In this case I think it’s because the app is getting its own location and precision instead of pulling it from the photo?
I’ve found the process of using the in-app camera slower in a couple ways that meant missing photo opportunities, but maybe they’ve been improved since the last time I tried. Not having auto-precision makes observation submission more tedious, but I’ll sacrifice processing time later in order to get photos more efficiently in the moment haha.
1 Like
I expect you are right, but I don’t know the inner workings of the app well enough to verify.
No, it’s still slow, though maybe it will improve when the new app is available for Android. It hasn’t bothered me because I observe mostly plants, and am not a high-volume observer.
Maybe a compromise would be, after your normal photography workflow, create the observation using a single in-app photo (to capture location and precision), then add all the other related photos from the gallery. One could even remove the in-app photo later.
1 Like
I think your experience is probably more representative than that of the ultra-engaged iNat power users populating this forum.
I myself am a biogeographer who needs at least some high-precision coordinate data for some of my work, and I often despair of the enormously imprecise (or “Accuracy not recorded”) records so often uploaded, but even I didn’t start checking and adjusting the location of every observation of my own until recently – once a recent iOS update seemed to make my elderly phone GPS hideously unreliable. I mostly use the mobile app for photo upload and the automatic GPS triangulation precision literally will balloon past 50m accuracy in the iNat app over time unless I hold the device up above my head as it churns to autoselect the point. meanwhile, I feel like the web version gives me too much choice if anything; I don’t literally know the precision of my manual coordinate-finding, it’s an arbitrary measurement usually predicated on how accurate the satellite data is for me to be able to pick out features I recognise on the screen.
this used to work really well for me – I would typically use eBird to track my position, which usually yielded precision/uncertainty of 4-5m. this no longer seems to work though and I will routinely get the iNat app flailing to get below 35m (the apparent default?) even with eBird keeping a constant bead on my location. again, I feel like this is an Apple problem though
2 Likes
entertainingly baffling anyway, the whole thing is a lot huger than you might expect when you first encounter it
1 Like
To the conspiracist in me that sounds like forced obsolescence 
4 Likes
Thanks for the suggestion. I actually tried this a few weeks back and it made all the difference (though without the GPS app running in the background - it seemed to work anyway, but I’ll keep that in mind). Then, a few days ago I also found a setting in the phone that allowed me to turn of the supposed location accuracy improvement setting that I think has been causing the problem - so I’ll see whether that fixes things, and revert to airplane mode if not.
3 Likes
I agree, that was my first thought when the update seemingly nuked the GPS competency. I can’t find a way to roll back the operating system update without wiping the entire device, either, so it feels even more that way. Another reason I wouldn’t have chosen this phone! – but I received it as a freebie a number of years ago and am even less inclined to buy a new one in this day and age.
2 Likes
Maybe wouldn’t work for everyone but I record every photo with a GPS waypoint and
a note in my book including the time and later associate the two using that. Using the word “precision” is a bit misleading as the best you can expect from a commercial GPS is a 2m error and maybe up to 10. Good luck finding that nail again. :-)
1 Like
I agree. Instead of “accuracy” or “precision,” better terms might be “estimated uncertainty” or “estimated error.” But with the negative connotations often associated with ideas of “error” and “uncertainty,” it could be unsettling for many users to see those terms labeling every observation.
1 Like
My GPS system measures to within about 10-20 mm in a single reading when it has open sky and says it’s fixed. I tell it to take 60-180 readings one second apart and average them, which makes the average more precise. I set four nails along the street and measured them with GPS, then used the total station to set more nails in the woods and measure them, one of them being that nail which had a spider on it. So yes, I do know where the spider was within a decimeter.
The purpose of this exercise was not to measure spiders or fan clubmoss precisely, but to set the two missing lot corners, one of which (by the road) is in front of a tuliptree called for in the deed (which says it’s a poplar), which also I observed.
4 Likes
Whoever wrote that deed was probably more familiar with woodworking than botany. Tuliptree wood is sold as “poplar” in the woodworking trade.
Thank you for saving my having to ask a question…
2 Likes
on the social frontline, sometimes when you mess up in ways like forgetting a name or not noticing you tagged it as a question until too late, it’s necessary to pick you’re moment such that the injury is minimised.