Bird Journal Web app now in public beta

Over the years Bird Journal apps have been released for Windows, iOS, Android and Mac. Now, making Bird Journal even more accessible, Bird Journal is coming to the web!

The full desktop experience is available on Chromebooks, Linux, work computers, Amazon Fire devices, tablets, phones, TVs and more. Anywhere that has a web browser and an internet connection.

When we designed and built Bird Journal 5, primarily to add Mac support, we did so using web based technologies. This made it conceivable to someday make the same experience available over the web directly.

Over the last month we been very busy making this happen. It has been available to our beta testers for about two weeks, and with their help it's ready in public beta for you to use today.

Key points

  • It’s essentially the full desktop app
  • Free and premium features are available
  • It syncs with your other devices
  • It’s fully secure
  • It’s globally distributed, so it should be responsive wherever you are
  • When updates are available it will just refresh the browser and be using the latest version
  • Data is saved to our systems, minimising space used on our device

The web app doesn't replace native apps. If you're using the desktop app on a Mac or PC for example, you already have the best Bird Journal experience. But it lets you run Bird Journal on a wider range of devices, and brings the full depth of the desktop apps to devices that could previously only use the mobile apps.

Get Started

You can sign in to the web app at https://app.birdjournal.com

Known issues

  • The layout doesn't update on phones yet making it tricky to use on small screens
  • It's a little slower than the desktop apps. We've plans to make it faster in some areas, however the native desktop/mobile apps will remain the fastest way to use Bird Journal.
  • The taxonomic updates screen is particularly slow.

Next Steps

  • Give it a try and let us know how you get on via email or the contact form on our feedback site
  • We'll continue to fix any issues and improve the performance until it's fully ready

IOC 9.2 & more

We've made some good progress on an IOC 9.2 taxonomy update in the last weeks. Work is continuing and it will be released soon. This will include updates to all of the checklists that are based on IOC. Thanks for your patience here. Whilst we do this, we're making sure that future updates will be easier to deliver.

After IOC, our roadmap includes:

  • Support for new European Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirements
  • BirdTrack export improvements
  • iOS and Android app updates
  • Clements 2019

For those attending Birdfair, we wish you a great weekend. Sadly, we'll not be exhibiting anymore. We're always keen to hear from you though, so please feel free to get in touch.

Norfolk Bird & Wildlife Fair


We're exhibiting at the Norfolk Bird & Wildlife Fair this weekend, 16th & 17th May, in the marquee at stand 20.

I'm also giving a lecture on Top Apps for Birding at 3:15 on the Saturday.

We hope to see you there!

The all-new Bird Journal

We are very excited to launch our free public beta in the next few days.  We've been working hard for the last seven months to bring you some significant changes across all three of our supported devices.

 

See http://www.birdjournal.com/ for more details.

Birding Apps Survey

I'm delighted to be giving a lecture on the top apps for birding at this years Birdfair at Rutland Water.

To help bring a wider perspective I've created a survey.  If you have five minutes to spare now, then please complete the survey.

Please share this survey with other birders you know so we can get better results.  They don't have to be Bird Journal users.  The link is: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BPHWKNJ

We'll post a summary of the results on the blog in a few weeks.