Chirp! on the iPhone 5

After a gentle reminder on the Chirp! Facebook page page, we've been finishing off the full screen iPhone 5 version of Chirp! The app looks good on the iPhone 5 - the larger screen allows the bird photo on the Browse screen to be larger, and also the text of the song description. The downside is that the app will no longer run on devices using iOS 3 or 4, thus eliminating the old iPhone 3. It's a great shame, but sadly we didn't have much choice.

It's December already!

I knew it was a long time since my last post, but I am astonished that nearly a year has gone past! It has been a very busy year, and although there no new apps to show for it, our existing apps are now nearly complete (!). The British bird guides are now fully iPad compatible, and with a lovely new design that has been made specially for the iPad. We find it depressing that so many reference apps simply enlarge the graphics of their iPhone app to make it fit on the iPad screen, and we asked Marcello to create a design that was specifically for the iPad but with a layout that was sufficiently similar to the iPhone design that it would be easy to move from one to the other. We are delighted with Marcello's design, and thanks too to Rhodri Griffith of Cwcw Creative who stepped into the breach to produce the elements of the design. I know I'm bound to be biased, but I think ours are without doubt the nicest looking iPad bird apps!

New logo for iSpiny

New year, new logo! We are searching for a new logo for iSpiny by holding a contest on 99Designs. We are down to the final four - will you help us choose by taking part in our poll?

Logo poll - click here!

Vogelgids van Nederland

Our Dutch app is out! Released into the wild of the AppStore, we hope that it will flourish and prosper. It's called Vogelgids van Nederland and it's a guide to birds of the Netherlands (in Dutch and English). The text has been translated by specialist translator, Max Nuijens, and the interface by Chirp! translator, Frans Schutgens, so it should be good! Any mistakes are entirely my fault as it was my job to transfer their text into the app. Now we wait and watch with baited breath to see how out well our young app will fly :).

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas (or other celebration of your choosing), and very best wishes for 2012!

Expanding into new countries!

I'm taking advantage of a very brief lull to bring the latest update. The most exciting news is that work on our forthcoming guide to birds of the Netherlands, Vogelgids van Nederland, is almost complete! It should be ready for final testing in the next day or so and we hope to have it in the AppStore before Christmas.

We've also been working on an update to Chirp! Europe and expanding it to include Spain and Portugal. No new birds for those countries yet, but we have some lined up for a spring update and I hope we will be able to expand into Italy as well. Just in time for spring and summer holidays in southern Europe!

Goodbye Steve Jobs

I can't say it better than others have - Steve was a visionary and creative genius who made things happen. It's a sad day.

At last - the Record Centre Update!

It's taken us ages, but Bird Guide Britain finally has a Record Centre section! This was part of the original plan for the app but it soon became clear that it would take a long time to develop to our satisfaction and so we decided to release the app with reduced record keeping facilities to start with, and add the Record Centre later as an update. And so here we are, a whole year later!

The new update allows multiple sightings of a bird to be recorded. These can then be viewed as a list, sorted by location, date or bird name, or viewed on a map. They can also be exported as an Excel file. Use the email back-up regularly to make sure you don't ever lose your data.

Update now and see what you think! Remember it's only version 1.0 of the Record Centre, so please tell us what you like and dislike so we can continue to improve it!