You have a snow leopard in your app screenshots. The Chinese woman just made the latest news cycles about being mauled by attempting to get a selfie with one. I hope those who use your app will ensure they are taking photos from a very safe distance.
Someone asked for the model you use but I am also curious how you handle ambiguous IDs. Not everything is clear cut especially when it comes to fungi and bugs.
Inaturalist uses second opinions what's your solution?
Edit: cool idea for the app btw, I always call inaturalist my Pokémon deck already so I think it's a nice new angle :)
iNaturalist kind of did this already right? So it's like that with more fun dopamine hits and gamification? If it gets kids outside I think that is good.
Just as an example, we are currently at lady bird lake in Austin, tx and saw a turtle on the bank. It turned out to be a red eared slider turtle. The app informed us that they can breathe through their bottoms! Who knew!
i thought this was more common than it is, but it's also not rare. Claude:
Around a dozen turtle species globally can breathe through their cloacas (rear openings), with roughly half living in Australian rivers. The main species that have truly mastered this ability include the Fitzroy River turtle, Mary River turtle, and white-throated snapping turtle. Additionally, some freshwater turtles like Blanding's turtle use a more limited form of cloacal respiration during hibernation when trapped under ice for extended periods.
The Fitzroy River turtle is particularly impressive, obtaining up to 70% of its oxygen needs through cloacal respiration and staying submerged for up to 21 days. The white-throated snapping turtle can get nearly 70% of its oxygen this way as well. These turtles have specialized structures called cloacal bursae—sac-like organs with densely packed papillae (small blood vessel-rich structures)—that allow oxygen from water to diffuse directly into their bloodstream.
1) agreed by the look of everyone’s comments we need to rephrase some things in the onboarding, apple review made us change it to be explicit as possible.
2) yes this is a great idea!! ‘You’re the first in the world to discover this’!! Thank you for that!!
We thought about this and specifically decided not to award xp based on an animals danger rating.
Even though we warn users in the onboarding to take care in the wild, TikTok and similar platforms have shown people acting foolishly is not something you can fully control
Do you put up anything when ID'ing a dangerous situation like "RUUUUUN!!!" or similar? Maybe a more serious idea would be to give some sort of visual indication of danger vs loading some text to read that says it's dangerous.
From the screenshots to the text feels AI slop. Haven't tried it but the store page doesn't give a good vibe and there are quite a few like this out there to make a quick buck.
At the same time, learning doesn't have to be boring. Most people don't care about the family/class/genus lineage. They just want to know a) what it is, b) some other interesting facts. Sure, have a link to the drudgery, but having something fun/interesting that gets/keeps people excited about going outside and enjoying nature is not a bad idea. Just because gamifying has been used for bad by others doesn't mean it's bad for everything. Nose, despite face; baby/bathwater types of things come to mind here.
Respectfully disagree here, the more people you could get outside appreciating and learning about nature, the better it can be preserved for future generations. Whether it’s gamified or not.
> the more people you could get outside appreciating and learning about nature, the better it can be preserved for future generations.
I don't know about that. We are with so many people now and there is so little nature left. The Pokemon 'Go' craze showed what happens when you set gamification and outdoors on the same track. It just doesn't scale in the same way that virtual things do.
You have a snow leopard in your app screenshots. The Chinese woman just made the latest news cycles about being mauled by attempting to get a selfie with one. I hope those who use your app will ensure they are taking photos from a very safe distance.
(semi serious) are there any ways to distinguish photos from being taken up close with no barrier vs behind plexiglass in a zoo?
The second photo is a tiger lunging at the camera ready to kill the user.
Someone asked for the model you use but I am also curious how you handle ambiguous IDs. Not everything is clear cut especially when it comes to fungi and bugs.
Inaturalist uses second opinions what's your solution?
Edit: cool idea for the app btw, I always call inaturalist my Pokémon deck already so I think it's a nice new angle :)
Why not Seek, the gamified version of iNaturalist?
It appears the Wildex user in your 2nd screenshot is about to get mauled to death.
Wait, so you're saying going up to catch a mountain lion for my collection when I'm out on a hike is a bad idea...
iNaturalist kind of did this already right? So it's like that with more fun dopamine hits and gamification? If it gets kids outside I think that is good.
Hopefully it will not result in too many animals being harassed all day long.
Just as an example, we are currently at lady bird lake in Austin, tx and saw a turtle on the bank. It turned out to be a red eared slider turtle. The app informed us that they can breathe through their bottoms! Who knew!
i thought this was more common than it is, but it's also not rare. Claude:
Around a dozen turtle species globally can breathe through their cloacas (rear openings), with roughly half living in Australian rivers. The main species that have truly mastered this ability include the Fitzroy River turtle, Mary River turtle, and white-throated snapping turtle. Additionally, some freshwater turtles like Blanding's turtle use a more limited form of cloacal respiration during hibernation when trapped under ice for extended periods. The Fitzroy River turtle is particularly impressive, obtaining up to 70% of its oxygen needs through cloacal respiration and staying submerged for up to 21 days. The white-throated snapping turtle can get nearly 70% of its oxygen this way as well. These turtles have specialized structures called cloacal bursae—sac-like organs with densely packed papillae (small blood vessel-rich structures)—that allow oxygen from water to diffuse directly into their bloodstream.
1) I love the idea, but there's not a lot of confidence building, "I'm not going to harvest and sell your data" vibe here.
2) I should get extra points if I discover a new species
1) agreed by the look of everyone’s comments we need to rephrase some things in the onboarding, apple review made us change it to be explicit as possible. 2) yes this is a great idea!! ‘You’re the first in the world to discover this’!! Thank you for that!!
No go with all the tracking.
As people are requesting we will make a paid version pronto with no ads.
As per apple guidelines you can request us not to track and the app of course respects that.
The location data is used only for helping us narrow down the collection species!
Thinking back to 2016 when Pogo launched there were news stories about trespassing, people getting hurt etc for virtual creatures...
I could easily see someone be foolish enough to go up to predators
We thought about this and specifically decided not to award xp based on an animals danger rating.
Even though we warn users in the onboarding to take care in the wild, TikTok and similar platforms have shown people acting foolishly is not something you can fully control
Do you put up anything when ID'ing a dangerous situation like "RUUUUUN!!!" or similar? Maybe a more serious idea would be to give some sort of visual indication of danger vs loading some text to read that says it's dangerous.
Yeah the first thing that comes up is a full page splash screen saying ‘DANGEROUS SPECIES Be careful’
So hopefully people will get the memo immediately!
From the screenshots to the text feels AI slop. Haven't tried it but the store page doesn't give a good vibe and there are quite a few like this out there to make a quick buck.
How does it identify the animals/plants? Is there a specialized model for that?
DREAMPRESS.LTD > https://www.dreampress.ai/
It's all porn. Sigh, I hate this world. I really do feel like 2020 was the timeline alternating enigma event and we can never go back
Can we get a paid version with no linking? Your 3rd party ad / tracking isn’t compatible with my desires.
Otherwise looks fun!
Definitely soon, we just wanted to build a version that everyone can use regardless of income.
Unfortunately inference costs means we needed something (ads) to keep the servers online.
Out of curiosity what would you say is a fair price for this?
I would not pay monthly but I would pay lifetime like 10 or 20 bucks.
Seek is free and good so if I’m paying for the fun aspect I would probably cap out around $20
Edit: might even be able to pull off like $10/yr but I’m increasingly tired of those as well
Nice thank you so much!
Why not iNaturalist?
iNaturalist is great for identification and information, but it lacked the fun and soul we were looking for.
It doesn’t feel like you’re playing when you use it, it feels like you’re in biology class (no hate to them).
Wildex gives you cute fun facts and lets you build up points for rare species finds. It feels like a completely different experience.
iNaturalist specifically has a gamified Seek app for new users which is more approachable and has more 'fun' elements than the main iNaturalist app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/seek-by-inaturalist/id13532241...
> It doesn’t feel like you’re playing when you use it
That's a feature, not a bug. Gamifying nature is a bad idea. It's tourism, but with the worst kind of tourists.
At the same time, learning doesn't have to be boring. Most people don't care about the family/class/genus lineage. They just want to know a) what it is, b) some other interesting facts. Sure, have a link to the drudgery, but having something fun/interesting that gets/keeps people excited about going outside and enjoying nature is not a bad idea. Just because gamifying has been used for bad by others doesn't mean it's bad for everything. Nose, despite face; baby/bathwater types of things come to mind here.
Fully agree here.
Respectfully disagree here, the more people you could get outside appreciating and learning about nature, the better it can be preserved for future generations. Whether it’s gamified or not.
> the more people you could get outside appreciating and learning about nature, the better it can be preserved for future generations.
I don't know about that. We are with so many people now and there is so little nature left. The Pokemon 'Go' craze showed what happens when you set gamification and outdoors on the same track. It just doesn't scale in the same way that virtual things do.