Does not work.
Just spins and spins and spins...
Interesting to look at but can’t contribute
Looking at the photos and map was great- now they have finally started to emerge here and I excitedly took photos yesterday on a walk… unfortunately it won’t let me contribute because it says my photos aren’t geotagged. And they absolutely ARE. I have location settings turned on for my phone, for my camera, and for the app. A lot of folks have mentioned this- it’s clearly an issue with the app. Really disappointed I can’t play along ☹️
Show less
Wonderful idea but terrible app
This is a wonderful idea to use an app to take photos and report sightings of cicadas. It adds lot of fun to the event, and kids love it. However, the app is a terrible user experience. For one, it is super slow. It takes minutes to show map, summary of photos on map, and list of photos. Opening photos is slow too. For two, the app layout does not fit modern phones, including iPhone XR and 12 we are using. Finally, the camera freezes every time I try to take photos or upload photos.
It took me a lot of patience to upload two photos. After that, think I should spend more time enjoying the outdoor than staring at the frozen app.
It took me a lot of patience to upload two photos. After that, think I should spend more time enjoying the outdoor than staring at the frozen app.
Show less
Response from developer
Hello - Thank you so much for your feedback. I apologize for the technical difficulties over the weekend - our servers were a bit overloaded as we experienced far more usage than anticipated. These issues should now be resolved. If you encounter any other problems please feel free to reach out to us at cicada.safari@msj.edu. Thank you!
Fear turned to fascination
Completely dreading the upcoming brood x, I decided to face my fear of the swarms head on by preparing myself of what to come. I downloaded this app in the hopes that it would tell me where the most cicadas were but opened doors into a genuine fascination of these lil critters, so much information I never knew! Once shuddering at the thought of upcoming events I’m now looking forward to it! Can’t wait to catch my first pic of the cicadas! Who needs Pokémon snap when we have real life Pokémon snap!
Show less
Cicada-palooza!
This is fascinating! I love watching the number of cicada pictures increase as Brood X begins to emerge in different stages across 15 states in the US. The app is also filled with a wealth of information about Brood X. My friend, who teaches pre-school, is using it as a tool to engage the children in the journey of the cicadas, which keeps them interested in cicadas instead of scared. Genius!
Show less
Useless
As other users have mentioned, the sign up process gets hung up on the birthdate field. The field does have instructions (i.e., Enter a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols.); however, the only keyboard that displays for the field contains only numbers and a “.” No option to enter letters is offered. As another user stated, why are you requiring this information? I suspect because of this glitch and your requiring this datum, you are significantly impacting the amount of data you collect. In the future, I would recommend testing your app prior to releasing it and performing follow up testing to detect these types of issues. With Brood X emerging any day now, your app is going to garner a lot of attention and excitement, but it will sadly leave many disappointed.
Show less
Response from developer
Hello - this field was to capture the birth YEAR of users so we could see the overall age demographics of our citizen science audience. There was some confusion with it being mistaken for a required birthdate so it has been removed in the new version. Thank you!
so much potential
I heard about this app from a podcast, ologies, and love the idea! I haven’t had any of the issues mentioned by others so far, but it is still a little clunky. Understandably, the app is does not see “finished” which is fine despite being about 2 years old now. I would really love to see some updates cleaning it up a bit. I am excited to see how it is once more cicadas start coming out and more people start using it. I’ll update my review as I go :)
- When you first sign up you then have to log in, it would be great if just signing up logged you in
- When you first sign up you then have to log in, it would be great if just signing up logged you in
Show less
Response from developer
Hello - thank you so much for the feedback. We are continuously working to improve this app as we receive new feedback. We like your suggestion of automatic login and will work on implementing this in the next version. Thank you! :)
Time is running out
This app is severely janky right now. Even just opening the app reveals poor design on a modern iPhone 12 Pro, with icons smooshed to the very bottom of the screen. Uploading photos from the app seems broken. I attempted to upload one just this evening and couldn’t. It just spun and spun. Not sure what the process looks like after that. Can I tag the photos? Add metadata like notes, date, time, and location? I don’t know because I can’t get past photo uploads.
I’m very excited to start seeing more photos and info pop up over this spring and summer, but it makes me sad to think of how many people aren’t going to use this app after running into such a subpar experience on their first attempt. Hopefully it gets better over the next few weeks because time is running out. I’ve already started to see cicada holes appearing everywhere.
I’m very excited to start seeing more photos and info pop up over this spring and summer, but it makes me sad to think of how many people aren’t going to use this app after running into such a subpar experience on their first attempt. Hopefully it gets better over the next few weeks because time is running out. I’ve already started to see cicada holes appearing everywhere.
Show less
Response from developer
Hi Andrew - thank you for reaching out - we tested the app on an iPhone 12 pro but we were not able to replicate your icon issue. When a photo is uploaded - the metadata is automatically pulled from your photo. Many of these issues should be resolved in the newest version, but if you are still encountering issues please reach out to us at cicada.safari@msj.edu for support. Thank you for your interest in this project!
Good with a few quirks
Very informative. I like the idea of knowing when the Cicadas are getting close to my area. The app has a few shortcomings. Though we are told Cicadas are arriving in our area in mid May, photos have already been posted here on the map. I see no way to determine the date the photo was taken. Also when I select a photo, I’m taken to a black page. Lastly, the back arrow is very temperamental. Good effort though.
Show less
Nice App But More Attention Than Cicadas Deserve
It’s nice, it’s simple to use, and it’s informative. Even though I can’t wait until these buggers go back to where they came from I do admit to being fascinated by them. I tried entering my location from a remote location but the app insisted on using my phone’s location services and wouldn’t let me edit it. I did post a photo from that same location so I hope they use photo data before placing my cicada on the map. Nice that they review things before posting them. One last thing. I have not found a way to contact anyone about the app. That would be a nice feature to add if it doesn’t already exist in the app. Otherwise, thanks to the developers for such a neat and timely app that I can use and also share with my primary school age grandkids.
Show less
