Listing iPhone App (UK) (1 Viewer)

Hi All, I just wanted to gauge interest in an iPhone bird listing app which I have been developing over the last few months.
I started looking for an iPhone App about a year ago as I wanted to keep a record of the birds I've seen in various places plus the obligatory Life List. I soon found that none of the Apps on the market provided the functionality I was looking for, namely auto-population of lists from other lists. For instance, if I have a county list and also a site list within that county; if I observe a species not seen before in that county and then add it to my site list, I expect my county list to also be updated with that species. If it happens to be a life tick then my Life List should also be updated.
The closest thing to what I was looking for is the Bubo website but even that does not have the logic I am looking for and of course it is not available offline (in the field). So, I set about developing my own App for my own use but then quickly realised that this was possibly what other birdwatchers were looking for as well.
Months later (or what seems like years), I believe I have come close to the App I'm looking for. After that rather long-winded introduction, the question is, IS IT? Is this is viable piece of software for birdwatchers out there, an App which allows birders to create lists and then populates those lists automatically?

I wonder if the birdlog app for ebird entry would have been what you were looking for. Once online in Ebird, any added species will count on all your applicable lists, and the birdlog app should work offline as well. http://www.birdseyebirding.com/

Disclaimer: I have no personal interest nor experience in these, because my phone is not really all that smart

Niels

I tried eBird in the past and had another look following your comments but it does not support (unless I'm missing something) the creation of existing lists other than as an import from other software. You can only add current sightings.

The problem with listing apps is that whilst a phone might be the thing you have in the field, it far easier to do list management, add notes etc. on a proper computer, hence the use of web based databases. If you could come up with a listing app that uses a portable format (eg CSV) and that database can be downloaded/uploaded between phone and computer then you would be onto something.

The technical concept behind the App is that you have a local database on your phone (obviously), this synchronises to the "Cloud" which is then accessible from many places including a website. I am very close to finishing the App and expect this to be on the AppStore later this year. Of course, ideally I would want the whole suite of functionality available from the start but being a one man band (with family member helpers) I can't wait for that to happen.
Hopefully any users will be patient and will see the potential of what the App could provide over the longer term.

Update for those that are interested. I have decided to only release the iPhone listing App once the accompanying website is complete. Reviewing the concept I decided (with the help of others) that it would be a poor user experience if the data could not be viewed outside of the App.

Have a look at Birdwatcher's Diary - in conjunction with eBird (to which it supports direct upload) I think that you will be able to accomplish everyone that you describe. And this combination allows you to share your sightings with other users. eBird's bird log seemed very crude when I last looked at it although in fairness that was at launch and they may have developed it further since.

BW Diary also facilitates sharing of reports via the likes of Facebook and the creation of Google Earth plots of your sightings as well as integration with Dropbox for backup.

I like it a lot - even though it's American software it's well tailored for the British user and their support is first class in my opinion.

John

salopbirder said:

Update for those that are interested. I have decided to only release the iPhone listing App once the accompanying website is complete. Reviewing the concept I decided (with the help of others) that it would be a poor user experience if the data could not be viewed outside of the App.

Click to expand...

Are you still working on this? I very much like the idea of a simple app like the one you describe, with a hierarchy of lists. In my imagination you would enter your data into an event list, and higher order lists (location, county, year, life, custom) would be automatically populated.

I agree that further manipulation of the lists would be better done externally. Syncing to a companion website sounds great, but although I am not a developer I am aware that the implementation here is not easy! Export to CSV via email or Dropbox would be a reasonable target for version 1 (and the functionality would be necessary anyway).

Anyway, it would be great to hear if you are still working on this, and if so how it's going.