Getting started on iOS

Sign in to your Highlighter account from your phone and register the phone as a device, so the imagery it captures has somewhere to land.

The Highlighter iOS app runs on iPhone and iPad.

The app does not have an account system of its own. It signs in to the same Highlighter account you use in the browser, and everything it shows you comes from that account.

First launch

Opening the app for the first time shows the Welcome screen. Tap Login to sign in to your Highlighter account.

Under the button the screen says where you are about to sign in — Signing in at followed by the address of the Highlighter the app is pointed at — and that continuing means agreeing to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Tap either name to read it inside the app.

Most people never need this. If you have been told to use a different Highlighter, tap the gear in the top corner of the Welcome screen. The Server screen lists the ones this version of the app knows about — Staging and Production — with a tick beside the current one. Tap the one you were told to use, then Done.

Changing it signs you out and clears the cases, messages and queued imagery the app was holding, because they belong to the Highlighter they came from.

The screen does not ask which account to use. You choose that while signing in, from the accounts you belong to.

Signing in

Tap Login, then Continue to Sign In. The app opens Highlighter's own web sign-in page.

When sign-in succeeds the browser window closes and the app takes you to the Dashboard. Your session is remembered on the device, so on later launches you go straight to the Dashboard without signing in again. Opening the app with no signal does not sign you out: the app keeps your session and tries again when it next comes to the front.

If sign-in fails, the app shows a Login Failed message with the reason. Dismissing the browser window without signing in is not an error — you are simply returned to the previous screen.

Registering this device

Highlighter treats a phone as a device: a named source of data attached to your account. Registering the phone creates that record on the server, and it is what gives the photos and video you capture somewhere to be filed.

Registering is not part of signing in. Do it from the Profile tab: under Registered Devices, tap Add Device. The menu button (☰) at the top left of the Dashboard also shows whether this device is registered, with a Register Device button that takes you to the Profile tab.

On the Register Device screen:

Give the device a name — something a colleague would recognise, such as "John's iPhone 15 Pro".
The device type is fixed at Mobile Camera. This is the phone itself, so there is nothing to choose.
Tap Register Device.

When registration succeeds the screen closes and the device appears under Registered Devices with its name and the ID the server assigned, marked In Use. If it fails, a Registration Failed message gives the reason.

If registration is refused

Creating a device requires a Highlighter role permission that the Contributor role does not carry. If you see "Your Highlighter role can't register devices", ask an account owner or manager to register the device for you, or to change your role.

If you have already chosen where your photos go

If you have already picked a destination by hand for photos from this phone (see Capturing and uploading media), registering the device changes where the next photos go. The app asks Change where this iPhone's photos go? before it does, and explains:

Photos already uploaded stay where they are.
New photos from this phone go to a data source for each of its cameras instead.
Photos from anything else that cannot identify itself keep going to the destination you chose.

You do not need to register the phone again on later launches. The registration lives on the server, and the app recovers it when you sign in.

Registering more than one device

Add Device on the Profile tab registers additional devices — see Profile and device settings.