to some extent on mobile browsers, but this will never work as well as on a fully featured OS/browser).
on the Mac we noted in another thread that the Photos app will do an automatic conversion of HEIC files to JPEG. i wonder if a similar conversion happens on the iPad and if that could lead to a loss of metadata somewhere in that process?
That’s part of the solution already suggested: use the app instead of using the website. The options (website/app) are working as planned, so yeah, it’s good to know that this is a feature, not a bug.
It appears I’m not the only user who uses an iPad who would like the website interface to pick up the geotags even when used on a mobile device. I’ll add the less granular location data (country name in my current case) when using the iPad. That’ll allow me to upload obs over these next few weeks while I’m away from home/my laptop.
I mostly use a Nikon P900, so am shooting in JPEG; I also have a P950, which captures in RAW and/or JPEG. I rarely upload anything to iNat that I’ve taken with a cell phone (though thanks for reminding me that I do have a photo on my phone to upload!). Neither of my cell phones takes good photos.
