Week of October 12–18, 2026: Welcome to the workshop
· Week of October 12–18, 2026
Welcome
Welcome to the Oddly Audacious Apps blog. Every week I'll share what happened in the workshop: new features, field tests, partnerships, gear that shows up at the door, and the occasional thing that didn't work the first time.
I'm Chris James, an ecologist who became a high school science teacher in Tucson and now builds apps on the side, and always a conservationist. That mix shapes what I make: tools for field work, for teaching, and for everyone. HabitatLens and its companion apps are now out with beta testers, starting with an Ecuadorean NGO, so these weekly notes are also a way to show the work as it happens.
It was a busy week! 😅
HabitatLens Desktop grew up fast
HabitatLens Desktop is where field data from the phones comes together. It went from version 0.1.4 on Wednesday to 0.1.17 on Saturday. The highlights:
- Site reports as PDF, OpenDocument or spreadsheet files, now including sampling effort, plus ready-made slide presentations for a site.
- R analyses can be saved to a site and dropped straight into its report.
- Fetch info fills in a site's profile from open data sources, and suggests where to look when no open source has the answer.
- Site boundaries can be drawn as a circle or a polygon.
- Add data without the phone, for records collected on paper or with other tools.
- Lab and equipment tracking: samples in the lab, plus field gear, where it's deployed, hidden tags, and a report if something goes missing or is stolen.
- Remote uploads from unattended stations in the field.
- A built-in manual with search across commands and your own data.
- A little personality, too: biome-themed backgrounds and fun facts on the Home page.
HabitatLens goes to sea
The biggest surprise of the week was a new Marine module. On the phone, divers can log a dive from notes on their underwater slate, and boat crews can record surveys with their search effort and sightings. Species names come from WoRMS, the World Register of Marine Species.
The other apps joined in. SongLens now works with a hydrophone, with guides and a glossary for underwater sound. FaunaLens can be set up as an underwater camera station, noting bait and depth. Desktop then counts MaxN (the most individuals of a species seen at once, the standard measure for baited underwater cameras) and exports to OBIS, the global ocean biodiversity database.
Field testing: the night shift
A lot of wildlife moves after dark, so this week's testing focused on low light. FaunaLens, our camera-trap app, now keeps a light log and has low-light capture modes, and its red night-mode screen got a little brighter. Desktop uses that light log to show how detection changes as the light fades, so you can tell a quiet night from a dark one.
SongLens and FaunaLens also record the phone's battery level every hour. When a session comes back from the field, Desktop shows how the battery held up and estimates how long the phone can run. That answers the question every field worker asks before leaving a phone in a tree overnight.
Friendlier, in more languages, and private by design
- Welcome tours and manuals. HabitatLens, FaunaLens, HabitatLens Desktop, Gorilla, Many Hands and Tab Diver now greet you with a short tour the first time you open them, and each has a searchable manual one tap away. You can skip the tour and replay it later.
- Spanish and Kichwa. FaunaLens is now fully in Spanish. HabitatLens guides, the Desktop manual and the FaunaLens manual have first drafts in Ecuadorian Kichwa. If you speak Kichwa and would like to help review them, I'd love to hear from you.
- Crash reports, only if you say so. The apps sold in stores, and HabitatLens Desktop, now ask during setup whether you'd like to send crash reports. They're off unless you turn them on, and you can change your mind in Settings. A report holds only the error, where it happened in the code, the app version and your device type. Never your records, photos, recordings, locations or name.
On the website and in the classroom
This site got a makeover. Apps are now grouped into Fieldwork, Tools for Teachers and Utilities for Everyone, and each one shows whether it's available or coming soon.
- Drivetrain Lab is free and live in two versions. The Classroom Edition lets students compare the lifetime emissions of gas, hybrid, plug-in and electric cars, and see how the local power grid changes the answer. The Cost Lab for Car Shoppers adds prices, loans, leases and insurance.
- Free teacher guides for Drivetrain Lab, one for AP Environmental Science and one for Environmental Science, each with plans for a single period, a block or two days. They're first editions, and feedback from teachers is welcome.
- New on the list: Clear Skies (is solar right for your home?), ChargeMinder (reminds you to charge your phone, watch and laptop before you head out), Tab Diver (calm for a browser full of tabs) and Carryall (bookings, invoices and gear for freelancers in any trade).
A small naming story: Tab Diver spent a few hours this week as "Tabulator" before we found that name already taken by another tab extension. The diver herding shark-shaped tabs in its new artwork seemed a better fit anyway.
Our first beta tester
Good news to close the week: an Ecuadorean NGO has agreed to be our first beta tester. Welcome aboard! Testers use the apps in real conditions before anyone else does, and their reports shape what gets fixed first.
Coming up next
- This blog. It went up today; new posts arrive each week, covering Monday to Sunday.
- A new idea, Clepsydra. Also this morning: the first sketches of a desk companion that nudges you to rest your eyes, stretch and see where your screen time went. It's named for the ancient water clock.
- ChargeMinder became a native Mac menu-bar app this week; next comes polishing it for the App Store.
- Toward launch. HabitatLens and its companion apps are now with beta testers, starting with an Ecuadorean NGO. Expect more field tests, and news about partners, in the weeks ahead.
Thanks for reading. See you next week.