iNaturalist Is Incredible, It's Also Kind of Frustrating to Use When You're Actually Outside.

I want to be clear upfront, I think iNaturalist is one of the most impressive things on the internet. A global community of millions of people identifying and logging wildlife observations with scientific accuracy. The data is extraordinary. The ID community is extraordinary. I use it every week.

But I've also been standing in a field, phone in hand, trying to figure out what's been spotted nearby in the last few days, and it's just, a lot of taps to get there.

The map interface isn't really built for quick scanning in the field. It's built for exploring and identifying, which it does well. But if your question is specifically \"what animals have been seen within 5km of where I'm standing in the last two weeks\" you're doing a fair bit of digging to get that answer. On mobile, in a field, possibly with bad signal, it's clunky.

That friction is literally the entire reason I built WildMap. I wanted something radar-first. Open the app, it knows where you are, it shows you what's been seen nearby, you can filter by type and date range in two taps. That's the whole thing.

I'm not saying WildMap is better than iNaturalist, that's not even a fair comparison. iNaturalist is a scientific observation platform with a global community and AI identification and decades of data. WildMap is a radar tool for finding wildlife. They're doing different things.

The way I actually use them together: I check WildMap before I go somewhere to see what's been spotted recently, then I use iNaturalist in the field to log and identify what I see. They complement each other pretty well.

The iNaturalist community makes up the bulk of the sighting data that powers WildMap. So in a very real sense, without them the tool doesn't exist. I try not to forget that.

If you use iNaturalist seriously and have thoughts on the app, genuinely would love to hear them. Still early and building this thing in public.