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!

End of an era

Very unusual for me to make two posts in as many days, but I felt that the occasion had to be marked in some way. The first Spiny Software cd-roms went on sale in the year 2000 and now, after 11 years, they will no longer be sold. They won't run on the latest operating systems on macs or windows, and we don't have time to update them any more.

I'm sad to see the end of this era, but I am hoping that we will recreate some of the titles as iPad apps, which would be great. I certainly won't be sorry to never have to work with windows again!

Thoughts on reviews

As a developer it is tempting to avoid reading reviews for apps that have been out for a long time and, one hopes, been polished over many updates. There is no way of responding to reviews on the App Store so for example if someone gives Chirp! a one star review because there is no sound, all we can do is shout at the computer "you've got the mute button on" which isn't helpful. (On that subject, Apple have a reasonably robust review process that all apps and updates have to go through so, really, they are not going to pass a bird song app that doesn't have sound).

Volume issues aside, obviously some people leave poor reviews because they genuinely don't like the app, but sadly one of the other main reasons for unusually poor reviews is that some competitors try and boost their app by leaving inaccurate or misleading reviews for better apps. Shame on them.

I don't want to give the impression that we are complacent. It's just that we have responded and will continue to respond to customers who make suggestions or tell us what they don't like - please continue! But to be sure that you are heard, the best way to contact us is through email, Facebook or Twitter (links above). Looking forward to hearing from you!

Progress report

Work on our long-awaited update to the Bird Guide is coming along fast! Alex has been able to devote considerable time to it recently and it is nearly ready for thorough testing. We are really looking forward to getting it finished - partly because we seem to have done little else for so long but also because it will be great to see the app as it was planned to be from the start.

April already?

My neglect of this blog is shameful! My only excuse is that little has changed - I am still working on the next Bird Guide Britain update, and squeezing in occasional Chirp updates when I have time.

The next update to the Bird Guide is a really major one with many new features. As well as new features there will be quite a few new birds, and I am also working through all the current birds, checking the information and adding new and better images. It's going to be very good! Progress has been slow this year because Alex, who does the complicated programming, is a student and has his final exams very soon. On the plus side this is giving me more time to improve the content, so the finished result will be even better!

2010, a busy year!

Looking back over 2010 I can't believe how busy we have been! At the beginning of the year we were finishing off our British Bird Guide and had started planning the new slideshow feature that we intended to add to Chirp!, when suddenly Apple announced the imminent arrival of their groundbreaking device, the iPad. We immediately shelved all other projects and worked like crazy to get an iPad version of Chirp! ready for the launch. It was fun to be in at the very start of the iPad and I'm very pleased we did experience that, but no sooner had we finished the iPad version, but we had to start updating the apps for the new iPhone 4 and its new multi-tasking feature. At this point I was wondering if we'll ever we able to resume normal operations, but fortunately (for us, anyway) Apple took a break from producing new devices and we were able to get back to routine work.

During the summer Bird Guide Britain received a complete cosmetic makeover by Marcello at Wrinkly Pea, and we also added a slew of new features, then we resumed work on the slideshow for Chirp! It took way longer than we expected to get the slideshow working in just the way we wanted, in portrait and landscape mode, and in 6 languages, but it was finally released this month - a full year since we started on it! Here's hoping faster progress will be made in 2011!

Happy New Year to you all!

Bug alert! (Bird Guide Britain)

A bug crept into the last update of Bird Guide Britain and messed up the lists of seen birds and starred birds. We have made a fix which will return the lists to their previous state, but unfortunately if you have already gone through the app and corrected the list yourself, you will have to do it all again when the update comes out. We are really very sorry about this :(. We looked into all the possible ways of correcting the fault, but the more complicated the fix, the longer it would take to implement and test, so we decided that the best course of action is to release a quick fix as soon as possible to minimise the number of people affected.

We've asked Apple to prioritise the update (which they do in cases like this) so it should be out in a few days.