10.06
2017-12-24
This app has been updated by Apple to display the Apple Watch app icon.
Besides compatibility with the iPhone X, this new expanded version of iBird is completely updated for the 2017 American Ornithological Union (AOU) Supplement. There are two new species; the Cassia Crossbill and the Sinaloa Wren. The Thayer’s Gull has been lumped as a subspecies of the Iceland Gull. Plus there are over 100 small changes, some of which are listed below.
In our continuing effort to improve our illustrations and photos we have updated the following 7 species drawings with much improved composite illustrations (the full version of iBird, Plus, Pro and Ultimate has 32 new species drawings): Broad-tailed Hummingbird, Bronzed Cowbird, Cassia Crossbill, Hairy Woodpecker, Killdeer, Say's Phoebe, Sinaloa Wren. You can see these in a matched list by selecting Search->Illustration Update->10.06.
There are 7 new AOU changes to Families (not all of these are in iBird Yard): Sylviid Warblers (Sylviidae) changed to Old World Babblers (Timaliidae), Leaf Warblers (Phylloscopidae) changed to Bush Warblers, Tesias and Allies (Cettidae), Grassbirds (Megaluridae) changed to Grassbirds (Locustellidae), Cardinals & Piranga Tanagers (Cardinalidae) changed to Spindalises (Spindalidae), Emberizids (Emberizidae) has a new famuly New World Sparrows and Towhees (Passerellida). Finally the family Parulidae has changed to Icteriidae. Note the family Icteriidae is monotypic, containing only a single species, the Yellow-breasted Chat (Icteria virens).
Owls of Mexico
Includes Owls of Mexico, the first time we have extended the North America database to include new species. In this collection our favorite 16 Owls of Mexico and Central America are presented in all the high quality detail iBird is known for, including illustrations with field marks, range maps, songs and calls, photos, ID and behavior data and much more. Take a look at the graphical onboard tutorial on the Purchase page for a visual presentation of a typical species account for this package.
Time of Day Search
The new Time of Day search feature lets you filter birds by activity intervals during day or night (Cathemeral), dawn and dusk (Crepuscular), during the day (Diurnal) or during the night (Nocturnal). Time of Day Notes which provide additional information about a species behavior are found on each species from a new Time of Day menu. The Time of Day feature is particularly useful for birders who are interested in night birding.
10.04
2017-07-30
Fixed a crash being experienced by some users.
Time of Day Search. The new Time of Day search feature lets you filter birds by activity intervals during day or night (Cathemeral), dawn and dusk (Crepuscular), during the day (Diurnal) or during the night (Nocturnal). Time of Day Notes which provide additional information about a species behavior are found on each species from a new Time of Day menu. The Time of Day feature is particularly useful for birders who are interested in night birding and is available as an inexpensive in-app update for 99 cents. Please note that we are in the process of updating the paragraphs for each species so this first release will not be complete.
Dropbox Migration is back. As you may know before we implemented iCloud for syncing Favorites, Notes and Photos, we used Dropbox. We made the shift because Dropbox removed an essential feature we used for the backup and sync feature to work. We thought enough time had gone by that most of our customers had migrated to iCloud, but we discovered that was not the case. So, we have implemented the Dropbox migration again feature so that customers who are still using it can let iBird move their Notes and Favorites to iCloud. You will still need to reassign your photos once they have been moved to your iCloud folder.
New Sounds. New sounds were just added for 8 owl species: the Elf Owl, Flammulated Owl, Great Gray Owl, Great Horned Owl, Northern Hawk Owl, Spotted Owl, Western Screech-Owl, and Whiskered Screech-Owl. Check out the female call of a Northern Hawk Owl in flight and female alarm calls from a Spotted Owl. We are committed to adding to our extensive sound library and routinely check for new sounds that we can include. Our Western Screech-Owl is a prime example of this. While we had the song, trill and alarm calls for this species we were able to add female and begging whinny calls as well as a different type of alarm call.
New Species: We are constantly updating the illustrations for our species. Here are the ones we have updated for this new version 10.03 of iBird. Black-faced Grassquit, Botteri's Sparrow, Cinnamon Hummingbird, Costa's Hummingbird, King Rail, Kirtland's Warbler, Limpkin, Louisiana Waterthrush.
10.02
2017-05-03
We restored the recordings for hundreds of species so they now have many more vocalizations.
We added the recordings for many species which had no vocalizations in prior versions of iBird.
Database is up to 50% smaller.
All new sound library.
Landscape mode now works for iPad.
Photo Center Facebook photo sharing works.
Free stickers for birders.
Completely updated for new AOU and ABA standards.
15 new species drawings found with Search->Illustration Update->10.0.
Splits-History in Search-Basic Group shows AOU and ABA changes for 2014, 2015 and 2016.
Free 7-day trial for new in-app purchases for Birds Around Me (BAM) and Percevia smart search. See Navigation->Purchases screen.
View by Head via Set View/Sort Mode button.
Gallery mode now includes Common Names of species.
Compare iBird versions: bit.ly/about-ibird
9.30
2016-06-26
■ Improved migration from Dropbox to iCloud.
■ Updates should now be smaller downloads.
■ Fixed a few bugs.
9.21
2016-05-09
Update 9.21 of iBird Yard Plus Guide to Birds fixes a bug in iCloud Notes. Be aware that iCloud has replaced Dropbox for backing up your own photos, notes and favorites. There is a migration feature that will automatically move your Notes and Favorites from Dropbox to iCloud. Just follow the popup instructions. Additionally, we have updated these species: Caspian Tern, Common Ground-Dove, Dusky Thrush, Elf Owl, Great Skua, Hoary Redpoll, Olive-backed Pipit, Reed Bunting and the Rustic Bunting.
If you encounter ANY issues please contact us at http://ibird.com/contact-us/ . We'll be happy to assist you!
9.2
2016-05-02
Update 9.2 of iBird Yard + Guide to Birds now includes iCloud for backing up your own photos, notes and favorites.
9.1
2015-12-13
This update uses a new feature of iOS 9 called "app thinning". Based on asset catalogs, slicing and on-demand resources it avoids downloading assets you'll never need. So for example an iPhone doesn't need to download an iPad splash screen. Overall this means updates only download the files that have changed -- so updates are much faster to finish. Which allows us to update more often.
Improved Thumbnail and Gallery images. The images for the Thumbnail and Gallery view now use 24-bit PNGs which are much sharper and easier to see than the previous JPG images.
New illustrations. Be sure to visit the Illustration Update attribute on the search menu and select the latest version number. This will show you all the illustrations that have been updated.
Fixed a bug in Force Touch when used with Gallery mode.
9.0
2015-11-16
■ All New iOS 9 Advanced Features
■ 3D Force Touch: Pop from iBird icon
■ 3D Force Touch: Peek from Browse screen
■ Deep Linking: Search for birds from the iPhone Spotlight screen
■ Save Search attributes remembers settings
■ 235 AOU and ABA species with the latest splits and name changes
■ Over 1,000 song and call recordings with multiple vocalizations
■ Customize interface with Day and Night themes
■ New Subspecies Range Maps
■ New composite illustrations from our best artists!
■ Sophisticated search engine with 19 attributes
■ Includes both Illustrations and Photos
■ Persistent Field Mark layer can be turned on or off
■ Slideshow with sounds, special effects, timed delay and more
7.25
2015-07-11
What’s new in 7.25: We tweaked a number of important features in version 7.25 of iBird Yard Plus.
SAVE SEARCH
You asked for a way to set certain attributes to there defaults, such as your home state or your favorite family of birds, so you did not have to select them every time you restarted the app. Save Search, found on Search menu, allows you to save any set of attributes you want iBird to remember for future searches.
SEARCH BY COMMON NAME, LATIN NAME OR BAND CODE
Now there is a button to the right of the search field you can use to toggle between the 3 options. So much easier!
VIEW AND SORT MODE WORKS WITH FAVORITES
Many asked for a way to sort Favorites by Family or Last name, and to view Favorites in Compact mode or Thumbnail mode. Well now you can!
POPUPS
To help first-time iBird users, we added popups that appear the very first time you use certain critical features of the app.
TURN OFF SOUND AUTOPLAY
You now have the option of disabling the Sound Autoplay feature. Customers requested it since the sounds can disturb birds in the field.
FIXED LOCATION UNCOMMON
We discovered that there were some real problems with Location Uncommon and Location Common. We corrected them, and suffice it to say, these two attributes work much better now.
7.22
2015-03-15
Bug fixes and performance improvements
7.2
2014-10-19
Check out a few of iBird Yard Plus exciting new features:
■ The most sophisticated bird identification algorithm and expansive digital key, according to the American Birding Association.
■ Search engine with 19 attributes help you identify the exact bird you are looking for. Search by color, shape, song, location, head and body patterns, flight style and much more plus a new way to search by prominent color. Includes tutorials on how to use the Search function and definitions of every attribute.
■ Day and Night Themes. Day theme is black text on a paper-white background. The dimmer Night theme keeps the iPhone from alerting every critter in your yard.
■ More song and call recordings! The iBird Yard Plus sound library now has over1,070 high-quality recordings, recorded by experts in the field.
■ Sound Player has been completely redesigned with features that can play all the vocalizations for a species and show the location a recording was made.
■ New composite illustrations from our best artists. Our products are the only birding apps with BOTH illustrations and photos.
■ 18 Subspecies Range Maps show migrations and locations of numerous races throughout the year.
■ Flickr option allows you to see photos others have stored on Yahoo's Flickr site for a chosen species.
■ Favorites Sort and View Modes. Now your Favorites list screen has the entire set of Sort and View functions found on the Browse/Search screen.
7.0
2014-05-31
▶ All New iOS 7 Advanced Features
▶ Totally new user interface
▶ 235 common and uncommon yard and garden birds
▶ New composite illustrations from our best artists!
▶ Field Mark layer can be turned on or off
▶ Over 1,000 recordings of bird songs and calls
▶ Higher detailed Range Maps with 6 seasons
6.1
2013-02-07
▶ iBIRD YARD PLUS VERSION 6.1 UPDATE SALE - 40% OFF. PRICE REDUCED TO $2.99
▶ MWG’s GREATEST UPDATE EVER! We’ve added new species to iBird’s database aligned with the AOU / ABA standards, optimized for iPhone 5, iOS 6 & iPad Mini and added many new drawings and photos.
▶ IPHONE 5 SCREEN SUPPORT - iBird now takes full advantage of the taller iPhone 5 screen.
▶ UPDATED ILLUSTRATIONS - 28 iBird species have brand new illustrations by one of our award-winning artists, Michael Oberhofer.
▶ FULLSCREEN VIEW OF ILLUSTRATIONS - Now by tapping on the illustration for a species you can open a full screen view of the illustration that allows you to zoom.
▶ LANDSCAPE MODE - All of the iBird portrait screens now support landscape orientation on the iPad and the iPad Mini.
▶ IPAD FULL LANDSCAPE MODE – All screens on iPad now work in Landscape.
▶ UPDATED SPECIES NAMES - Updated the common names of 6 species, and 46 species have had their Latin names revised. We made changes to the taxonomic ordering and band codes for all the species with new Latin names.
▶ MISCELLANEOUS – Syncing of Favorites and Notes to the cloud has been made more robust. There is now a warning if you try to close Notes without saving. The glossary has been added to the species page slider for easy access.
6.0
2012-07-14
▶ 1 NEW SPECIES: The Winter Wren has been split into the Pacific and Winter Wren.
▶ MANY NEW SPECIES DRAWINGS.
▶ RENAMED ALL PHOTOS - This was a monster job. We wanted to make the photo titles more accurately reflect the bird in it, so we added a set of rules for the headline. Now you will see a consistent use of titles that tell you if it's an adult, juvenile, female, etc. If you see any mistakes please let us know.
▶ SAVE & LOAD SEARCH - Now you can save your selected search values and quickly load them later.
▶ CONFORMS TO ABA AND AOU STANDARDS – we are bringing iBird into conformity with the ABA and AOU standard for North America. As a first step check out the split of the Winter Wren and Pacific Wren.
▶ TAXONOMIC ORDERING IN FAMILY MODE - We have made the ordering of the species in the Browse screen Taxonomic mode to be complete, e.g. before we had the families ordered correctly but the species within the Family were sorted alphabetically. Now they are sorted by taxon. You can still sort them alphabetically by Family by setting the Taxonomic switch to off.
▶ RETINA ICONS - Retina Icons. We have updated all our icons to be compatible with the retina display, meaning they no longer have any jaggies. In the process we updated a lot of the icons in the tab bar and on the More page. Thanks to the customers who hammered us on this detail we kept putting off.
▶ COLOR PROMINENT - This is a new attribute we are really proud of because of how effective it is for matching birds. The Color Prominent attribute is the answer to the question, "What color of the bird is most conspicuous?" It’s the color that stands out the most and is the most striking. Secondarily it may be the color that makes up the largest percentage of the bird's coloring. Try this attribute when you see a bird and let us know how much it helps you.
▶ HEAD PATTERN - Big, giant and huge update to the Head Pattern attribute. We have stressed in the Search tutorials how important the head of bird is to identifying it and none are more important than Head Pattern. We went back and fine tuned this attribute adding a new value called Eyebrow. We also made sure the Overviews reflected the values assigned to this attribute.
5.1
2011-12-22
■ AUDIO CLIPS - from the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
■ CLOUD - Share Notes, Favorites, and Favorite Lists in the Apple "cloud" and never worry about backing up. Syncs favorites and notes to all devices automatically.
■ NEW LANDSCAPE MODE PHOTOS - Rotate your phone or iPad and the landscape photo fills the entire screen. New photo viewer works like the Apple Gallery, swipe to move between photos, as well as zoom and pinch.
■ GORGEOUS PAIRED ILLUSTRATIONS - We are beginning to combine male, female and the flight drawings into one gorgeous illustration. Take a look at the Black-headed Grosbeak, Painted Bunting and Blue Bunting for a sample.
■ PHOTO CENTER - The Photo Center is a gallery for storing, editing and assigning your photos to specific species pages and it lets you share them on Facebook, Twitter, or email them to friends.
■ HUB - The Hub is a centralized web site that pops up to provide you with the latest news, tips and tricks, and recent events in birding.
■ IBIRD BLOG - Mitch Waite, publisher of iBird, writes the stories in the iBird Blog, covering topics relevant to nature and apps: ibirdblog.wordpress.com
5.0
2011-10-24
■ Used by Jack Black to learn birding for The Big Year (a)
■ New Photo Center - add your own photos to species pages, share on FaceBook or Twitter, email to friends.
■ Added "My Photos" to the Slideshow Photographer setting so you can do a slideshow of YOUR photos only.
■ New Species page slider reorganized for better usability.
■ New View button on Search results page so you can change display to compact, icon, thumbnail or gallery.
■ Added missing In App Purchase for Plus to Pro
■ New Multiple languages in all versions (Frech, Spanish)
■ New How to Use iBird and How to Use Photo Center popups when iBird first starts. Added them to More->Documentation so you can see them again.
■ New Movie: How to Use Photo Center on YouTube
■ New photos and new illustrations
■ Hub gives latest birding news
■ New iBird Blog
■ New Help
■ Still works on 2nd generation Touch and iOS 3.2
■ Added Slideshow to Search Page so after a search you can study photos of those matched birds
■ Reorganized More page
■ Mute does not disable bird sounds
■ Numerous bug fixes - memory leak, Last display, no internet in Registration page.
(a) "Black can go on better. In this techno age, he signed his contract for the film and then immediately downloaded iBird onto his iPhone." from Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson look to the trees , Chicago Sun-Times, Cindy Pearlman, Oct 6 2011
4.0
2011-06-10
IBIRD BACKYARD PLUS--the world's best-selling product line of birding apps--just got WAY better! This latest version of iBird is a major update, taking it far beyond all current birding apps. I'd like to tell you about just a few of the things we did to improve iBird. Many of the changes came from listening to our customers and we hope you continue to let us know what you like about the product.
■ UNIVERSAL APP. Most importantly iBird is now an official "universal" app meaning it works beautifully on the iPad tablet, filling the entire screen.
■ CONTENT. Illustrations, photos and range maps are now true HD 720p resolution.
■ MULTIPLE BROWSE VIEWS. You can now view species in one of four browse views: Compact, Icon, Thumbnail and Gallery.
■ SPECTROGRAM. To make the audio song and call feature of iBird SHINE we developed a special player control to bring a deeper insight to the inner structure of bird songs.
■ PHOTO SLIDESHOW. We added a photo slideshow to iBird which displays all photos randomly while playing their song or call in the background. You can pick from family or photographer. (Find this feature to the More page.)
■ CUSTOMIZED HELP. Our Help files have been revamped to reveal more about iBird and they automatically adjust to iPad or iPhone screens.
■ MISCELLANEOUS. The Band code (North America) or BTO5 code (Europe) is displayed on every species page. We also took this opportunity to fix a variety of bugs, including one in Favorites. You can read about all of them on the About page of the app and in the What’s New section of the product page.
3.1
2010-12-17
■ 60% OFF SPRING SALE - SAVE $3.00 ON IBIRD BACKYARD PLUS - NOW $1.99
■ FEATURES 234 SPECIES! - COMPARE TO SIMILAR APPS AT THE SAME PRICE YOU GET MUCH MORE VALUE WITH IBIRD BACKYARD PLUS
■ MACWORLD'S "BEST REFERENCE APP 2009"
■ O'REILLY "BEST IPHONE BIRDWATCHING APP 2009"
■ COMPREHENSIVE HTML AND PDF MANUAL
■ NOW FEATURES 234 SPECIES!
By request, we've added 86 birds to the database to include most raptors and common shorebirds.
■ NEW AUDIO RECORDINGS!
We've added bird songs from the Macaulay Library at the Lab of Ornithology, so now you have multiple vocalizations for most species.
3.0
2010-08-02
■ VERSION 3.0
■ Over 5 hours of audio bird songs and calls from the Macaulay Library at the Lab of Ornithology.
■ Compatible with OS3 and OS4, multiple Favorite Lists, OS4 syncs Notes and Favs with iTunes.
■ More screen now has tutorials on how to use Favorites, Notes and syncing with iTunes.
■ Bug fixes.
2.2
2010-01-26
New in iBird 2.2
Every app now has a home page. This page shows icons for any other iBird apps you own as well as shortcuts to apps we think you may wish to know more about. If an app has an update you will see icons for higher versions with a $ badge on it.
New Backup and Restore for all apps (found in Settings) so you can save your favorites and notes. The backup is global to all versions.
New Birdipedia link uses much better content. Be sure and check it out.
Fixed a bug with single family species not returning to browse.
Some but not all songs have descriptive text rather than just simple "phonetics". This will be expanded.
Some birds have multiple vocalizations, for example see Black-capped Chickadee, American Robin and Blue Jay.
1.8.4
2009-12-10
Bug fixes.
1.8.3
2009-12-04
iBird Explorer Backyard 1.8.3 new features:
■ Added over 100 photos
■ 14 new search attributes.
Attributes now grouped in related areas, so they are easy to find. New search attributes include breast, belly, and back patterns, length, weight, and wingspan and many more (iBird Explorer Pro only).
■ Updated state bird lists
iBird uses official state checklists, Avibase, and other internet resources and books as a reference. The updated lists have significantly increased the number of birds in each state.
■ Shake for Songs
Shake your device to automatically pick a random bird and play its song. Shake twice to do it again. Great way to learn to identify birds by there song or call.
■ Taxonomic and Alphabetical family sort options on Browse screen.
■ Multiple vocalizations
American Robin, Blue Jay, Black-capped Chickadee have a new interface letting you listen to and read the meaning of each vocalization. More vocalizations will be added in subsequent releases.
■ UI improvements
Switches for Color and the Family Taxonomic sort have been simplified to ON OFF.
■ Registration
Register iBird and we’ll send you a free 6-month subscription to WhatBird.com's Make-a-Guide (MAG). MAG lets you design custom field guides for gifts, trip lists, teaching aids, and more. Learn more about MAG at http://www.whatbird.com/registration/mag/make-a-guide.aspx
We hope you enjoy these new features. If you have feedback follow @ibirdexplorer on Twitter or become a fan at Facebook.com/iBird, and join the conversation.
1.7.0
2009-09-03
iBird Explorer 1.7 includes many new features.
■ Notes
By far, the most requested new feature by iBird users! Notes lets you record bird sighting and observation data right alongside bird species in iBird Explorer. Each species page contains a note card, accessed from the Note icon in the menu at the bottom of the species page. Notes includes an automatic time stamp button, for quickly creating a log of sightings, unlimited space for your written observations, and the ability to email your recorded information, giving you a secure backup in case your iPhone or iPod is lost or damaged.
■ Family Accounts
We have added hundreds of pages of new content to iBird Explorer, with details on 82 species families. This information includes taxonomic order and physical, behavioral, visual, habitat, migration, conservation and geographic location details specific to each bird family.
■ Spanish Language Support
In addition to English and French language bird names, you can opt to display bird names in Spanish from the iBird Settings menu.
■ Additional Hawaiian Species
For iBird West, Plus and Pro users, we have extended our coverage of Hawaiian island birds with six new species.
■ Other New Features
Other new iBird Explorer features include: new embedded help screens, glossary information for all search parameters, 50 new photos from professional nature photographers, and improved accuracy for Flickr searches.
We hope you enjoy these new features. If you have feedback, we would love to hear from you. Visit us on the web at www.ibird.com or join the conversation on Twitter, @ibirdexplorer, and on our Facebook fan page (search for iBird).
1.6.1
2009-05-01
■ Stability - Eliminated all crashing. Fixed memory leak bug and compiled for OS 2.2.1 to improve stability. Note you must have your device upgraded to OS 2.2.1 to install this update.
■ New Photos - Added over 100 new photographs from professionals Bryan Stone, Charlie Banks, Cindy Marple, Michael C. Moore, Steve Dimock, David Speiser and Lloyd Spitalnik.
■ Family Organization - Reorganized Families to correspond to the "Check-list of North American birds", the official source on the taxonomy of birds found in North and Middle America, including adjacent islands. This list is produced by the North American Classification Committee (NACC), an official committee of the American Ornithologists' Union.(iBird 1.5 was previously aligned with National Geographic Field Guide to Birds of North America, 4th Edition).
■ Favorites and Flickr - The features Favorites and Flickr are now enabled for all versions of iBird.
■ Glossary - Completely updated and overhauled the Glossary. Added search attribute definitions.
Developer's Request: If after using this update to iBird you find it more stable it would help other customers if you could leave a review to that affect.