Compare (UK)

Compare iPhone Birding Apps (Update July 30, 2012)

Note this chart has not been updated for the Android version of iBird.

On iPhone this table is best viewed in Landscape mode. Tap the Earth icon in upper right of iPhone screen to open table in Safari. Bold = best, most, etc.

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iBird UK & Ireland Guide to Birds 6.0

Birds of Britain & Ireland (Pro Edition) 1.05

Bird Guide Britain – A Field Guide to British Birds 2.0.2

Birds of Britain 2.7

RSPB e-Guide to British birds 1.0
IMPORTANT STUFF
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Developer/Publisher Mitch Waite Group BirdGuides Ltd. iSpiny CleverMatrix Ltd. MyDigitalEarth.com
Latest App Update Jul 14, 2012 Jul 23, 2012 Feb 16, 2012 Jun 22, 2012 Mar 15, 2012
Universal App? (works on iPad in full screen mode) Yes Yes No No Yes
Number of updates to date 5 (6.0, 5.1, 5.0, 4.0, 3.2) 5 (1.0.5, 1.0.4, 1.0.3, 1.0.2, 1.0.1) 13 (2.0.2, 2.0.1, 2.0.0, 1.1.1, 1.1.0, 1.0.9, 1.0.8, 1.0.7, 1.0.6, 1.0.5, 1.0.4, 1.0.3, 1.0.1, 1.0.0) 17 (2.7, 2.6, 2.5, 2.4, 2.3, 2.2, 2.1, 2.0, 1.9, 1.8, 1.7, 1.6, 1.5, 1.4, 1.3, 1.2, 1.0) 1 (1.0)
Number of species 283 271 293 268 290
MAJOR INCLUSIONS
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Geographical range UK & Ireland UK & Ireland UK (a) UK UK & Ireland
Includes Drawings? Yes Yes No No Yes
Includes Photos? Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Includes Drawings and Photos? Yes Yes No No No
Includes Search Engine? Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Size of database 270 MB 237 MB 254 MB 349 MB 184 MB
Original Launch date Mar 31, 2011 Jan 14, 2010 Mar 11, 2010 Sep 09, 2010 Mar 15, 2012
CUSTOMER FEEDBACK
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App store Stars (all versions) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ insufficient data insufficient data ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
No. of Ratings (all versions) 15 insufficient data insufficient data 240 7
IDENTIFICATION BENEFITS
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Automatically shrinks list while typing bird name Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Search engine? Yes No Yes No Yes
Number of searchable attributes 31 0 7 0 0
Taxonomic search? Yes No No No Yes
Euring Code search? Yes No No No No
Latin name search? Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Search by:
Shape Yes No Yes No No
Size Yes No Yes No No
Postal Code No No Yes No No
Location Yes No Yes No No
Region No No Yes No No
Habitat Yes No Yes No No
Primary color Yes No Yes No No
Secondary color Yes No No No No
Backyard feeder Yes No No No No
Family Yes No No Yes No
Order Yes No No No No
Length, weight, wingspan Yes No No No No
Search by song and song pattern? Yes No No No No
Leg color Yes No No No No
Tail shape Yes No No No No
Wing shape Yes No No No No
Flight pattern Yes No No No No
Bill shape and length Yes No No No No
Pattern related: Head, breast, belly and back pattern Yes No No No No
Head related Crown, forehead, cere, throat, nape, eye color Yes No No No No
ARTWORK, PHOTOS & SONGS
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Multiple photos per species? Yes Yes Yes (b) Yes No
Multiple illustrations per species? No (c) Yes Yes No Yes
Multiple songs per species? Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Zoomable Images? Yes Yes Yes No No
Zoom range 200% 400% 150% 0% 0%
Slideshow Feature? Yes No No No No
AUDIO FEATURES
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Animated Waveform? Yes No No No No
Animated Spectrogram? Yes No No No No
IDENTIFICATION AIDS
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Range maps? Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Similar birds? Yes No No No Yes
Similar song links? Yes No No No Yes
Conservation details? Yes No No No Yes
Family descriptions? Yes No No No No
Flickr? Yes No No No No
Wikipedia? Yes No Yes No No
Interesting/Cool Facts Yes No Yes No No
Depth of database High Low Medium Low Low
MISCELLANEOUS
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Gallery Yes No Yes Yes No
Favorites/checklist Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Species notes/life list Yes No Yes No Yes
Online or iTunes backup Yes No Yes No No
Embedded help Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Sequence pages Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Sequence images Yes Yes No Yes Yes
Sequence range maps Yes Yes No No No
Sequence songs Yes Yes No No Yes
Sequence everything Yes Yes No No Yes
PERFORMANCE
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Responsiveness (1) Excellent Good Fair Good Fast
Page Refresh Very Fast Quick Poor Typical Good
Lookup Speed Very Fast Quick Typical Very Fast Very Fast
Startup Time Quick Typical Very Slow Very Fast Very Fast
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
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Strengths Search engine, zoomable images, large amount of data per species, has both photos and drawings. Large number of illustrations and photos per species. Many illustrations per species. “Random Birds” browse feature, email backup of notes. Low cost. Deals with most species recorded in GB.  Multiple illustartions showing differing plumages and flight features. Based on the RSPB Book of Birds with the added calls (similar to the Sibley Guide).
Weakness Needs more female and juvenile illustrations, needs improved life list features. No search engine, no notes or lists. Difficult to navigate. Illustrations, photos, range map, sounds and descriptions all in one stack. Inconsistent amount of data for each species and difficult to navigate. Shallow database. Only British bird app with non-zoomable images. Pre-populated Favorites list cannot be edited. No photos. Non-zoomable images or maps.
NOTES
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(c) Artists are working on iBird illustrations all the time.
Needs possible adding key ID features to the illustrtions like the Peterson fieldguides did.		 There is an add-on in the settings where the other app they do on Birds of Northern Europe can be added to this one for a cost of £2.49 and this adds many more species and a choice of languages and adding N Europe ranges on extra maps.
Many of the illustraions have good field ID and are labelled.  Most come from the Concise Birds of the Western Palearctic books which is the ‘bible’ of European birding!		 (a) Range Maps include all of Europe.
(b) Some species have multiple photos, but not many.
This app has a ‘key’ feature which when pressed shows the main ID features of the species.  Very good idea and less confusing than reading text.  Good Peterson Fieldguide technique.
Redpolls not up to date with current taxonomy but show Marsh Tit/Willow Tit feature which I described in an email last year 		Seems to be heavily RSPB bias as it has a section on most RSPB reserves in the locations data.