Suggestions for the iNat Next

Hello,
I have been using the android iNat next almost exclusively for my 2024 activities, and as I thought I might contribute (not totally useless) ideas :laughing:, I contacted Kueda, who suggested I post them here, so: here I am !

These are of course simply what the title suggest, and very humble at that, so feel free to comment and disagree, as I understand that these only reflect my uses and needs.

Font size
I think that leaving only the taxon name on the miniature when in miniature list mode was a very good idea, (for more data, there is the detailed list view), but I would even go one step further as I find the text too big (it often takes two lines and that’s making viewing the miniature less easy). Too bad it’s not the same when viewing obs made by others…
Font size was much smaller in the classic app, leaving more space for the picture itself.
I understand that other users might disagree, depending on screen size and vision, so I would suggest having a font size parameter in settings, so that everyone could adjust text size to their preference. Or even the ability to choose which information to display…

Navigation
In the classic app, it was possible to swipe left/right to display the previous/next record. I would love to get this ability back, not only for observations but also for every detail page that depends on a filtered list: observations, species and even observers and identifiers. That would do for a much easier navigation.

The green check mark indicating that a species is already in the user’s publications is a very welcome addition. I would go one step further: on the species page, clicking the compass rose icon goes to observations for this species. Why not make the green check mark a link that opens the user’s own observations for this species ?

Filtering
I would love to have a toggle on the filter page that would keep the current filter “forever”, and of course a “clear filter” to cancel this (but that already exists with the “reset” option).
That would help a lot when working on a group of species day after day and not have to re enter filter parameters each time.
Same thing with the filtering settings for dates, not having to re set the observation months for example, or not having to say that I’m more interested by the date of observation than the date of upload, each time.

As for the “location” filter, I would suggest replacing the “nearby” option by several radiuses (1km 10km 50km 100km and worldwide maybe ?), as I feel that would be more useful on a daily basis (how far away is nearby anyway ?)

Live AI Camera
I find it AWESOME, and the fact that it works even when offline surprised me very much: kudos to the devs for that.
My suggestion (if at all possible) would be to add a toggle for taking into account (or not) the location while using the camera, in order to make it possible to identify pictures that were made elsewhere (for example helping a friend by identifying an image on his screen, or a paper photograph in a magazine, or even collection specimen, etc…)

Missing
The seasonality graph on the species page is very useful in my opinion, and it’s currently missing but that’s probably temporary.

I would love to see the possibility to add GBIF observations on the maps, as it possible to do on the website.

I think that’s it for now, but I can’t wait to see where this app will go next.
Thierry

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