PSA: Street View app to be discontinued soon
SiIverLyra-PGO
Posts: 952 ✭✭✭✭✭
It's not a Niantic product, but considering so many submitters rely on photospheres as additional material for their nominations (especially in remote areas, newly constructed areas, etc.), I figured I should probably spread the word.
Comments
Currently there's no option to create 360° photos in the web app. I can only upload existing files, which were created with a 360° camera
That’s going to be a hassle for me.
Currently I can just take out my 360 camera when I’m “out in the field”, link to the app, click and upload.
Now I have to do the photo, then send the photos to my phone/PC, and then upload.
Don't worry, Niantic will provide those 360º cameras to all the employees so they can keep adding more wayspots. Remember that it will be delivered to the same home address as your paycheck.
So is there an app I can use to create a photosphere - I found it very easy to follow the dots to make the photosphere
Well the serial rejectors will have a field day rejecting everything they can't see on Google maps.
No more trail markers ....
Color me surprised, everything is a beta test for Google. Add it to the list... https://killedbygoogle.com/
I mean, it eas a hot mess half the time for me when uploading spheres, but still, it's not going to be good if I can't get any up now. I'm not going to go out my way to buy a 360 camera for nominations. Maybe it will be better for niantic to change it so that we can submit multiple supporting photos (have it be optional to take more than 1 and maybe a max of 6), that eay we can prove roughly where things are
I don't have a 360° camera. I do things the old fashioned way by following the dots (and then repeating that two or three times because my phone has a dodgy gyroscope haha). If they wanted to retire it, they should've just integrated the functionality into the main Google Maps app instead, seeing how as both apps are somewhat similar anyway. That way people could still do photospheres if they wanted to and not have to have an extra app on their phones.
Ugh this is a hard hit. Anyone know of any good 3rd party apps that take 360 photos?
Multiple photos won’t help in most cases.
I create photospheres because it is placed on the map. So where other features won’t help.
I didn't even know there was a Streetview app.
From the article above, you can still
use Street View in the main Google Maps app and contribute 360 imagery with the Street View Studio web app.
That all makes the separate app somewhat redundant, and soon, Google will be discontinuing support.
I don't understand why that makes a difference, except that you will need to use the latest tool.
Google does that (retires something, makes you learn a new one) all the time.
Yes, but is there any good alternatives to take 360° photos then?
The article says to use Street View Studio web app.
That doesn't let you create 360° imagery like the app does though. It only lets you upload it, and even then, it seems to only allow 360° video files from what I've seen, and not 360° jpeg images like you can make in the app.
So basically Google are expecting everyone who uses the app to go out and buy a 360° camera capable of taking videos, and then use a separate website to upload those videos.
What if we killed it with all of our crappily stitched together photospheres?
I’m not getting a 360 camera. I like the fact that I have one small all purpose device.
I may have to prioritise actual going and doing photospheres in places that might need them quickly, and hope they still show when reviewing.
I've always used the Pixel's native camera app for photospheres (as it worked better than the Street View app for me when I started), so I myself don't know what other options are out there.
I do this too, I would think phones either have this option or can find some app to create them to then upload to whatever the new site is. It's still a new hurdle though, and every hurdle will result in a certain amount of people not finishing or doing something wrong.
Trainers,
The closing of the Street View app means you'll now have to do scans to verify the location of your nominations. Thanks for all the shoe scans #BootsOnTheOtherFootNow
The mind boggles at what they could break if they tried to link scans into nominations 😂😂😂
It's fine.
You are walking along and see a lovely trail marker, open the Wayfarer app, check the nearby, take a pic, do a scan, submit. Seamless.....
Danbocat made that suggestion a few times 💁♂️
TBH, I don't think photospheres help much anyway. Serial rejectors will be serial rejectors whether there's a sphere or not, and since spheres can infamously be faked, I don't even consider them good supporting evidence.
I only got on wayfarer to make my favorite hiking spots playable, and I've got 40 wayspots accepted since September. All of them are in the woods, no street view. I've only done one photosphere.... and *that* nomination was rejected.
Attitudes probably vary, but I've found reviewers will more or less trust that a trail marker or footbridge is where you say it is so long as everything else looks legit. If you can see on satellite that the whole area is natural habitat with no houses around, and there's a green google place marker nearby saying "Sunset Pond Park", and the nomination is for "Sunset Pond North Meadow Trail"... I'm going to assume it's there. Doesn't hurt if you can link to the official trail map, or if the trails exist on OSM.
I *do* have about a 30% rejection rate, and some of that is probably because my locations are 3-stars max... But I'm just saying, I do not believe this will end trail markers.
You must have trusting reviewers. I've had London Loop and Capital Ring trails rejected by reviewers and National Trails rejected by Niantic all with Photospheres.
Perhaps I do haha. If you're near London you must have a bunch of city folk reviewing. I'm in a rural outdoorsy area, so local reviewers are sympathetic to outdoorsy nominations.
That said tho, the fact that the photospheres didn't help you might make my point.
I live in an urban area and am happy to approve trail markers wherever as they are great for exercise and exploration.
However I won’t approve one if I can’t find enough evidence that it is (or is highly likely to be) where it is claimed. This applies to markers I. The middle of a wood or the middle of a park.
Unfortunately for honest submitters, fakers have made reviewers deeply suspicious.
Technically, yes. It's better to think of London as one place but as a series of villages connecting each other but also with their own unique culturalcharacteristics.
Here is the awful urban hell of one slice of London
I do think most reviewers use street view as an important part of checking a nominations validity. Trail markers being rejected for me is more that some people just don't like them irrespective of the what the criteria says.
Well, that’s not good. However, this will hopefully be temporary. Odds are that when photosphere contributions fall off a cliff and don’t come back, google will probably integrate photosphere creation into one of the two apps.
@Rurrie-PGO After encountering a couple of fake photospheres I stopped trusting them. For trails I tend to rely on satellite imagery, trails overlaid in maps, trail maps that I found elsewhere, etc. I would rather have a solid supporting photo and text than a photosphere, especially if the text contains a link to useful information.
This has me slightly worried. It's going to be a lot harder to prove that Wayspots actually exist now. Then again this could mean more people would be willing to give the benefit of the doubt. I guess we just have to wait and see what kind of impact this will have.