The Sibley eGuide App Reviews

Great app, but it crashes when I go to view species in my own populated list.

A very nice app. It is my first source for any bird-related information I need. The illustrations are beautiful and detailed, showing distinct field marks for each bird. The sounds are crystal clear and very easily pulled up. Definitely worth the money.

Ive read the copy date on this book and it was updated in 2000. Is there any additional changes ?im sure there are.

Love the app. a nd use it all the time, but I dont know why Mckays Bunting is not included.

The app is good as far as it goes, but it is not a replacement for the book. Numerous rather common and many uncommon species are missing. It sadly needs an update to include all the species in the book.

The best bird ID app hands down. Hopefully this app auto updates with the new print edition in the near future? Some useful improvements: - 4-letter code species search - boost song/call library (nocturnal flight calls would be a plus) - integrate range maps with Birdeye or ebird output maps

While its great to have access to the quality information available in the app, the presentation needs improvement and falls far short of the paper book (while it should be the other way around). The main shortcoming Ive run into is that when trying to browse in order to identify a bird, the index view shows only one variation. For example, I saw a dark-eyed junco in Colorado. The main image for that bird shows a variation completely unlike the pink-sided variation I was seeing, leaving me confused until later I used the book, which displays all the variations on the page. Identification was the easy and immediate. Also the images are way too small when searching through the taxonomic or alphabetical indexes. My other complaint is that the list feature is tragically primitive. No location support, so you have to clumsily label places instead. Im glad I have the resource available on my phone and iPad, but it could/should be so much better and more useful.

I use this app exclusively, since it has calls and the convenient and helpful smart search. I find it easier to use than the book, intuitive, and of course has all the excellent Sibley illustrations. Probably my favorite app.

Probably the best app out there for experienced birders. Hasnt been updated in over a year and a half, but it still works fine, so I am ok with that. I also have iBird, Petersons, Birdseye NA, and the Lite version of National Geographic Birds, and use them all for different reasons. Sibleys has, by far, the best collection of vocalizations. Even better, they are labeled with a description of the sound and the location of the recording. Sibleys also tends to be the most helpful understanding age and seasonal variations in appearance, though I often find myself wishing for a little more text. My only real complaints are the thumbnails could be a little bigger, and I wish there was an easier way to switch between a state index and the full index of birds when I want to look at something different (currently takes about 8 clicks, plus scrolling through the list of states and provinces twice, to go from the state index to the full index and back).

At the moment, I do not think this is worth the money at all!! Maybe it will improve over time but right now it is pretty poor. In the smart search it is missing many distinguishing features - like the color on the throat, etc. Even the search by name is either very weak or very incomplete. For example, I wanted to see a list of all the hummingbirds that have a red throat -- of which there are quite a few. Nothing came up searching on hummingbird or even on a few hummingbirds by name. For instance searching for Rufous brings up only a Rufous-capped warbler; no hummingbird. Some people claim they can leave their bird books at home and only use this app. I doubt it!

This is the best bird guide app. I like it even better than the printed edition. But as one of the most expensive apps in the App Store, you think they could update it. The second edition of Sibley has been out for a while, but none of the changes ave been incorporated into the app. It seems like Sibley has really abandoned this app and must not be selling enough. Drop the price and give us Sibley Second edition and this would be the bestselling bird app. I still recommend it, but it is just dissappointing it has not kept pace with the printed book.

Ill still depend on the books. The information is limited, and its not easy to navigate this site

Fantastic content. The UI is dated. Please update. Didnt pay this much for an app that doesnt get support.

Sibley is much faster to get started than Audubon Birds if you know the genera and are presented with a new species - one tap and you can type part of the name, e.g. "hum", and see a list. Audubon Birds annoys you every time with a prompt to log on to some social media site, which is silly if you are in a wilderness area. For me this makes a big difference when I am scrambling to see a list of possibles before the bird flies away. The rest of the interface takes a few minutes to learn and then transitions quickly between range maps, illustrations, and descriptions while keeping them all as large as possible. This allows you to check field marks more easily in low light or very bright light. The photographs in Audubon Birds are useful to consult after you have a tentative idenfitication, but the paintings in Sibley are better when you are trying to integrate several partial views through a thicket into a mental list of field marks.

I never write reviews for apps. Never. I have had the Sibley app for years and always use it in the field. It was never perfect (the amount of typos was laughable), but it still functioned well as a field guide. But this new layout is just downright awful. I loved being able to flip through the illustrations while reading the text at the same time. Or reading the song description while listening to the song at the same time. Now I cant do that? This new interface is ugly and clunky...I just dont understand why they did this. Ugh!

I have been using the Sibley app since it first came out. I have been extremely happy with it, and have been recommending it to other birders whenever I get the chance. I really dislike the ‘new’ layout, which is much more like iBird. A big part of the reason I don’t use iBird is because I do not find the layout to flow well or to be very functional, and it’s a shame a great app like Sibley has upgraded to the same format. I plan to dump the ‘Upgrade from my computer and iPhone, and re-sync the app with my iPad, which contains the old version. This is the first ‘Update’ of this app in a long time, and it’s a total shame they got it so wrong!

This has always been my go-to 5-star birder app, but I also dislike the new update, especially the fact that my List now sorts alphabetically. There should at least be a taxon. option. Worse yet, the app quits every time I try to delete a species from the list. Been trying for three days and havent succeeded yet, even after deleting the entire list & starting from scratch. (Since I use the List for one of the only things its logically good for, as a list of possible FOYs I might see in the next few weeks, this is a rather infuriating problem at present.)

For the budding birder, an amazing addition would be pairing with Shazam, yes, the music App, so you could Shazam a bird call and it would identify the species. Maybe even put in location information and/or time of year to help narrow down the search.

Love this app, of which I am a regular user. However, I miss a function that went away an update or two ago - thats the display of the number of birds in the day list. The total list still displays a number, but day list does not.

The app is great but the daily count is missing. Also I think the search function should auto complete with suggestions of different birds. You should be able to type a partial name and have it pop up.