I can only say thank goodness Apple infected my computing life some 27 years ago. I can't imagine using any other computer system. Not cheap, but easy and intuitive to use, relatively bug- and virus-free, and oh so elegant. They have kept up the good work right through the iPhone and iPad and the innumerable apps, birding and otherwise, available for them.


Dennis Paulson
Seattle

----- Original Message -----

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:35:17 -0700
From: jbroadus at seanet.com
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] IPhone vs Android
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu, Larry Hubbell <ldhubbell at comcast.net>
Message-ID: <505386F5.30889.EF07D1 at jbroadus.seanet.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

As far as looking for superior birding applications, I don't think you will see nearly as much difference as you
did a few years ago. I resisted buying any smart phone until I went on a guided birding trip led by David
Sibley in Montana a while ago. He was using this wonderful "new" device with his birding guide loaded on
it. The device was an Iphone. I asked if it was available for any other platform, and he told me a story of
how Apple was generally "easier" for developers to write for (at that time) so his guide had been easier to
get out for Iphone than anything else. Of course, its now available for different platforms, but only after I
had been convinced (by his app) to get my first such device, an Ipod touch.

I have always owned PC type computers, so this was my first foray into Appledome.

What happened next was classic. I ruined my cell phone by leaving it in my pants pocket in the laundry.
Once you buy into Apple they begin to create a vacuum that sucks you in further. In the Apple universe you
can load any of these guides on to any of their other devices without repurchasing a copy. So, now I have
Sibley, Ibird pro, National Geographic, "heads up", and BirdsEye all on an Iphone, as well as the original
Ipod, which still works fine. ( I do find I use all of them, but am most comfortable with Sibley.) This, of
course, led to an Ipad, where I also copied all of the apps. I also frequently use Google Earth, which works
very well in the field on an Ipad (because the screen is so big and so good) to get coordinates on bird
survey points.

Now I even have two different data plans, Iphone on ATT, Ipad on Verizon, so I can get a connection on
one or the other anywhere I am in the field (Iphone ATT worked fine for me in Panama recently) Strangely,
my Verizon Ipad is a brick on the Long Beach Peninsula.

All that being said, Appledome has, in my view, multiple problems when compared with the PC, especially
when it comes to sharing photos on other platforms, and using spreadsheets from other computers(all of
which can be done with an Iphone, but I find the system rather clunky, and of course it can't be modified--
Apple is Apple).

The moral of all this is that buying a cell phone platform, with the plan to use it for birding apps (i.e. as a
portable computer) you will probably be happy with any of them for getting some good birding apps. But
beware the marketing tricks they have to "hook" you with their particular system. Also, think about the other
apps you will use on the phone, and you might want to try to get some experience with Itunes if you like the
Iphone-- it is a workable program (I use it on a PC) but it takes a while to get to "like", and its the portal you
have to use to get your apps.

I am now happy with Iphone as a birding tool-- but it did have a learning curve for my PC brain, and once
you have used it enough to learn it you begin to realize how cleverly Apple infects your computing "life."

After all is said and done-- I have never used Android so I can't compare-- and I doubt my brain has the
capacity for me to try another system now. Maybe the PC to Apple experience has led to a sort of
Zombiedome.