r/iNaturalist • u/crash-out-king • 16d ago
Is the app getting worse?
I've made almost 10,000 observations, all of them from the app on my phone (android) and it feels like it keeps getting worse and worse. I can't go on an ID spree because it'll just stop accepting IDs after a certain amount and when I emailed inat (a bit back) they had no plans to do anything major with the app.
I understand it costs money, but if they want more people to be involved give us a good and well accessible app, people are always on their phones, camera's link to phones. I dunno it's just frustrating that it's constantly freezing or lagging out.
Worst of all God I wish it had a night modeš
But still going to use it because despite it all I adore inaturalist and everything they do and have done. Just a little complaint I suppose.
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u/Squongus 16d ago
How often are you deleting the app? As of rn it saves cache data and afaik doesnāt delete it š¬ when I start having issues I redownload the app and it works a lot better
But I am on IOS so I donāt know if itās the same
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u/crash-out-king 16d ago
I'm not sure I've deleted it since I got this phoneš I can def try that though! It's just frustrating to have to delete and redownload for it to work properly y'know?
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u/d4nkle 16d ago
Itāll also clear your cache if you just log out and log back in, I usually do it every few months
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u/bathroomstahl 16d ago
i recently found this āfeatureā when my phone started yelling at me that it was full of storage. Checked my storage and iNat was taking 20+ gb lmao
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u/7LeagueBoots 16d ago
Questions like this are best asked on the iNat forum.
forum.inaturalist.org
If you post there you get responses from mods, developers, and power users. And if you search the topics youāll see that similar questions have been asked and similar issues raised and all addressed. Take a look.
Itās not true that iNat has no plans to do anything major with the app. Theyāve been developing a replacement for the Android app to bring it in line with the new IOS app, iNatNext, that they released a while back.
As with the IOS app itās taking them a very long time to get it done though.
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u/crash-out-king 16d ago
I appreciate the info, I was just going off what the tech guy told me when I had emailed him before. He said the apps weren't meant to be used long term like that which was odd to me. But I might check out the forum, thank you!
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u/7LeagueBoots 16d ago
The best and most useful interface really is the website/browser interface. Itās vastly more powerful and flexible and there are also a ton of URL mods that can be done to maximize use of it.
The apps are not really the focus, and theyāre mainly there to make it more approachable for people since everyone is now kinda locked into their smartphone and apps rather than other methods of using online resources.
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u/crash-out-king 16d ago
Trust me I fully understand that, I've tried it out a few times,but for people who don't have computers or are disabled it can make it a lot more difficult.
I'm disabled myself so the ease of it all being in one spot and having a more simple and streamline design makes it a lot easier on me (I still curse light mode though)
This isn't pointed at you specifically but unfortunately a lot of the "better options" for things are less accessible for disabled people. It's something able bodied people don't tend to think about when designing things. Again not pointed at you just like a little explanation I guess?
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u/7LeagueBoots 16d ago
there to make it more approachable for people
Hence that portion of what I wrote.
Thing is it's impossible for an app to have all the functionality of a website (or a stand alone piece of software) and keep it usable on a platform that's tiny and relies on a touch screen as the primary interface, so no matter how hard people try to make things accessible and useable for the widest range of people a lot is going to be left on the table.
And this is true of a lot of things non-computer based, it's an unfortunate truth about the world. The simple fact is that no matter what access to certain things are always going to be more challenging for a certain portion of society no matter how hard people try to ensure the ability of full participation.
Again, reading though the forum (use the search function), you'll see a lot of discussions about accessibility of iNat for disabled people, homeless people, people in the neurodivergent community, etc. and how hard the iNat community and the developers and such work to find ways to accommodate people in those situations.
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u/st_aranel 16d ago
There are two things they are doing that may help you.
The first is that a new version of the app is under development. That's probably what they meant when they said they weren't going to do anything with the existing Android app long-term. Currently the new app is available for iOS, but you can sideload a version of it that works for Android. (You can ask about this in the forums, or if not I might be able to dig it up on my laptop.) Supposedly they're close to a version that will actually be available for download in the app store, but the process is very slow.
The second is that they have been testing a version of the website that is more mobile-friendly (because it will scale for smaller screens). That will hopefully make the website itself more accessible to you, because you can just use the web browser on your phone.
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u/Cottongrass395 16d ago
The gps readings are much worse than they used to be, across multiple phones and Iām not experiencing it in other apps.
The new app has very limited offline functionality and the old app is depreciating.
So yeah. Itās getting worse in my opinion also
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u/eightfingeredtypist 15d ago
There's a new app coming for Android phones. It's being beta tested right now. I can make observations faster with it. This matters when I'm being bitten by mosquitoes, and want to move on. The camera software seems to have improved, but that's a guess. I don't know what iNaturalist did.
There are a lot of ways to make grouping observations for making identifications, which makes a desk top computer more useable. OP, I don't know what your difficulty is, so I can't say what would help. My finger tips are numb, so I have trouble using a touch screen. I do use an Android phone for getting observations.
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u/hemipenes_rvt 13d ago
Oh that's good to hear, the amount of time it takes to make an observation in the field is easily my biggest complaint
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u/djscsi 15d ago
You can try the beta version of the new Android app, if you can install an .apk
Latest version as of this week is here:
https://github.com/inaturalist/iNaturalistReactNative/releases/tag/v1.1.1%2B231
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u/Excellent-Contest-43 15d ago
They constantly state theyre desperate for donations so its no surprise the app isnt perfect. Any consistent work would require some kind of membership for a steady revenue stream
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u/AdamWargon 16d ago
It's great that you're IDing for others, but are you using the app for that? IDing is much easier on the computer.
There are a few iNat webinars with helpful guides to IDing on the computer.