A smartphone is the simplest device you can use for capturing and uploading images. They're limited in their field of view compared to 360 cameras, but are a resource that most people have access to, making large-scale collaborative efforts easy and affordable. The Mapillary team develops mobile apps for Android and iOS.
Our apps are developed to give you the best experience possible while capturing via a phone—we've implemented several methodologies to improve image quality (reducing blurs, etc.) and reduce the battery/power strain from using the camera feature for long periods of time.
💡Check out our complete Mapillary app guides to help you get setup with our apps.
💡For mounting recommendations and tips, check out our favorite smartphone mounts.
Storage on mobile phones
By default, the Mapillary mobile apps capture images with the largest resolution. Depending on your device, one image takes roughly 2–10 MB, giving you about 1000–4000 images if you have 8 GB of free storage on your phone.
Captured images will be deleted after upload, freeing up your storage space.
Keeping a copy of your images
Images are stored in the app folder and deleted after upload. If you want to keep copies of the images, you need to do this before you upload.
For Android, try this article on Google Support to learn how to transfer files between your phone and computer. For iPhone, there is a similar article on Apple Support about transferring files.
Mobile data and costs
The Mapillary apps are 100% free and do not require any data plan or cell connectivity when taking images as they use your phone’s GPS to determine the location of the images. The app defaults to uploading your images when you are connected to Wi-Fi, not using your mobile data. If you have unlimited data or are not concerned about data transfer costs, you can turn on uploading using mobile data in app settings.