Name: Seek by iNaturalist
Rating: 4.78369 (30019 reviews)

User Reviews for Seek by iNaturalist

4.78 out of 5

30K Ratings

5 years ago, Kaiaim

Utterly addictive but much in need of improvement

I simply can’t stop doing this. That said there are a lot of issues. The other reviews have pointed many of these out so I’m gonna focus on the one that bothers me the most and that should be the easiest to fix, the photo management. It should be possible to import a picture into the app so you don’t have to keep interacting with your camera roll. I often have to take five or six pictures of a single thing to get a recognition, and of course often I don’t get any at all. As a result my photo roll is extremely cluttered. However it’s hard to delete the ones that are not usable because you have to toggle back-and-forth between this app and the photo roll and try to recall which of five or six very similar pictures you can delete. The net result is I usually end up deleting one that was recognizable. It would also be nice if you could look from the app into a folder or album on the photo roll so as to keep these pictures separate from your regular photo stream. It would also be great if you could replace the first picture you took of something with a later better picture. I look forward to future integrations

11 months ago, PicFlkr

Really love the app but I have issues sometimes

Sometimes the app auto scans things while I'm trying to scan something else and by the time I get whatever pop-up out of the way (same observation or challenge complete, etc) the thing I was actually trying to scan goes away into the wild :( other times I try to scan something 1ft from me, getting multiple angles and still no scan, it just stays on the second to last bubble never able to get the final result. I know what the species is too because I see it on the home page at the location I'm at. It would be nice to just go "okay you can't scan this, I'll just upload the picture I got and set it to this species" or at least have a way to let you pick it if it looks similar to one you're labeling it as. The species I've had that issue with is the Great-Tailed Grackle. I've been scanning different ones for 4 days now and still haven't been able to get Seek to get it but have the most clear picture of one. Sometimes the animals are super well camouflaged too and Seek just can't see them at all. It's frustrating sometimes but overall the app has been working fine and has had no problems. Plants work more compared to animals it seems. Can't really get bugs like ticks and mosquitos, but I guess I can blame my camera for that one. iPhone 12. This review would be 5 stars if it wasn't for those small issues I have. All in all amazing app and I use it all the time now.

6 years ago, Person that didn't do this

Ok, but needs improvement

This app is pretty good, but it does need a lot of work. I downloaded Seek after iNaturalist, because I wanted an app that immediately identifies the species for you instead of having to wait for others on the app to do it. I really like the concept, but it does have some bugs that need fixing. First, the database that identifies species needs to be cleaned up. The picture has to be very clear for it to be identified, otherwise it won’t work. Once when I took a picture of a moth in bad lighting, it identified it as a species I knew it very clearly wasn’t, and there was no way for me to change it. Also the camera in the app won’t let you zoom in, so I have to take a picture with my phone’s camera and then input the picture in the app. Lastly, I wish the app tracked specifically how many of each kind of organism you find (reptiles, mammals, etc). It will reward you when you reach a milestone of 5, 15, etc. finds, but it doesn’t tell you anywhere how many of each you have. It has the overall total of organisms, but it doesn’t list something like, “you have 11 mammals, only 4 more to go till your next achievement!” But despite all the bugs, it is a pretty cool app in theory. I like how it awards badges for certain numbers of organisms found, that’s a fun idea. I do get annoyed when it won’t accurately identify species sometimes, but I’ll keep using it and hopefully it will improve.

3 years ago, Fluxions!

Best, best, best gift.

This app is the best gift I got in many years. I have learned the names of all that’s around me, and there is so much more richness than I ever realized. I also love being able to read more about each plant or animal, and teach my daughter and grandsons all that we get to see, in backyards, on city streets, parks, woods. This app tells me, so quickly, and with great accuracy. It does it scientifically, so I also know the order, family, genus. And the pictures are recorded so I don’t lose the learning. I am using this to make a collection with my grandsons. To make games, etc. It makes outdoor time even more fun, and we see and notice the richness and plethora of what we have, even on a city street. I used to have to take guidebooks and slow down to look up each one. In just five minutes in a less used part of my backyard I’ve identified 8 plants I wasn’t quite sure of, or learned new. Get this app! Teach your children. Their eyes and love for their rich world will never be the same. It’s like being in a room where you know no one, or being in a room where you know every face and name.

1 year ago, Momster99

Addictive, but…

I have taken obvious pictures that won’t connect and many that connect to the wrong species. For instance, I took a picture of an obvious bumblebee from nearly every angle with no luck and an Asian lady beetle pupa was connected to a zigzag ladybird. Bugs aside, I did recognize a few errors with plants. It would be better to have a “this is wrong, let me suggest a correction” option. Also, it is so difficult to focus the camera. It connects a blurry image, but refuses to connect the image when I spend far too much time trying to focus. I end up leaving the app to use the native iPhone app. All that said, I do realize how new this type of matching technology is so I can only deduct one star and continue taking pictures of everything nature brings me. One more thing, it would be nice to have poisonous stuff highlighted. Very cool app. *edit—it should tag photos with what Seek identified them as and have the ability to cycle through photos based on identification. I’m trying to snap pictures at different stages, so I know what is what when it is time to cleanup the yard. It would also be nice to have the pictures document which plants most attract beneficial insects.

3 years ago, M. Lucero

Had to start over when I got a new phone

This is an amazing app, but I have two major complaints, both of them similar. There is no way for users to back up their data, so when I got a new phone I lost all the hundreds of observations I’d made and many badges and achievements. They really need to add the ability to back up your account progress in iCloud or something like that. The second complaint is that when you make an observation but the app can’t identify it, and then upload the photo to iNaturalist where it is later identified positively, you don’t get credit for that in either your observations or your challenges/achievements. Adding a sync ability between your Seek account and your iNat account would be a huge incentive to upload observations and it could also potentially solve the first problem I mentioned as well and eliminate the need for an iCloud save option. Again, I love this app, but making these changes would drastically improve the user’s experience and motivate people to continue using the app after upgrading to a new phone when many might give up on it upon learning they have to start from zero again.

2 years ago, GunSlingerNow

Excellent app

Appstore won’t let me format an easy to read review, but I have tried my best. ***PROS***: 1.) Free, no Ads (donations likely main source of revenue) 2.) Identify Plants/Animals 3.) Participate in community events 4.) Catalog/record observations to app 5.) App contributes to human desire to understand and observe nature ***POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENTS***: 1.) Allow direct download of observations from app 2.) Display “safety pop-up” upon opening the app, not when accessing camera (allows for faster capture of observations) 3.) Add option to toggle phone flashlight while using camera 4.) Allow additional features that are only available to registered users to non-users. Mining personal data should not be required for some of the features that are withheld from non-registered users. ***Additional improvement***: (no clue how viable this is): Optional download of data relating to local wildlife (user location would be required) to the users device. Allowing for the device’s hardware to mitigate the need for a strong internet connection.

3 years ago, Annnnuuu

Fun app, not always accurate

I love this app. Most of the time it seems to work well, identifying insects, plants, frogs, humans, and anything else I think to point my phone at. However, sometimes the IDs are simply inaccurate. For example, it identified a dragonfly in my yard as a type of Indian dragonfly. Looking at the other sitings, mine was the only one in the Western Hemisphere. I think its performance might improve if it took region into account a little more. Also, birding apps I use let you give feedback on its IDs—“This is my bird!” Or “This is not my bird.” I’d like to be able to give feedback, and it might help the program improve. Also, if I tell it that it’s not a wasp spider then it might be able to try again and correctly identify it as a yellow garden spider, but instead it keeps insisting on the same inaccurate identification. I’d also like improvement or at least some clearer instructions on how to ID trees. If I’m in the woods it’s hard to get a top to bottom view of a tree so I try to get both leaves and bark in a shot, but most of the time it doesn’t work. What could I be doing to ID trees more easily?

2 years ago, boldstandard

One of my favorite apps.

Last time I got a new phone, the data didn’t transfer from my old phone to the new one, and I lost all of the observations I’d recorded in Seek, and gave it a bad review. I kept that phone for a few years, but just recently got a new one. I was very relieved when my seek data transferred seamlessly this time. I’m not sure if it’s because they fixed in in the app, or if apple has improved the way data is transferred when you get a new phone (because it seems other apps that had problems before did a better job transitioning as well). But either way I’m happy to have all my old observations, and they’ve also made some other great improvements such as the camera automatically snapping a pic when it gets to species— so many times after anguishing to get just the right angle, I would get species only to loose it just from the slight nudge of pressing the camera button to take a picture. So that’s no longer a problem. Good job guys!

3 years ago, Skarm14

One of my favorite apps on my phone!

Seek is a great app, I love going outside and scanning plants and insects, it’s incredible how diverse my surroundings are! Especially on a college campus like mine where it’s nice to have something to do while walking between class buildings. I’ve introduced my family to the app and they all love it, too! I’m always on the lookout for new things to find, and as a result I’m appreciating nature a lot more than I used to! One thing I would like to suggest is a change to how the observations are sorted. Right now species are sorted by the date you found them, which is good, but once you find enough species it starts getting difficult to look back on specific entries. Maybe there could be an option to sort the species in each category by genus (As in, within each category the entries are alphabetically ordered according to the genus in their scientific name)? It doesn’t have to be a complete change, but maybe just an option people can toggle on and off. Other than that one thing, though, this app is near perfect for nature lovers like me!

2 years ago, Petrickj

Needs this feature!

This is a great app. My whole family loves it! I cannot say how mush fun we all have seeking for new species, identifying things we see along the way, etc. I understand that the identification is not perfect (trouble identifying, mis-identifying) but I expect it to improve, and compared to my brain’s knowledge and skill, this is amazing! I want to ask for one feature to help with one of the most annoying parts of this app. Nothing is more frustrating when trying to identify species is when another species is also in the picture. For example, I’m trying to get that bird or insect, and the app only sees that plant instead. I think some sort of “lock” by tapping on the identification level would really help. Then the app knows that yes, I’m looking for that class insecta and not that dicot, and it won’t backtrack. (This could be done at any identification level and help with identification backtracking in general.)

3 years ago, dreamwords

Excellent for identifying; poor on facts (Wikipedia)

I used this app to identify over 100 plants on some vacant land that we were purchasing. I wanted to know what was native and what was introduced and Seek very rarely failed to give results. It only had trouble with tall trees, as it cannot identify well with only bark or only a piece that has fallen on the ground. Understandable. - one star because I do not like that Wikipedia is given as the source of “facts” on a plant. As every college professor knows, Wikipedia is hardly an accurate source. For example, today I identified American Grass Mantis in Alabama. Wikipedia says “found in Georgia and Florida.” Yet you can see on the Seek app that many Alabaman and Mississippians are identifying it in our locations as well. Because Wikipedia is not good at facts, I copy the scientific name of a plant or insect and run it through a reputable botany or entomology site. But other than that, Seek is a wonderful app and I recommend it often to others. I’ve even posted about it on my homeschooling site - it’s excellent for studying plants.

2 years ago, lmkeny

Very cool with a few issues

I love this app and have recommended it to a lot of friends. It honestly feels like walking around with a real-life Pokédex. When it works, it’s a super fast, easy way to get to know the species around me that I’m curious about but almost never remember to/take the time to look up after I’ve walked past them. That said, it has some issues and could be better. Like others have said, there’s no way to correct when it mislabels an observation, which is annoying because it means you’re stuck with misidentified observations. There’s also no way (that I’ve found) to upload an old observation to iNaturalist for community verification — if you don’t do it when you first get the observation, you’re out of luck. It’s also not great at IDing bugs, especially small ones. If your camera can’t take macro shots, the image quality just isn’t enough to get down to species. I definitely don’t hold it’s inability to identify a blurry beetle against it, but it’s something to note.

1 year ago, Grungygirl

This used to be more useful to me

I actually love this app and have been using it for many years, I find it more user friendly than inaturalist, bc I don’t necessarily want to share all my observations or my location. Plus, Seek is just more fun. What I’ve found in the past 6 months or so are 3 problems. 1. The app doesn’t arrive at identifications as much as it used to. It gets to one step away, regardless of the angle of the photo, making it extremely frustrating to use. This is especially so for tiny insects. 2. I used to be able to get identification from pictures I took with my native camera, and it seems that they are never identified anymore. This actually used to be my back up method when Seek wouldn’t ID something. Now it doesn’t seem to work at all anymore. 3. There’s no way to disagree with a misidentification. There are things I know are not correctly identified, but no way to correct it. If I wrote this a year ago, I would have given it more stars, but I’m frustrated. That said, I still use it almost daily.

1 year ago, rhehehehehehrh

Amazing

I just started using seek. I saw it on Social Media so I wanted to give it a shot. I was happy to see the good reviews and reputation this app was getting. I downloaded it and the first thing I did was test the camera out for its accuracy. I pointed the camera at a red pillow. It’s a winged insect it says! I was very satisfied with the answers I’ve been getting. Bamboo is now identified as an orchid, a laptop is now a human, and my carpet identifies as an Asian small clawed otter! Elephants also now live in Antarctica. I can now see how much work and effort the iNatural team has put into this app and I admire their work. The app runs smoothly as I only run into bugs every other second, the species identification is very accurate, and there are a lot of fun activities to do in the challenge and achievements tab such as take a picture of yourself, a human 15 times to achieve the observer badge. Definitely recommend.

12 months ago, languageandexpression

Amazing but a Couple Suggestions

UPDATE: With one of the latest app updates, all my challenges that I’ve already completed have been reset to 0%!! 😢 This app is amazing, but I have a couple suggestions to make it even better. • Add a search feature under My Observations. After observing many different species, sometimes I want to go back and look at one but have to scroll through dozens of observations just to find it. • Reduce the time spent on the intro splash screen that appears when you open the app as well as the screen that comes up when you open the camera feature. When my phone is low on battery or storage and I just need to go straight to the camera ID feature to ID something quickly, it can take a long time to wait for the opening splash screen to disappear, the app to load and be ready to use, and then the camera warning to go away before I can use the app for what I need it for quickly.

1 year ago, Sasquatch_Squash

Amazing, revolutionary app!

I have been a proud user of the iNaturalist app for a few years now. I primarily used it for plant and animal identification, although I did log some of my finds on the map. This app though, is exactly what I am looking for and what I know I want (and need!) First of all, one of my favorite features is that you can see right off the bat the common plant and animal species found in your area. The fact you can sort by species and then click on specific ones you want to learn more about makes it so much better. I love how each page for a certain species of plant or animal is detailed and jam packed with information, such as a line graph of its most common appearances throughout the year. It’s also cool to me that this data comes directly from iNaturalist logs. I hope to use this amazing app more in the future!

2 years ago, greenpeaches247

Racial Bias

Until recently, I’ve enjoyed using this app and thought it was fun to identify different plants. However, I can’t rate an app more than 1 star when it can’t reliably identify the human species with darker skin tones. I’m referring to an unfortunate event that occurred with my 11 year old daughter and two of her friends. They were outside using this app to identify various plants and they decided to scan my daughter to see what would happen. It identified her as a human. Cool! Next, they scanned another girl and she was also identified as a human. Yay! Then they scanned another girl who happens to have a darker skin tone and it couldn’t identify her. What?!? She removed her glasses and still nothing. All three girls stood in the exact same spot with identical backgrounds. Let me be clear so that can sink in - two white girls were identified as humans and one black girl was not. I would like this app to improve its technology to properly scan and identify ALL humans with their varying shades of skin color. Until that happens, the classification of humans should be removed from this app until it can correctly identify ALL humans from ALL races.

5 years ago, ucent247

Bugs

I want to give 5 stars for a great concept but the flaws ruin the app for me. The fact you can’t change the header photo for a sighting is ridiculous considering the app decided to replace all my observations with the exact same photo. It also doesn’t work in anything less than extremely bright, direct light and the ability to identify fungi is abysmal. Out of six very clear, close up photos only one was correctly identified. It also was unable to identify high pixel images of a dragonfly and multiple frogs. It misread green carpet moss as a white mushroom and I have no way to delete the incorrect observation. I’m considering deleting because it’s so frustrating, especially the cloned photos. EDIT: app deleted. It keeps cloning photos and it’s obvious the developers aren’t responding to criticism, haven’t seen any updates release. it’s a pity they are wasting this app’s potential. And for those saying “you must not have a nice enough phone,” I’m using an iPhone X with the most recent software update. I take images in clear, bright light. No reason the performance should be so poor.

11 months ago, 🐺🌊🦋

What I would like to see

I love this app but it’s such a hassle to get it to identify a single plant. Sometimes it will just switch between two things and be stubborn. Other times it will identity a photo that is blurry! Tell me how can it identify a slight blurry/fuzzy photo perfectly but not a clear one. Mine constantly says sorry we’re not able to identify this or Seek is still learning. But other wise it’s a good app. A cool feature you can add is the ability to identify feathers. I usually end up pulling out a book of Birds and looking through to find a bird with similar feathers. sense there’s a lot of states where it illegal to collect feathers I half to take a picture. The pictures take up so much storage, and there’s legit 1 feather identification app that has 1 star ratings. So if you added that feature you get more people get this app and get better ratings(if you identify it correctly).

5 months ago, Patricio6

Great app but one suggestion

This app is amazing and is very fun to use. I have spent hours outside trying to find all of the things the app can identify. I have one suggestion though; the challenges are fun and it’s fun collecting the bad ges and achievements. However, you have to find a new species each time to complete the challenges. I have completed most of the challenges except the new ones because I have seemingly found almost every species in my area. It makes it very hard to complete the new challenges once you have identified so many species. It would be nice if even if it wasn’t a new species it still counted towards your achievements. This is the only issue I have with this app though. It’s definitely not perfect but it is the closest thing to a real life Pokédex.

3 years ago, old_grouse_herder

first app in 10 years to render my phone inoperable

I should have known better than to download something iNaturalist was involved with after using that app, but Seek was highly recommended by my employer. The app is beyond buggy. It obviously struggles w/ location services. I have to click and drag the locator to the correct spot as it thinks I am in CO (not UT). Even w/ 2 bars LTE it was telling me blackbrush was African Buckthorn and Buffaloberry was endemic of New Zealand. If that wasn't bad enough today its turn on location services dialogue box rendered my phone inoperable. I couldn't click out of it, power cycle my phone off, make or receive phone calls (for work), receive texts... Anyway if your in this situation in a remote area your screwed. So drive to town and get on wifi and back up your phone. Once the phone backs up the dialogue box is gone... then promptly delete the app!!! Got to give to the developers of this one for an app that not only doesn't function properly but gives you the added benefit of an inoperable phone. Thats iPhone 8 IOS 14.6!

5 years ago, Benjimatic

Good app, needs a few more housekeeping items

I just downloaded this app in early June and thought it was amazing. It instantly identified some trees that I have been wondering about for a while. However, I have gotten slightly concerned over a few of the identifications. For example I recently scanned an eastern hemlock, but the scanner said it was western(I’m on east coast and it did this for multiple specimens). A fix that wouldn’t be to hard would be a flagging system (which would let the scanner know an organism isn’t getting identified correctly) or the option to go back from “western hemlock” to just the “hemlock” ID. This would allow seek to realize that you haven’t actually identified a specific species. Another useful function would be the ability to post to iNaturalist after viewing the species page without having to rescan the organism. These suggestions may sound “easy”, but coding and implementing them is complicated. Thanks for all the work so far!

5 years ago, Katw0627

It’s improved but still needs work

I’ve had this app for about a year and there has been some improvements in the past year. However, there are still a lot of issues on identifying a lot of species. I seem to have the hardest time with arachnids and fungi. This is especially frustrating when trying to complete the monthly challenges. For example, yesterday I had a perfect, in focus picture of a silk moth (identified through a quick google search) and the app simply wouldn’t recognize it. I’ve had other pics taken on a Nikon d750 which are professional level pics it wouldn’t identity. Another reviewer suggested maybe some questions or possibly something user based to help identify specimens the app otherwise has issues with. Allowing zoom will help as well. Personally I don’t want to get inches away from a fast moving spider to get its information. Overall the app has been mostly enjoyable and I hope it continues to evolve.

5 years ago, Vampierre

Great app ! 🐸

I love this app and use it all the time for identifying organisms. love the challenges too :) my only issues with it right now are 1. i’d prefer if, when you go into the details of an observation, it doesn’t put you back at the top of the list when you go back to all your observations. it’d be a lot easier if it just put you back where you were on the list. 2. would it be possible for the app to take range into account when identifying species ? i’ve run into a situation a couple times where a creature is the only one of it’s genus or family in the area, but the app still can’t identify it. 3. it’d be cool if your observations on iNaturalist could transfer over to Seek !! so that anything the app can’t identify, i can just log myself. Overall it’s a great app, i use it all the time and love it !! 🐸

5 years ago, PhantomPhan

Needs work

Unlike iNaturalist, there is no option to see what the most likely possibilities are and choose one. If it doesn’t correctly identify the organism by itself, you’re just out of luck. It also doesn’t identify still photos very well. I tested it with the camera and it correctly identified a tree when I took the photo. I then used the saved photo that it took and it was unable to identify it even though that was the photo that it took when it previously identified it. And unlike iNaturalist again, you cannot choose other folders when selecting photos. So my only option to identify things in older photos on my phone is to spend a considerable amount of time scrolling as there is no way to scroll quickly in the app because it only loads a few photos at a time. I love the idea of this, but it’s missing some basic functions. I’ll give it another try when it’s less frustrating to use.

4 years ago, MurphMom10

Right 75% of the Time

When I first discovered this app, while we were visiting Oklahoma, I was extremely impressed. However the people that showed me had the newest iPhones with excellent cameras. I have not had as much success, now that it’s on my slightly older iPhone, or bc I’m now in Iowa. But to be honest, it’s now very frustrating and disappointing. Many times it will say it is almost at a species, but after trying for 5 to 10 minutes on a few plants, not kidding, it still has not detected a species!! After that long I gave up on identifying a willow, an African violet and a couple other plants. Other times, it gets to a species, only to be wrong. Probably the most frustrating thing about this, is that once it determines a species, even if it’s incorrect, it saves it to my observations and I have no idea how to delete those. So now I have multiple saved “observations” that are literally wrong. And if I choose to take a picture and try to save an observation before it has reached species, it may briefly tell me the family or genus, which I find helpful, but apparently it does not save this information! So I cannot go back and review this helpful information since it did not reach species status! Overall I enjoy this app, but wish there was a way to delete observations, and a way to save “incomplete” observations, even if it hasn’t reached species.

5 years ago, Timmy1245

Great Update

I’ve been using this app since it was release a year ago. And I’ve been steadily waiting for an update since then. I was so excited to see an update and I immediately downloaded it and started using the app again. Since then I have collected over 400 species and with this new update I was able to collect a few that never went through the old edition. I wanted to make sure that all of my old species make it through to the new app but every time I go to the “My observations” the app freezes and gives me a blank white screen. I thought maybe it needed a minute to download all of the species so I left it on that white screen for hours and nothing changed. Although this doesn’t break the game for me, I would like to see this feature work for me. Thank you for your hard work and I look forward to continuing to use your app to explore the world.

3 years ago, codrinb

Nice app, GPS problematic

I love the app (and iNaturalist of course) and I wish i could give it 5 stars, but I can’t. On the positive side, it has a sleek UI (I wish that iNat main app would borrow some of it) and is easy to use. I like the challenges / achievements. On the negative side, the biggest issue is the location / GPS which is most of the time inaccurate and making the posting to iNat problematic. Also, if you change location, you always need to restart the app. Other problems include identifying some animals and plants as American species when the location is clearly in Europe, where other species are present. Lastly, despite using the best pics possible, it is unable to identify certain common birds (House Sparrow, Eurasian Magpie, Carrion Crow, Buzzard) at species level. On the iNat app or site, the same pics result in species Identification. Will all shortcomings, it is still a great app for nature lovers and the curious.

4 years ago, Aray637

Perfect but for a lack of a few key features

I love this app. Use it everyday, mostly for botany related identification since I usually can’t tell a cactus from a cattail. The app reliably get most things identified to genus (>90% of the time in my experience) and to species more than I thought it could (~70%). The interface is very user friendly so viewing my species identified isn’t a challenge. However, the species identified are auto sorted by kingdom. I’m unable to sort these species by date or location, which is a pain for when I want to review any new IDs from a particular walk or stroll. Also, why is there no option to use my phone’s built in flashlight? This lack of usability is extremely annoying in low light situations (nighttime, shadows). Overall, I enjoy this app and use it daily. With a few tweaks it’ll be the perfect companion for any budding naturalist. 4/5 stars.

2 years ago, JustinB9

Fantastic

This app is a great tool to have if you want to learn more about the environment near you. Though often times inaccurate, it is reliable if you get good lighting and a focused picture. I do think this app should have a feature telling you the danger level of the animal/planr you observed. For instance, if you scan a species of snake it would be useful to know if the species is venomous without having to read through the source article. It could also let you if an animal tends to be feral or not. For plants it could tell you if the berries are safe to eat, the leaves have the oil similar to poison ivy, etc. This would just specifically be for safety reasons so once users recognize the animal they know to stay away. Otherwise fantastic app and I have inspired others to download and scan the environment around them.

4 years ago, dinoman77777

Best app ever

I love this app I play this app every day. I not only learn but I get to play with it. It like Pokémon go but you can see the Pokémon in real life. I suggest getting this app. There only one thing I think they should add. I took a picture of a frozen mammoth and It didn’t go though. So if anyone developer can hear this this is what you should add. I think I should be able to take pictures of fossils and be able to learn about them. Some animals that gone exstinct. And one more thing I think I should be able to take pictures of microscopic organisms. I think that be cool. Imagin taking a picture through a microscope and see what you found that be cool. Or at least let me be able to take a photo of a flea for some reason that doesn’t work. And you don’t have to add this it just a cool thought I had.

6 months ago, Blue_6

Great app but needs a couple extra features

I use it all the time and it has helped me learn a ton about local plants although there are a couple things that I hope the developers will listen to me on. Biggest thing is some kind of warning when you identify a plant or animal that is poisonous/venomous. I think it would be very important for safety reasons seeing as the nature of going out and touching plants can be hazardous and you won’t really know until you properly identify it. It would go a long way Second I think when you successfully identify something, having some kind of box or link to press that would immediately take you to a google search of said plant/animal would also be very convenient. Also some general QOL features and maybe an overhaul of the observations menu since after you get like 100+ you have a lot to scroll through. All in all, great app and definitely a must have for any outdoorsy people, like i said I learned a ton thanks to this app but there is the danger of a mis-identification every now and then. Mushrooms especially are a bit difficult to identify and it goes without saying you can’t really touch them if you don’t know what they are. Hope the devs have plans to improve

1 year ago, nonlinearlinearization

A new hobby discovered!!! Favorite app on my phone

Absolutely love this app. I’ve gotten to learn so much about the natural world all around me everyday and I am noticing new things I never appreciated about common plants and fungi especially. I’ve been taken long (3+ hours) walks and stopping every few block or so just to learn what a flower or weird bug is. It’s not a perfect identification tool of course. Sometimes the ID isn’t exactly right, which is fine by me because it gets close enough I can look it up on my own or post to INaturalist, which is beautifully streamlined without having to leave the app. Every now and then it can be slightly finicky about making an ID (I scanned a mushroom for awhile but never got the exact specifies, but got most of the way there). This app was recommended by a friend of mine and we love sharing our observations and cool finds with each other. I’ve discovered a new hobby that I absolutely love using this app. One thing I would love to see in future versions of the app is some way to link accounts with someone else. For example, I would love a pop-up on my phone if a friend of mine finds a new species.

4 years ago, Dank327

Love this app!

I’ve been using the app for a couple of weeks now and I’ve had lots of fun. I’ve found over 200 organisms and I’m just getting started. I do have some suggestions for the developers. The app is horrible at identifying trees and mushrooms. It hasn’t been able to identify any of the oaks or pines in my neighborhood no matter what angle I use. It also won’t identify a lot of the mushrooms I’ve found. I’m also not sure what the “other” category is for. I wish that there was a way to sort organisms besides the order you found them in. I’ve started a spreadsheet on my own for the 175+ plants I’ve found. Lastly, the species that pop up on the home screen for my area aren’t super accurate. I know for a fact the one of the species lives north of me and I have never found one In my area. I definitely recommend this app for anyone interested in nature.

4 months ago, justinulysses

Can’t wait for this app to get good!

The concept and interface are pretty great. It just doesn’t work that well yet. It’s usually wrong about the species. If you wait until the app says it has identified a species and then take a photo, it can almost never identify the species in the photo because something changed. But if you change the settings to take a photo automatically when the species has been identified, then you almost always get a blurry photo and sometimes it’s not even the thing you were trying to identify. Also, the app seems to assume you’re in North America, and guesses the organism you’re looking at is one that can be found there. Let it try to identify a native plant or animal in Central Europe and it will assume you’re looking at an American relative. It’s also really bad at identifying trees. That’s a tough job because it’s hard to get a clear shot of one tree without other things in the frame. You generally have to zoom in on a twig with leaf and flower to have any hope. With fungi, the best you can get is “yep, that’s some kind of gilled mushroom”. I’m optimistic that, if the developers work hard and keep feeding their model with photos of accurately-identified organisms, it will eventually get better than the average person at identifying living organisms.

5 years ago, Cpprboom

Amazing

When I got this app I was under the impression that I take it out and take a picture then it would identify the organism. But much to my delightful surprise, it was identifying the organisms BEFORE I even took a picture! The scanning feature is AMAZING!!!! We just moved to a new place and have organisms I am not familiar with so this has been so fun and informative to use! This is awesome!!! Everyone should have this in order to being more awe and appreciation to what’s around them! What I love: 1. How it recognizes things quickly and pretty accurately just by holding your camera over it 2. How it gives you details within the app about the organism you identified! That’s wonderful because you can learn right then and there without having to get out of the app and find the info somewhere else which could lead to distraction. 3. IT’S FREE!!! 4. EASY!!! Instead of searching through pages of books for what you might have found, this easily opens the “page” of info for you! Recommend for: - Everyone!! - Gardeners - Homeschoolers - Educators - Homeowners - Animal enthusiasts - Plant enthusiasts - Nature enthusiasts - Camping - Hiking Suggestions for developers: Keep up the great work!

3 years ago, Piji D90

Could be better.

This app would be 5/5 if it could utilize the full iOS camera array possibly some limited features as well. As it stands now it appears to only use one camera, it also has great difficulty focusing on small or near objects, pretty much impossible to get an identification of anything far away without a binocular adapter. I enjoy the challenges, practicing my taxonomy and for more common species it works great. If nothing else you can use it to identify to family and use a key to get to species. iNaturalist is a good companion app and for some reason has better camera functionality. If the camera gets upgraded this would be an amazing app to just wander around and ID everything, think Pokémon Go, but real life, actually learning, contributing to science, and it doesn’t scrape your data and take your money. Gotta ID ‘em all.

1 year ago, Cornflower15

Love the app, hate the delay

It’s great being able to identify new animals, insects, and plants and helps children and adults alike to develop a curiosity about the world around us. The one thing that would make this app better, though, is reducing the lag time between opening the app and being able to scan for identification. When trying to identify animals and insects, in particular, they don’t always hang around long enough to be able to identify them due to this lag time. The app takes time to “load” and then there is a reminder about watching one’s surroundings. Safety is absolutely important, but maybe there could be an option to disable that step/click on an initial “I know to be safe. Don’t show this warning again” option.

3 months ago, -RustyScupper-

Incredible but needs multiple photo capabilities

This app is excellent and does amazing work identifying both plants and animals. Definitely worth using and I will continue to use it. However, as plants and animals change through the seasons, you can only keep one photo of that specific plant/animal. For instance, it can identify both the caterpillar and moth/butterfly of a species, but once the new form is identified (moth/butterfly), the app will ask to keep/replace the old photo (caterpillar). Same goes for trees, flowers, etc. I think to be a stronger naturalism app it would allow multiple shots of the same organism to reside under a log that species within the app so you could track your observations over time.

5 years ago, bobby23 (from iNaturalist)

A good and promising start that needs some tinkering

Seek is a very promising extension of iNaturalist and has a lot of potential as a family-friendly game. The Badge System is pretty cool (interestingly similar to Pokémon GO?), but it’s unclear if there is any long-term “goal” or incentive to getting higher badge rankings other than bragging rights. I think this is ultimately what will hinder long-term use of the app. The interface is great though - much better than the actual iNaturalist app and more aesthetically pleasing. It feels like Seek can serve as an actual learning tool, and I sincerely hope that the core iNaturalist app adopts some of its concepts. In terms of how accurate it is... well, it’s limited and not always 100% accurate (it recognized my Goat observation as a Dog) but it’s also as complex as it needs to be. My biggest grievance is that when a genus lacks a Common Name, it doesn’t show up in a species’ taxonomy. It‘s a little jarring.

2 years ago, flunkendorf

Best app I’ve ever downloaded

This is just perfect, all I could ever ask for, I’ve always loved animals and plants and all things nature and have wanted to make it a hobby of mine to go outside more and see all the things around me, been playing a lot of Pokémon go and this app is like that but real life. So cool, I don’t have anything bad to say about this except maybe how it goes through battery pretty fast (ik there’s is like bearly anything you can do about that) but also it does that tend to crash and close itself out a little bit, not enough to be annoying to me idk if I’m the only one that hat happens to of if it maybe my service, but anyway, I’m thanks for such a great app and keep up the fantastic work

3 years ago, Nancywppw

Worst app ever!

I just downloaded this app a few minutes ago and I can’t make it work. It asked me if I wanted it to use my location. I said no. I don’t understand why the app needs to know where I am. Then, when I tried to use the app, it said I can’t use it unless I let it know my location. Why does the app give you the option to say you don’t want it to use your location if that isn’t really an option? I really wanted to use the app,so I decided that I would let it know my location. It said I could configure that in settings. I went to settings and there was no option for turning the location on!! There are only three options in the settings: Select language,Seek camera, and species detail. So my advice to anyone downloading this app is to make sure you say yes to allowing the app to know where you are. If you don’t, apparently you won’t have the opportunity later to turn location detection on. I am deleting the app now.

4 years ago, Zearin Galaurum

One step closer to a Star Trek Tricorder

It’s pretty awesome being able to ID organisms by just holding them in the frame of a camera! Moving critters are tricky to get. But it’s still rewarding to “collect” as many images from all the branches of the tree of life as you can. I have only 2 complaints: 1. The relationship between this app and iNaturalist needs more explanation. Yes, I know Seek “gets its data” from iNaturalist. But although I logged into my iNaturalist account in Seek, it’s not at all obvious if, how, or when my observations are shared with the greater iNaturalist online community. 2. Photos taken in Seek do not have any camera metadata attached to them! Seek makes it optional whether to include observations in the Photos app. I like to. But there is no way for me to filter observations taken on my older iPhone vs. my new iPhone, because there is no metadata on the phone/camera model on Seek photos. (If any devs are reading this, please add this feature! BONUS POINTS: Allow me to designate an album in Photos for my Seek observations.) Despite these things, this is a pretty phenomenal app. If you have any interest in the natural world, this is a fantastic example of how technology can support curiosity and exploration, and allow personally-driven learning.

2 years ago, ANS3130!

Fantastic App: Potential Improvement

I love this app. I’m a big nature guy and being out there is my favorite pastime. I love beefing up my observations with things I know and learning more from things I don’t know. May I suggest a potential feature for a second. I believe the app could do well with a warning system if you are documenting a dangerous species of animal/plant/fungus. I recently documented a Copperhead snake (incredible) but I was shocked to see that the app did not warn me that this snake could do some serious damage if it bit me. This would be exceptionally valuable for plant/fungus species as well, as they could be considered safe or dangerous to eat. Otherwise, I can’t stop using it and look forward to moving up the ranks!

3 years ago, Syd loves R5

Best ID app out there right now

First off, I’ve yet to see any upwelling to premium/payment necessary with no limits on the amount of IDs. This app is awesome. Considering the methods used to ID various life, I can see why a lot of these plant apps are a bit off, but this one is mostly accurate at connecting the correct species, usually when it’s off the correct species will be in the related scroll at the bottom. Here’s my biggest suggestion for this app, just like I’m able to flag when it’s a misidentification I should be able to potentially find/select the correct identification from the similar plants. I’ve used this app for a day and it would be helpful on some of the more petally flowers that seem to confuse the Id aspect.

5 years ago, Sizzles2289

I’ve never written a review, BUT this app deserves it!!

Super cool concept and well implemented! Yes, it can be a little slow to identify a species, but I appreciate the fact that it will tell you what stage it is on in identification being the kingdom, class, species etc... The interface is beautiful and easy to use. Of course there are minor details out there that could improve the app, but I would say it’s executed far more beautifully in terms of being user friendly and its interface design than most apps out there. As I said in the title of my review, I have never reviewed an app ever, but I love the concept of this app so much, I felt it deserved it. I have already suggested it to many of my nature-loving friends and can’t wait to keep identifying and learning about more species!

3 years ago, GrannyWitch67

BEST AP I EVER GOT!

From “Black Witch Butter” (fungus) to “Fallfish” to “Parson’s House Spider” to “Wild Sarsaparilla” this ap has helped me ID a WIDE variety of plant, fish, insect, bird, fungus/mushroom, animal and tree species! I’ve used it in 5 states so far and learned so much. I love the Challenges. They make me pay more attention to the nature around me and look for and notice more species and different ecosystems. Best ap I have gotten for terrestrial identification! Paired with the iNaturalist, it is a huge learning, teaching, and cataloging tool. When I report my findings from Seek to Naturalist I feel like I have contributed to the scientific research on wildlife and ecosystems. LOVE IT! I hope that they develop more apps that ID our natural world, hopefully geology, crystals, gemstones and rocks, and sky and weather apps!

3 months ago, Sydneybrooks97

Amazing concept with a few flaws

As a longtime iNaturalist user, I love this app! I love that it’s more than just an ID app and that it encourages me to find more unique species, and I find myself using it a lot. But I have to say, sometimes the ID algorithm makes me angry. Quite often, I’ll get the notification saying “we believe this is a member of the genus blank, but couldn’t identify the species” and then when I click on the “species nearby in this taxon” and there will be ONE option in my area. I really think I’m the year 2024 the algorithm should be able to make that logical leap and identify the species. And quite often, no matter what angle or how close I get, it won’t identify the species. I think the app should have the option to manually ID a species after it identifies the taxon.

3 years ago, lys714

Nice, but…

Look, the concept is amazing. This kind of thing has been long overdue on such a scale among apps that works at all. The problem is… Flies, fly. Birds fly. Frogs jump. Spiders skitter away. Some at lightning speed. They all hide as well. Nothing stands still and let’s you get a good angle. Heck, sometimes I knew what it was but the app didn’t. It’s also very difficult for the camera to focus, but that might just be my phone. I took a very good picture of a frog… they couldn’t find out what it was. Thought a striped fly was a tree crab and was standing there an hour. Got an amazingly clear photo of a spider, still only figuring out that it indeed was a spider. Some of my most amazing pictures can’t be deciphered because I am taller than eye level of the animal. I have to stand directly parallel, which could be dangerous. And I have to stand there trying to get a good angle, at least for 15 minutes, and that’s if your lucky. Most times you can’t get the actual species by picture which is a real bummer. A robin is not a groundhog. So please work on that, ok? It would be amazing if I didn’t have to be in an exact position to figure out what animal is in front of me. Other than that, amazing. It’s a huge leap from what we used to do.

Description

Use the power of image recognition technology to identify the plants and animals all around you. Earn badges for seeing different types of plants, birds, fungi and more! • Get outside and point the Seek Camera at living things • Identify wildlife, plants, and fungi and learn about the organisms all around you • Earn badges for observing different types of species and participating in challenges OPEN THE CAMERA AND START SEEKING! Found a mushroom, flower, or bug, and not sure what it is? Open up the Seek Camera to see if it knows! Drawing from millions of wildlife observations on iNaturalist, Seek shows you lists of commonly recorded insects, birds, plants, amphibians, and more in your area. Scan the environment with the Seek Camera to identify organisms using the tree of life. Add different species to your observations and learn all about them in the process! The more observations you make, the more badges you’ll earn! This is a great app for families who want to spend more time exploring nature together, and for anyone who wants to learn more about the life all around them. KID-SAFE Seek does not require registration and does not collect any user data by default. Some user data will be collected if you choose to sign in with an iNaturalist account, but you must be over 13 or have your parents permission to do so. Seek will ask permission to turn on location services, but your location is obscured to respect your privacy while still allowing species suggestions from your general area. Your precise location is never stored in the app or sent to iNaturalist unless you sign in to your iNaturalist account and submit your observations. Our image recognition technology is based on observations submitted to iNaturalist.org and partner sites, and identified by the iNaturalist community. Seek is part of iNaturalist, a not-for-profit organization. Seek was made by the iNaturalist team with support from the California Academy of Sciences, the National Geographic Society, Our Planet on Netflix, WWF, HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, and Visipedia.