Birdwatcher's Diary Negative Reviews

Birdwatcher's Diary App Complaints & User Negative Comments 2024

Birdwatcher's Diary app received 15 complaints, negative comments and reviews by users. Have you ever had a bad experience using Birdwatcher's Diary? Can you share your negative thoughts about birdwatcher's diary?

Birdwatcher's Diary for Negative User Reviews

✓ Just Use a diary!Uninspiring interface Little advantage over simply writing down what you see Don't bother.PrestatynVersion: 0

✓ What have you done?Just updated, now can't delete sighting, it just shuts down! Please sort ASAP. Otherwise powerful app. Update: now crashes if I add 'Calling' comment! Unusable..Mr FugVersion: 5.0.1

✓ Needs workI bought this app over the others available for it's ability to add other lists (including insects, mammals etc) and to see my sightings on a map. However there were a number of problems. You can indeed easily add new lists by copying and pasting, but you can't just flick from one list to another, instead you have to restore the app, deleting all your data. No good when you're out in the field and want to record, dragonflies and butterflies as well as birds. You can view the birds you saw at a particular site on a map, but not for instance see all your records for a given species right across the country, or even produce a list of all that species sightings. Also I wanted to manually input my life list, it was easy enough to add a bird at a particular site, but you can't change the year, just the date and the month. Could be good, but needs improving. Also don't expect to be able to use it without reading the manual first!.SallyCourtVersion: 0

✓ Birdwatchers Diary vs. BirdLogI have used this for over a year and still find it frustrating. Stevens Creek is a good organization and they really try. The main problem is that it is just too distracting to use in the field. Plus, you can't upload directly to eBird. I recently switched to BirdLog and it has been a great relief. BirdLog does not have as many features but it works! Until I switched to BirdLog, I was just recording my observations on a small digital voice recorder and than using BD to tally my observations at home and then uploading to eBird. Since switching to BL I have been tallying directly into the iPhone (using the voice recorder as a backup and/or when the observations were coming fast and furious). With BL, you can upload to eBird from the field! You cannot do this with BD. With BirdLog you can have more than one list going at the same time (not the single daily archive of BD-- which is very confusing). If you are making lists in the field, you should really be uploading to eBird. It makes you part of the "eyes and ears" of the planet. BL really make uploading to eBird quick and easy. I hope this helps..Dr VeggieVersion: 4.3.1

✓ Impressive but impenetrableI can see that this app has a huge amount of functionality, and for tech-savvy birders with a large amount of time on their hands (enough time to literally read a dense 60 page user manual) this could be just the thing you are looking for. I do not have that kind of time, and I don't know many people who do. For this reason I wouldn't recommend this app to birders I know, and don't think I've gotten any value for my purchase other than satisfying my curiosity about what I was missing. For my personal uses, and I think the uses of the vast majority of birders, BirdsEye BirdLog serves the critical needs and is much, much simpler. I have also noted a great deal more errors in BD submissions to eBird since there is no presubmission notification of flagged bird sightings..EvilempidVersion: 5.1

✓ Waste of Time, Energy, and MoneyHorrible app!! Should not have to refer to a website for guidance. Apps are to make life easier. When birding there should be a joy to record sightings not frustrations. Other programs are much better. Refund!!??!!.Jim3FlowerVersion: 4.2.1

✓ NOT USER FRIENDLY, FRUSTRATINGThis app crams a lot of features into a non-intuitive and convoluted interface - and for a steep price. It's stunning how this app forces the user to conform to its needs, rather then addressing yours. I'm in my early 40's, a fast learner with technology, and have a background in biology / ornithology. This app defeated me, even after time investment. As an example, even searching for a bird is difficult - the user cannot just type the common name (or any part of it), as in the Sibley guide. Instead, you must first choose a type of search, then if searching by common name, type either "first" or "last" name. It turns out that the entire phrase: "Pygmy-owl" is a last name: who knew? If you search for "owl" - "pygmy-owl" won't appear in the results, only owls with non-hyphenated names. Any search that doesn't hyphenate (or not hyphenate) exactly right leads to failure. If you forget that "northern" is part of the name for northern pygmy-owl - or try to type "pygmy" as the "first name"- it will loudly QUACK!! to point out your error. The app punishes you if you don't conform to the its rigid requirements (after all those QUACK noises, I wanted to throw my iPhone into the nearest creek)! Why not one simple search box, where you enter any part of the name, banding code etc, and let the user pick from search results??? And the menus for saving, retrieving or uploading lists are worse. The app presents a Rube Goldberg-ian array of options that can't be understood without exhaustive study of a manual. Try to save a bird list, assign it a location, or start a new list and you'll be stymied, or hounded by the app's annoying error quacks because you haven't met its demands (but without providing a straightforward solution). I've already lost one bird list completely, still can't change locations or dates, and accidentally deleted Savannah Sparrow from the available options for all my lists. If you truly want an app that feels like 1990s technology, it would be easier to learn MSDOS, figure out how to run it on your smart phone - then use it to write your own bird list app. For those who miss DOS commands, this app's demand for rigid syntax, it's use of non-intuitive jargon, and its multi step operations to accomplish seemingly simple tasks will fill you with nostalgia. I really tried. But if the developers feel like I should have studied the manual further, I disagree. I'm not someone who gives up easily, but the whole point of apps - like iPhones - is to make things relatively easy for the user to learn. I feel bad about leaving a negative review.I truly wish the developers the best - and I share their love of birds. But I feel I must warn people about this app..ZD-CAVersion: 7.0.4

✓ AlmostCould not get data to upload to ebird..TaronitomVersion: 5.1

✓ Ridiculously complicated for something that should be simpleI consider myself relatively tech-savy (I'm a GIS specialist in my job), but this requires several hours of time investment to get it to function. As far as I can tell, it really doesn't do anything that BirdLog doesn't do. Requires a lot of time and effort to even import a state list. The manual is 58 pages long, and is rambling and poorly organized. I do not need to be told about how great a feature is while trying to explain it. I need a simple step-by-step tutorial with superfluous junk left out of that process. The video does not even show how to import your lists, and the initial implication is the lists show up by default once you create a location. I finally managed to import a state list by trial and error, and by then, I was so disenchanted with the whole process, I deleted the app from my iPhone..XtrabluVersion: 5.1

✓ Waste of money!I'd give 0 stars if I could but 1 is the minimum apparently. I haven't used this app since I bought it and I've been waiting for field entry app for a long time. The platform is not intuitive and I wasted time trying to figure it out only to find it wasn't worth it. It's a good idea but not user friendly at all. The price should be reduced or the app fixed because it is not worth the price for what you get.....which is currently just a little picture of a Burrowing Ow on my phonel. Fail..StipplethroatVersion: 4.2

✓ UpdateThis app is okay my problem is they need to update. When you look at the number of species seen by state they are way off NM shows 527. Just looked in eBird and the actual number is 558. Their are better apps for Birding but when people spend money on something they should keep it up to date..Ff1964Version: 8.3

✓ Needs workThe app is difficult to use, and not at all intuitive. It needs some work to improve it and is expensive for what it offers..Fd10Version: 0

✓ Complicated and too easy to lose entriesI am a serious birder and a computer programmer. I tried this app for two solid days. Brought me to my knees in frustration. Authors need to hire a couple of beta tester birdwatchers and video them trying to use it. Its very very easy to lose your entries. I deleted this app..SusanPRVersion: 6.1.3

✓ Too many bugsA good idea, reasonably well put together. Main complaint is that it is too buggy...each new release comes with it's own collection of crashes. Needs sorting out or I go back to my moleskin notebook..BigbrotheriswatchingVersion: 0

✓ Takes a while to grasp - somewhat tediousThis app has the least intuitive interface of anything I've seen on an iPhone. The first time I used it, I tried reading the endless online manual, but still wound up losing 300+ entries multiple times. After spending more time (hours) studying the immense manual I realized that everything revolves around one archive per day. If you mark all the birds you've seen in the US, archive, then switch to a list of Costa Rican species archive again, you will lose all of your US entries. You need to manually trick the app into thinking its a different day when entering the Costa Rica birds. Again, not intuitive. Three stars since it allows you to track sightings on an iPhone instead of a PC..RokuserVersion: 4.2.1

Birdwatcher's Diary works most of the time. If it is not working for you, we recommend you excersise some patience and retry later or contact Birdwatcher's Diary.