I have just acquired, and am delighted with, an Apple iPhone.
One of the most appealing (to a geek like me) factors of the iPhone is the ability to add Applications or “Apps” as they are called.
These are programs that run on the iPhone, allowing the phone to become an e-toolkit.
For example, I have on mine, World Wide Tide Tables, Moon Phase Calendar, Appointment Calendars, Compass (really accurate!), Sat Nav (it has a built in GPS), Calculator, Voice Recorder, Video Camera, Alarm Clocks, Weather Gadgets, Interactive London Underground Map, Planetarium, Traffic Jam Information, Spirit Level (really!), Piano, TV Guide, Magnifying Glass, and Apps for Office Documents.
Obviously it also surfs the Net and sends E-Mail and you can even make telephone calls on it!
Now, these Apps are usually either free, or very inexpensive. The most I have paid for an App is £3 for a complex one that enables Office Documentss to be stored, modified, created, viewed and shared.
During my search for Apps, I came across “Butterflies of Britain and Ireland”.
It was described as-
“A comprehensive interactive field guide covering all 61 butterfly species that regularly occur in Britain and Ireland. A fantastic resource to have in the field, this handy guide contains everything you need to confidently identify butterfly species at all life stages: adults, larvae (caterpillars), pupae and even eggs”
It looked good in the description, and the screen shots looked excellent, and very familiar.
On further investigation I found that the illustrations were by Richard Lewington and many of the photographs were by a certain Peter Eeles (who he?). However the App was priced at a fairly hefty £9.99.
Well, as a Butterfly nut I couldn’t resist, and I clicked the “Buy Now” icon.
It is produced by the Birdguides people, and is in association with BC – so perhaps a bit of my £9.99 will go to a good cause?
The App opens quickly to a home page of a list of 61 butterflies in family groups or alphabetical order .
Strangely it includes Large Tortoiseshell, but omits Camberwell Beauty, has Large Copper, but no Geranium Bronze, Long-tailed Blue or even the Monarch.
Tap on the thumbnails and a slide-able page opens with somewhere around 10 thumbnails of the Lewington illustrations, between 4 and 10 excellent photographs, a distribution map, a phenogram and a text document.
Clicking on a photo or illustration opens it full screen, and the flip screen function is supported.
You can scroll back and forth through the photographs, illustrations, map and phenogram.
The photos and illustrations are excellent, and you can zoom in and out for extra detail with finger “pinches”. Usefully, the distribution maps are also zoomable.
I feel the developers have missed a trick in not allowing illustrations of different species to be viewed side by side. It would be good to have a “confusion species” section. Perhaps the next version upgrade will support this? They could do a lot worse than to look at this website for ideas!
So – is it worth nearly a tenner?
Probably.
The illustrations are superb, and the text informative, and as far as I can tell, accurate.
I can envisage times when it will be useful.
I doubt it will be used much in the field, but to settle the occasional identification confusion it could be very useful.
Perhaps it will help to illustrate conversations with non-butterflieists and show them the beauty of our hobby.
The phenograms can aid weekend or year planning.
To summarise – a beautiful and useful App. Probably a little over priced, but with great scope for enhancements.
I like it.
