This is to let everyone know that the Michael Morcombe field guide to Australian birds was released as an iPhone / iPod touch app yesterday. It can be found by searching for “Australian birds” in the Apple iTunes store.
The main advantage of this format (aside from the obvious size and weight issue) is that it comes with the calls of all but a couple of the regularly occurring species, provided by David Stewart. It sells for $36.99. Beware that it’s a very large download (over 300MB).
I provided comments on an earlier beta version of the app. Personally I hope a lot more field guides become available in this format. While I think I’d always choose a book if I was going somewhere where I didn’t know most of the birds, in a place where you don’t need to be looking at a book too often having all the information in your pocket all the time with calls easily accessible is so convenient. I just hope the authors of the Australian mammal, frog and reptile guides follow suit!
For people who have not used iPods or iPhones before, this software will only run on those devices. The cheapest iPod touch is around $280.
Cheers,
Murray Lord
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The two best regarded guides for North America (iBird Pro and the Sibley eGuide) cost $US 29.99 each at the US store, the same price as the new Morcombe at the US store. All three guides are comprehensive for their regions rather than offering only a smaller region or set of families.
With that said, the birding apps are expensive by App Store standards. Why? Well, they’ve got a lot of great data and they can get away with it. As a comparison, “Wild Mushrooms of North America and Europe” by Rober Phillips is pretty high quality, includes 2,400 pictures of 1,550 species and costs $US 1.99. I guess mushroom hunters aren’t ready to spend as much money as birders 😉 ===============================
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That’s impressive. Can you search your own notes? I also wonder if your notes are easily lost if you change phones, etc.
I’m also impressed that several people have bought and installed the guide so quickly. I’d be even more impressed if anything similar was ever available for a Blackberry phone, sometimes it seems like the manufacturers have put a ban on useful applications.
Peter Shute
Hi Peter et al., Just finished downloading it myself, so haven’t really explored it yet, but it does look like you can add at least some limited notes.
John Tongue Ulverstone, Tas
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It’s true about the weight advantage, and that extra pages don’t weigh any extra. (When is iHANZAB coming out?)
One disadvantage of electronic formats is that you can’t add your own notes. I assume the Morcombe application doesn’t allow that?
Peter Shute
I’ve been holding off on getting an iPod/Phone/Pad but finally needed one for a project. (I got an iPod Touch.) I was totally skeptical about these things as the screen is too small (iPod/iPhone) or the device is impractically large (iPad). Shows what I know, I’m a complete and total convert. The iWhatever is the field guide of the future. It’s great news that there’s finally something comprehensive for Australia.
There’s an old rule in computers that if you want to get people to convert from a manual/paper system to a computerized system, you have to make the new experience better than real life. To explain why I’ve been converted, I’ll list some of the virtues of f iBird Explorer Pro a field guide for North American birds. There are several full field guides for North America available now – including Sibley (best plates). I got iBird because they’ve earned a reputation for having a comprehensive and easy to use application. Here’s why I live it:
* Size and weight. If I’m only going to be passing through the US or don’t have much birding time, I don’t tend to take a book along. As it was, I took my smaller guide rather than my better guide for this reason in the past.
* Plates and photos iBird has standard plates (they’re fine) _and_ photos for the birds. I like plates but photos as a supplement can make all of the difference. This is particularly true outside of Australia where little brown birds seem to be the norm.
* Lots of text It costs nothing to put in more data as there’s no printing costs. So, they poured a lot of detail into the app.
* Sounds! Better than paper – it’s a book with sounds. Fantastic. This is worth the price of admission alone.
There are more and more field guides available now, depending on your interests. It’s tropical fish, edible mushrooms, birds and mammals for me. There are also trees, butterflies, bugs, flowering plants, etc. out there. Really, the range of applications is impressive now and is only getting better.
For those that don’t know about these devices.
* iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad all run an operating system called iOS. These devices and the operating system are produced by Apple.
* The iPhone has WiFi and a phone and so is likely to require a phone/data plan. Not sure, I don’t use it. The iPod Touch is like an iPhone but has no phone – just WiFi. That’s what I have. The iPad has a much bigger screen and no phone. Applications written for an iPhone/iPod will run on an iPad, but the screen may be magnified or look a bit off. Apps can be written specifically for the iPad. General purpose apps tend to be written to run correctly on all three formats.
* You get applications onto your device by syncing it with a copy of iTunes. iTunes is free and runs on OS X and Windows. You can put movies (in some formats), movie and such into iTunes apart from apps. Just to make sure it’s clear, you do _not_ need to buy a Mac to use an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad.
* Applications are available from the “app store”. iTunes + the App Store is part of what makes the whole experience work. Purchase and installation of applications is _painless_. Too painless, in a way 😉 Don’t fear, there are stacks of good, free applications apart from the paid ones. ($30+ is actually on the expensive side for applications for these devices.)
* The operating system and such are kind of locked down. Meaning, there aren’t a lot of ways to mess things up, you can’t get viruses and the like. (I’ve never even heard of a proof-of-concept attack on iOS, let alone something in the wild.)
* Stores are localized to particular countries, but I think you can get accounts in more than one country. Don’t quote me on that. The Morcombe app is $US 29.99 at the US App Store.
* The iPod Touch was recently updated – the new version has a built-in camera. So, you’ll probably see a few versions around if you’re looking.
* The iPad is always reported to have unbelievable battery life – as in up to ten ours. Chances are, they entire inside of the case is a flat battery sheet. The smaller devices do well, but they certainly don’t last ten hours of full use.
* Retail is expensive in Australia because vendors can get away with it. (Retail competition in the US, by comparison, is a bar fight with knives.) Given the giddy heights the $A has reached, consider buying overseas. I think that everything Apple sells has a universal power supply (works on any voltage) and plug adapters are only a few dollars. Don’t quote me on the power supply…Another option is to pick one up on the duty free side of the airport in Sydney if your’e coming back from anywhere – the prices there are pretty close to what you find in the US (usually the cheapest place for Apple gear) and much cheaper than at an Apple Store in Australia. If you’re at the airport and see the Apple booth, you can even use their machines to connect to the Apple store in Australia and see how the prices compare. They don’t sell everything at the airport (no Mac Mini) but did have iPads and such when I passed through a few months ago. ===============================
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Thanks Murray
Exactly the info I was after.
Regards
Ian May St Helens
Murray Lord wrote:
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