After reading the reviews of Winged Explorer on 10000birds and Born-Again Bird Watcher, I couldn’t wait to try the iPhone version myself. Since I have 57 other apps on my phone (not as bad as it sounds, really!), you can well imagine that the iPhone is my combination auxiliary brain and guaranteed antidote to boredom. I seldom go anywhere without it.
And that’s the beauty of this application. You don’t have to plan a birding trip to have your field guide with you – it’s always right there in your phone. It’s small, weighs very little, and has its own built-in light source. If you travel a lot on business, you don’t want to carry a lot of printed materials on and off of airplanes on the off chance you might have a few minutes to go to a local park, but I bet you wouldn’t leave town without your cell phone.
iBirdexplorer has all the features I’d look for in a field guide. It has illustrations of the birds, range maps, and photos. Each entry also includes a short description, key field marks, comparison to similar species, a collection of interesting facts about the species, and a link out to wikipedia for those times you just have to know more.
The program has a wide appeal. I was showing it to some of my coworkers before a meeting last week, and immediately got lots of questions about price (very affordable) and platform (windows mobile as well as iPhone). It seems everyone at the table knew someone for whom this would be a great gift, including nieces, nephews, and grandchildren. And I suspect a few were thinking of themselves as well.
What else do I like about it? I love that it has both drawings and photographs. I know some birders have strong feelings about which format is best for identification purposes, but I’ve always thought that it was a situational decision. With this program, you can have both with no hassle.
I really like the search engine, which lets you step through various markers (location, habitat, color, size, shape, and others) in any order you like to narrow the range of possibilities. You can add and subtract identifiers depending on your level of certainty and the number of similar birds, or use one or two key attributes to quickly confirm an ID.
And – my favorite – you can play the bird song, not just try to decide if what you just heard sounds like “teakettle, teakettle” or something entirely different.
What else? Since it’s electronic, it can be updated constantly and continuously – no waiting for a new print run. Further upgrades and development are planned, and they’re included with the original purchase price.
And most important – the drawing of the Carolina Wren is very cute!
{ 6 comments }
Great review Wren, and I second your entire post. I just downloaded it and LOVE it. I just wish someone gave me a gift card to iTunes for Christmas. But the price wasn’t bad at all.
Way to go Mitchell Waite!
Awesome review of iBird at the Cloudy Days and Netbook Nights web site
http://cdnn.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/ibird-explorer/
More of a technical review then a user review like Wren’s. PS I am the creator of the program. I hope to hear more from the followers of this site about how you like it.
I’ll be interested to hear how you like it, Robin.
I read that review on 10,000 Birds as well and thought about buying the application. I’m glad to read that you did get it and really like it. I’m going to go check it out again.
It’s fun. That applies to both the phone and the app.
Sounds fantastic. I am hoping that I get an iPhone next summer and I will be getting iBirdexplorer. Awesome!
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