Update: I played around with it a bit more, and it looks like the location and accuracy might be changing behind the scene (it doesn’t actually show the coordinates nor the accuracy prior to hitting save, so there is no way to tell). I guess I should have done a little more testing before making this post. Still, it not showing the coordinates or uncertainty is problematic for the reasons mentioned below. This is starting to look more like feature request territory now.
I just learned that the newest version of the app doesn’t allow you to wait to allow the coordinate uncertainty to go down before saving an observation. The result is that the observations often have bad coordinate data and/or massive uncertainty values (“acc”). The only way for it to be possible to wait for the coordinate uncertainty to go down is to turn on advanced mode. If we’re going to have a “simple mode” on the app, could it force the user to wait until the uncertainty changes and/or a certain minimum threshold is reached (maybe 30-50m)? Maybe give a message that says, “refining location”?
In the meantime, and if you use the newest version of the app, I would highly recommend switching to advanced mode and check to see if the uncertainty value goes down before saving. Otherwise, your coordinates may be wrong.
I didn’t know advanced mode did that…I wonder if that was intentional.
A workaround for observers is to order multiple photos of an organism such that the first photo in the observation is not the first photo taken. This works for me on iPhone 12 mini using the standard camera.
I don’t think I can add any example observations as the observations I’ve seen are my students. If I have some time, I might do some tests using my own app today or tomorrow.
I played around with it a bit more, and it looks like the location and accuracy might be changing behind the scene (it doesn’t actually show the coordinates nor the accuracy prior to hitting save, so there is no way to tell). I guess I should have done a little more testing before making this post (that’s what I get for trying to make a post after midnight). Still, it not showing the coordinates or uncertainty is problematic for the reasons mentioned above. This is starting to look more like feature request territory now.
@astra_the_dragon If the above is true, any test I do be identical to the problem of making an observation and saving too quickly. I assume this is a well-known problem, but perhaps people aren’t aware of it. For this, I have hundreds of annoying examples, though I’d have to find them.