Simon Mayo and the Bittern

As I have mentioned before I am a huge fan of Simon Mayo, the BBC radio presenter, and am thrilled that he is a fan of Chirp! So when he requested the Bittern as an addition, I rushed to the sound files (and the translators) to add it straight away. It is a great sound and a fascinating bird, but what I hadn't taken into account is that because the Bittern's call is so low in frequency, it is very hard to hear it through the small speakers of the iPhone or iPod. The deep booming call, that can carry for half a mile or more in the wild, sounds great on the computer but when I added it into Chirp and tried it out on the iPod it was completely inaudible, and if I increased the volume it simply distorted. Ho hum. After much experimentation I think I have an acceptable sound and it is in the latest update of Chirp! Europe. But you may just need to turn the volume up.....

Current state of play

Rather alarmingly, the summer is almost over and I'm reviewing how much we've achieved. Updates have been very slow over the past couple of months - Apple are routinely taking longer than they used to, so the days of the weekly updates are over, and on top of that we had all the problems with the Wikipedia link.

But we have managed to get some new features and new birds in. I'm pleased to say that the Corncrake has now been added to the European version - what a great sound. The US version now includes 110 birds, and the next update will add a new feature - sorting by song style. This groups the sounds into categories such as Hoots and Coos, High Pitched, or Long and tuneful. This will be coming to the European version soon.

Don't forget to let us know what you think of the new features and continue to ask for new birds!

Wiki woes

It's been a long time since my last post, and even longer since the last updates to Chirp!. I submitted updates to both versions of Chirp at the beginning of July, as soon as the previous updates were accepted, but quickly ran into problems with both apps because of Apple's new ratings system and Wikipedia access.

About a week after submission of each update, I received an email from Apple's reviewer saying that the update was rejected due to being incorrectly rated. The apps allow "unfiltered access to Wikipedia.org, where content with mature or suggestive themes can be accessed". Unfortunately no further advice or guidance has been given from Apple, and my requests for clarification have not been answered.

The Wiki button in each app links to a specific wiki page about a bird. It is theoretically possible that from this starting point one could access mature and suggestive themes, but then it is also theoretically possible that much worse content could be accessed. So what rating would Apple like me to submit the apps? I don't know and they won't say.

I added a setting which would allow parents to hide the Wiki button, but Apple can't tell me if this will help.
I have just resubmitted the updates at a 9+ rating, with a button to hide the Wiki button, so I hope this will be enough to satisfy the reviewer. Let's hope that both updates will be out in another week.

Update news

I've had a couple of queries about the lack of updates recently, so I'd just like to reassure everyone that more updates are on the way. Either due to a change of policy or due to the distractions of the new iPhone launch, Apple's approval time for updates has increased from 4-7 days to around 14 days. Updates to both the USA version and the European version have been with them for over a week so I hope they will be in the store sometime next week. If the interval between updates has to be longer, I hope to compensate by adding more birds each time.

The next European update includes:

• a new Dutch translation

* bird names available in Finnish

* new birds: Kingfisher, Curlew, Lapwing and Herring Gull

The next USA update includes:

• changes to the quiz

• new birds: Eastern Wood-Pewee, Western Wood-Pewee, Eastern Meadowlark, Western Meadowlark, Yellow Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler

More birds are waiting to be added so I hope the updates will go through soon!

Age range

I've had a couple of nice emails recently which give an idea of the age range of Chirp! users. First was a link to a family video showing 23 month old George and his amazing skills at bird recognition - apparently he has liked birds since he was old enough to point :). You can see the video and read George's dad's blog here: http://bit.ly/GUbnT

As for grown-up users, I know there are several that are older-than- the-average-iPhone-user. It's interesting how an interest in technology isn't so much linked to age, but to attitude. When people ask me what I do, I often have to explain what an iPhone is - almost always to anyone over 50 but even to a 20-year old on one occasion. Yet today I received an email from an 80 year old Chirp user :). Nice.

Summer?

Summer seems to have arrived - the swifts are screaming through the air and we've eaten our first home-grown strawberry. The collared doves that live outside our bedroom window are still trying to nest on a thin cable (cute but daft), the pond is full of newts and the insect life is getting going.

Meanwhile, back at the computer, updates to Chirp! Europe and USA are continuing to be released. Apple sneaked the last one out without telling me, so this time I'm checking the status of the updates every few hours in case they do the same thing again. The USA update is going to be a nice one - it adds five species of Oriole to the app and they are such beautiful birds. I have some great birds ready for Europe too as soon as the translations are done.

And finally:

"Great app" - Simon Mayo

What's that? Yes, it's true, Simon Mayo, who I consider to be the best BBC radio presenter, tweeted on Twitter that he thinks Chirp is a great app :D.

Update news

I've been busy for the past few weeks working on our next apps (more on this later!), as well as the usual updates for Chirp! and Chirp! USA. The updates should be out any day now -  they have been with Apple for a week already so it shouldn't take much longer. The last update to Chirp! Europe added the wonderful Golden Oriole and Hoopoe, both birds of southern Europe, so this time, to help balance things out, we are adding the Barn Owl and Little Owl, both relatively common in the UK, France and Germany. I would really like to add some more birds for Scandinavian countries but I need suggestions!

The update to Chirp! USA adds a link to the Macauley Lab of Ornithology "All About Birds" website, probably the best source for information on US birds - identification, life history, distribution maps and 'cool facts'. I've wanted to add this link for some time and I'm really pleased to have it in the app at  last - now, when you hear a bird and find out what it is, you can access all this information about the bird without leaving the app (as long as you have an internet connection).

And finally, Chirp! is now on Facebook! I hope the Facebook page will become a convenient way of keeping in touch, so please become a fan! If you are not on Facebook, don't forget you can follow us on Twitter, post below, or simply email :).