Peterson's App for NA Birds (1 Viewer)

Lisa, thanks for the compliment. We worked hard to try and keep the feel of the Peterson book, while adding the bells and whistles that users of mobile devices have come to appreciate. We still have a lot of great plans for the app. The iPhone interface could do with improvement, we want to make it easier for users to own the data they add to the app (syncing and exporting lists and sightings) and we have a few interesting new features we'd like to add, all while keeping things simple and intuitive.

Twenywell, Appweavers only has a license to the Peterson name and content for North America (US and Canada), so we can't sell the app in the UK, unfortunately. I'm hoping this will change in the future.

Marys1000, and other Android fans, we do intend to develop a version of the Peterson app for Android, but things are moving slowly. We're a very small company and supporting multiple operating environments is expensive, especially Android where there are so many different devices and form factors. Our intention is to get all the functionality we have planned onto the Apple iOS platform, make sure it's stable and then port to Android. In the meantime, there's always the iPod touch

KC, there have been lots of discussions online about playback. David Sibley wrote a great blog post last year summarizing the various arguments. I think the prevailing sentiment right now is judicious use is OK, with extra care during breading season. If you look in the Extras folder in the Peterson app, we included the ABA code of birding ethics, which does mention playback of bird songs. Jeff Gordon mentioned in a recent article that the code of ethics probably needs updating, but that he's not necessarily against playback.

Nigel

Hi Nigel.

I'm one of the old timers that doesn't believe bird calls should be played during breeding season. I just got so entranced with the app I wasn't thinking when I played it and of all things to play, a Hawk's call.:eek!:

Peterson in the UK

Sad that the app is not available in the UK! But I am visiting Canada in the autumn, sorry the fall, so I should be able to invest my 99 cents then!

There is a workaround available if you want to access apps not available in your local iTunes store. You can create an account in the US iTunes store. But to do so you will need to use a different email address (as it only lets you create one account with a given email address), and need to use a friend's mailing address in the US when you register. To do so you click on the tiny round flag on the bottom right corner of the iTunes shop page, log out of your existing account and click on the US flag when given the choice of locations.

Updating apps in future depends on you being logged in under the right account so you will need to repeat the process periodically in future.

Very good to know Murray. Thanks for that post. I'm sure a lot of members were not aware of this. I know I wasn't.

twentywell said:

Sad that the app is not available in the UK! But I am visiting Canada in the autumn, sorry the fall, so I should be able to invest my 99 cents then!

Click to expand...

We call it autumn too tw