Idk about merlin, but with iNaturalist, the purpose was logging sightings and locations of plants/animals/fungi/etc, and letting people double check your ID so it can be used in research.
This built a massive database of images, locations, times, etc, which is a really good training set for image (or sound) recognition. Now the app is really good at automatically recognizing stuff from pictures, so people just use it for that. The app actually started to try to penalize you for using it for identification without actually logging stuff.
Should have read more, I wasn’t aware that was part of the question. I’m just posting about niche usage apps I like. I don’t use them often, but they’re essential for their niche.
Idk if this counts, but I use the Reminders app on my phone to create packing lists for work travel. Very easy to uncheck everything then re-check off things as you pack them. Keep building a perpetual packing list and you’ll never forget things. Lists in general are awesome for offloading cognitive workload.
Right but do you use it for some orthogonal use? Arent you just using it exactly as intended for its primary purpose?
Idk about merlin, but with iNaturalist, the purpose was logging sightings and locations of plants/animals/fungi/etc, and letting people double check your ID so it can be used in research.
This built a massive database of images, locations, times, etc, which is a really good training set for image (or sound) recognition. Now the app is really good at automatically recognizing stuff from pictures, so people just use it for that. The app actually started to try to penalize you for using it for identification without actually logging stuff.
Should have read more, I wasn’t aware that was part of the question. I’m just posting about niche usage apps I like. I don’t use them often, but they’re essential for their niche.
Idk if this counts, but I use the Reminders app on my phone to create packing lists for work travel. Very easy to uncheck everything then re-check off things as you pack them. Keep building a perpetual packing list and you’ll never forget things. Lists in general are awesome for offloading cognitive workload.