Questions about iNat app i.d. & image choices

Hi!

I’m preparing to lead a workshop on using the iNat app (with Android & iPhone users attending), and I have two questions:

  1. Is there a difference in behavior/features/storage between using the “Take photo” and “Choose image” choices on the app (i.e. is there an advantage to using one over the other)?

  2. Does the iNat i.d. software scan multiple photos in an observation to suggest identifications, or does it scan only the one that’s uploaded first (i.e. for multiple-photo observations, is there a strategy for choosing which photo to upload first)?

Thanks for any insight you might offer!

Carol

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When you take photo through the app you can set the gps point more precisely (if it’s working ok for you at the moment) than the mobile phone does it automatically. If you don’t have internet connection it’s better to make photos not with the app as there’s less chance to loose them by an accident with app.
Someone else can tell you about the second, but from how I feel it, it scans the first image or one you click on (open) to give suggestion.

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Thank you, @fffffffff! That clarifies things.

Unless something has changed, only the first image in any observation can ever be scanned by the Computer Vision, even if you click on another image.

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It scans the default photo of the observation, which you can change.

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Thank you @Megachile & @tiwane! I’ll let folks know about this.

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At least in my case, in the iOS app, using “Choose image” fails to record an accuracy value for the observation, even when accuracy is recorded in the image metadata. It would be worth doing a test to see if this is a more general problem, as no-one has been able to confirm either way in response to my bug report.

To ensure precise locations when not using the app, it can be helpful to open another app (such as a mapping or GPS app) to check the the position is updating before taking a photo.

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i’ve never experienced this. I personally always use the app so i can add notes and such to the observation (ie what i was photographing)… though perhaps others prefer otherwise.

Also, don’t forget you can turn off ‘auto sync’ in the options - most people will want to unless they are very casual app users.

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If you have your location permissions for photos turned off (as I do), if you use “choose photo” you need to manually enter the location, but taking the photo via the app will include the location information.

That’s about the only difference (other than image editing potential) I’ve found.

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Most smartphones now allow you to do simple editing of images, like rotate and crop. Many iNat images could benefit from this kind of editing, but I don’t think you can do it in the app. So an advantage of “choose image” is you can check the image quality and edit if before importing it to iNat.

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I tried that but didn’t like it at all, hard to get back after each observation to click on them to sync. I also didn’t encounter that, but it can happen.

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i always sync when i am somewhere with wifi, otherwise i use too much data and the uploads slow me down. Whatever works for you, of course…

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Not to derail this conversation too much, but if I understand correctly, you were syncing each observation individually. You don’t need to do that - you can just sync all unsynced observations at once by pressing the green button at the top of Observations.

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I know but it lags for me and uploads them separately (name and other data) if I clicked on sync for multiple. Probably not the feature for my internet connection.

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I recently requested basic photo editing (crop and rotate) as a feature and the word is that it’s available on the Android app, but the iPhone app is very different and it’s difficult to implement it on that platform as it essentially requires rebuilding the app from the ground up.

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I use the Android app and I can’t see any crop or edit options.

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A post was split to a new topic: How to turn location permissions on/off for iNat app (iOS)

Image editing functionaliy is still in beta for the Android app, it hasn’t been pushed to wide release.

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Thank you, @janetwright! That’s a good point.

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