iBird Ultimate Guide to Birds

I started with iBird, then got hooked into Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird app only to find the Cornell apps don’t work unless there’s internet connectivity. Most of the time I’m birding in remote places that are cell dead zones so the Cornell apps were useless. Not so with Mitch Waite’s iBird. It’s comprehensive functionality can be fully used when there’s no internet of any kind. The global science context of the Cornell apps is very attractive but since their apps don’t work in many places where I go birding, sorry! Plus, iBird has many more features than eBird especially if you include iBird Journal app functionality. Thanks To Mitch and his team.

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iBird has been my main birding app for many years, and over multiple editions of the app. Unfortunately, the latest update to Ultimate has added a button on the main screen promoting the in-app purchase of Photo Sleuth. While browsing birds, I will sometimes also see a second banner at the bottom of the page promoting the same in-app purchase. This bothers me greatly. I've paid a hefty sum for the app already, and should be able to use it without banners advertising paid features. The button and banner occupy precious screen real estate that in previous versions were showing more birds. The button & banner are in the way, and I wish I could disable them. I've even looked to find a way to revert to the previous version of the app, but to no avail. To the Developer: Please remove the annoying banners/buttons. This is an amazing app, and I have recommended it to so many birders over the years. Unfortunately, this update bothers me enough to tip me toward using one of your competitors' apps (Sibley) instead. Much as I love iBird, this is a step in the wrong direction. Please consider this suggestion.

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What is there to say. The Ultimate version is a dead product. If you want updates to the program or data you are now expected to buy the Pro version apparently?! I have always been confused why there were multiple iBird products and which one is the most complete or what the difference even was. Most folks would look at the name of “Ultimate” and figure that is the top of all the iBird products line. Apparently not as this version is now discontinued. The developer appears to blame Apple but it is the developer that created this confusion by making multiple versions of the same product. Not sure after spending money on a now discontinued product if I trust them enough to buy yet another version. After all, if this happened once, it will probably happen again. Heck, something like a “subscription” will probably come next after I buy the Pro version! (Except I don’t “rent” software and I have many other bird sources so I’ll have to decide if iBird is worth more money or I have enough bird ID programs and books already.)

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I live in the San Francisco Bay area, where the habitats change every few miles. So no matter where I am hiking in the bay area I seem to get a list of 297 species of birds to choose from. This app seems to include pelagic birds, shorebirds, mountain birds and everything in between. And this list stays the same no matter what habitat I’m hiking in. I understand the Geo location has a radius of about 25 miles, equaling a diameter of 50 miles, which would make Geo locating pretty useless amid such diverse geography where I live. To make this app useful for Geo location, I think it would need a much smaller radius, say 5 miles. The choices for “time of year” are confusing because the six choices are not mutually exclusive. The app would be useful if it used a real-time data base of birds that have been cited in the last week or so in the location where I am hiking. This would eliminate a lot of birds to choose from that aren’t even located where I am at this time of year. The result is that after having this app for a number of months, I use it only as an encyclopedia of American birds. This is useful to me because it means I don’t have to carry a book with me.

The bird illustrations are spectacular, the maps are excellent, and the text is absolutely unparalleled. In my opinion, iBird sets the highest standard for all three of these essential qualities. Unfortunately, iBird falls far behind in the fourth key aspect of bird identification—sounds. iBird does have a great selection of songs and calls, but unfortunately the audio quality for many species is tinny, weak, fuzzy, or even distorted. This is a major shortcoming in all versions of iBird, compared to the far superior sound quality in apps like Sibley or Audubon. Hopefully the good folks at iBird will address this problem with an update that improves the audio reproduction. In the meantime, I depend on other apps with superior sound quality, while I use iBird for everything else.