Whatbird.com

This forum is for discussing the iBird PRO application for the iPhone or iPod Touch. The purpose of this forum is to share your thoughts about the product, suggest new features, offer insights and of course vent. While we are open to criticism our only request is that you remain civil and mature in your comments. You can learn about iBird PRO in the Apple iTunes store.

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Mitch Waite

Just curious if anyone else was having problems with sound in iphone OS 3.0.  No bird seems to have a call, though i didn't have ibird when i had 2.0 so i dont know if this feature is just not fully implemented yet.  Is this a bug or am i just using your app incorrectly?

Are you sure you mean OS 3? As far as I know OS 3 is still in beta and only works in the iPhone simulator. The sounds can give some people trouble, please refer to the FAQ for ideas on how to get them working (under Help in the app).

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Mitch Waite

Yeah, im a developer and so have access to the 3.0 beta (which is fantastic by the way)...you wouldn't know i was a developer from my last post though!  The sound probably wont work if you have the phone in silent mode!!!

 I guess i could use this opportunity to say how awesome i think the program is though!  Great work on the interface and the efficiency, it runs really smoothly, and i love the content, great work!

Wow you are the first person I know to have run the app on OS 3. I wasn't aware you could upgrade the phone itself to OS3. Did this upgrade of your phone give you access to all of the cool OS3 features? I'm glad you are impressed with the interface, we spent a huge amount of time testing and retesting it. Its nice to hear from a real developer.

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Mitch Waite

ok, I'm not a developer, just interested in the application, either Pro or Plus. I'm from England and think this application looks awsome, however, I'm not sure that it would cover the birds that we get. Can you advise please on whether this would be worth me getting as it is, or even, if there are any plans to make a european version..... please please please!!

There are not enough birds that overlap those in the UK so I would not purchase iBird. Also some species have different common names which would make things even more confusing. We are working on iBird UK and when its done we will announce it here.

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Mitch Waite

Just got iBird Explorer Pro for both my iPhone and iTouch. This will be easier to use along with a camera than having to carry the field guides. I plan on submitting photos to add to your collection

Since I can't find the pdf users manual, most things are intuitive, but how do you place items into the "Favorites" Features. I assume you have to be in a different screen and indicate that the current Bird is a favorite. Tried swiping, scrolling, searching...

Only problem that I see is that after several selections in the application, it drops out back to the main iPhone app screen. I haven't figured out if any pattern defines this behavior - but assume it will be resolved in an update. 

 Thanks,

Bob 

birdgrdn:

Just got iBird Explorer Pro for both my iPhone and iTouch. This will be easier to use along with a camera than having to carry the field guides. I plan on submitting photos to add to your collection

Since I can't find the pdf users manual, most things are intuitive, but how do you place items into the "Favorites" Features. I assume you have to be in a different screen and indicate that the current Bird is a favorite. Tried swiping, scrolling, searching...

Only problem that I see is that after several selections in the application, it drops out back to the main iPhone app screen. I haven't figured out if any pattern defines this behavior - but assume it will be resolved in an update. 

 Thanks,

Bob 

 

Bob - to see how to use Favorites tap the Help icon and scroll down to the 4th box, called Enabling Favorites and Flickr. We are working on the issue and see this link for more details about the program quitting.

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Mitch Waite

Hi Mitch,

First of all, great work! I am a big fan of this application.

It may behoove you to create a section in the forum where users can post corrections. 

For example, in my opinion photos 4 and 7 in the Northern Harrier account are Accipiter sp.  My best guess is that photo 4 is A. cooperii and photo 7 is A. striatus. 

Cheers,

 Jim

 

Limosa:

Hi Mitch,

First of all, great work! I am a big fan of this application.

It may behoove you to create a section in the forum where users can post corrections. 

For example, in my opinion photos 4 and 7 in the Northern Harrier account are Accipiter sp.  My best guess is that photo 4 is A. cooperii and photo 7 is A. striatus. 

Cheers,

 Jim

 

 

Thank you Jim for noticing that. With 1800 photos and growing its easy to make mistakes. I will set up a good location for corrections.

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Mitch Waite

 just bought the Pro version, a moveup from the ‘Backyard’ version. The primary reason I 'upgraded' ( note: a misnomer since there is no such thing) to Pro is the song search capability not offered in the Plus version which I believe it should be. I do not need any of the other features offered in the Pro version over the Plus version.

 Having now used the Pro version, I wish to make a comment. First, I am disappointed because it is not what I was expecting (Song Search only, I haven’t used the other Pro features). For the price, I was expecting something at least as good as the iPhone APP called ‘Shazam’ (which is free) that identifies any song you let your iPhone ‘listen’ to, just by holding your phone in presence of the sound. I was expecting iBird PRO to at least do that, hear a clear bird song, hold up the iPhone in presence of the song, and iPhone would come back with the bird identity. Noway. Instead, when I selected song search it gave me about 10 categories to chose from, which I selected one, then it gave me 380 birds to chose from. Again, no way. The bird was not in sight, only sound so the other identifying characteristics other than location were useless. The best I was able to do was to reduce my selections down to about 81 birds. Now who wants to do that for the extra money?

Shazam recognizes any 15 or 20 second audio clip from hundred of thousands of songs with immediate identification. I don't see why iBird can do this with less than 900 birds.

 Fred

Re: Shazam-like features for iBird --

Mitch Waite discussed this concept elsewhere in the forum (see this post: http://www.whatbird.com/forums/forums/post/86538.aspx), but to summarize, bird songs are extremely complex compared to music.  They have 2 voice boxes, so the range of frequencies is much greater than for music.  Add this to the fact that no 2 birds of the same species sound exactly the same (sometimes the same bird doesn't even make the same noise repeatedly), and a Shazam-like feature is nearly impossible.  

I'm sure they're working on it, but I wouldn't expect it any time soon. 

zymurg:

 Having now used the Pro version, I wish to make a comment. First, I am disappointed because it is not what I was expecting (Song Search only, I haven’t used the other Pro features). For the price, I was expecting something at least as good as the iPhone APP called ‘Shazam’ (which is free) that identifies any song you let your iPhone ‘listen’ to, just by holding your phone in presence of the sound. I was expecting iBird PRO to at least do that, hear a clear bird song, hold up the iPhone in presence of the song, and iPhone would come back with the bird identity. Noway. Instead, when I selected song search it gave me about 10 categories to chose from, which I selected one, then it gave me 380 birds to chose from. Again, no way. The bird was not in sight, only sound so the other identifying characteristics other than location were useless. The best I was able to do was to reduce my selections down to about 81 birds. Now who wants to do that for the extra money?

Shazam recognizes any 15 or 20 second audio clip from hundred of thousands of songs with immediate identification. I don't see why iBird can do this with less than 900 birds.

 Fred

There are two misconceptions in your message. First no where in the app store page does iBird claim to have a feature like Shazam. Search by song means you hear the song and then select the one closest to it. Narrowing your selections from 891 to 80 birds is not worth it? Most people find a 90% reduction pretty dramatic. The biggest misconception is your analysis of Shazam and conclusion that if it works for music why can't it work for bird calls. Read this thread. If you whistled a song to Shazam it would fall on its face and never know what you wanted because it uses the digital fingerprint of the music it listens to, and then compares that with a library of all known music it has on its servers. If we could get birds to sign the same song as perfect as a digital music track your fantasy might come true but the bottom line is bird songs are more complex than most people know. Every song is different even amoung the same species. Birds have two voices boxes. Couple that with the fact the iPhone microphone is totally unsuitable for recording anything but a loud sound held close to it and you can quiclky see why its unlikely there will ever be a Bird Song Shazam.

I have no problem with your disappointment that the product did not perform as you imagined, and we are continually perfecting iBird, but I do think you should do a little research before slaming a product as inadequate. 

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Mitch Waite

Mitch,

First, I did not suggest that anyone claimed there to be 'Shazam' capability in Song Search. I merely said that it was my expectation in consideration of the price and the capabilities of a free program for literally thousands of songs, performed by many different artist in relation to less than 900 birds. I believe the technology exist.

If I though that the song search would reduce my selection down to about 80 birds or whatever, its far from worth the added costs. It should be an included feature in the Plus version. I was not slamming the product.

I am glad that you mention previously that the possibility is being worked on. I know that it is being worked on, and, the first that comes up with it will own the market.

Good luck with your APP.