I have been using my Google Pixel 3 for far longer than Google is happy with, because nothing else they make fits in my hand. However, at some point, it is going to no longer function, and I’m going to have to suck it up and deal with a phone that I have to use two hands to unlock.
That is the background to my question: What currently available phones still work well for taking photos and recording audio for iNaturalist? This is my working risk of requirements:
Takes good close-up photos.
Has a good microphone for recording nature sounds.
Either does NOT automatically mangle photos with generative AI, or else can reliably turn that feature OFF. (I made this the title of my thread because it’s the main one.)
This post is partly inspired by this thread, where both the Pixel 10 and recent Samsung Galaxy phones are mentioned as being…problematic with regards to #3.
Important to point out that this isn’t just a hardware question. The most objectionable AI features often sit at a sufficiently high level in the software stack that they can be worked around. While most people just use the built-in camera app it is possible to install and use alternative camera apps, many with much better control over processing. While I wouldn’t recommend the pixel 10 in general, it can be used with an alternative camera app to avoid the problem.
Don’t get the Galaxy. I’ve done everything I can to stop it messing with my photos and it’s impossible. I don’t even know why - the photos I took last year look A LOT better than the ones I take this year with AI’s “help”! I’m thinking of the Fairphone now…
I have a Motorola G-Power, and it does not use AI at all on the photos, unless you specifically go into the photos app and edit it and choose AI editing.
I use Merlin to record audio on my Motorola G-Power, but it does have another built-in app that records audio if you prefer a more generic audio recording method.
It started automatically with a system update, and I didn’t realise for ages. Mostly it’s fine, I think it is more if you are taking a long-distance photo and then you zoom in, and AI helpfully fills in the extra pixels for you to make it look like a bird or whatever.
I don’t remember now what I did to check and then disable the AI assistance, but to be honest, it doesn’t seem to have made any difference anyway. I have a point-and-shoot instead now for iNat stuff.
Yes, the newer ones appear to apply generative AI by default, especially for lower quality pics (I’ve seen this pattern on iNat observations myself with lizards with patterns that don’t appear in nature from Galaxy phones). I googled a bit and it seems like there are settings you can turn off, but users also report that the settings sometimes revert or don’t seem to work (ie, they still get weird picture processing). Ymmv.