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Free Mobile App For Pet Bird Lovers!

birdlover123

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Nick
I have problems scrolling down (see image) and also, the top bar needs some changing when scrolling down :)

I see the advertisement, but nowhere a button to get a subscription? You may want to promote that more, without making it anoying :)

So, if i buy a subscription, how much space do i get for uploading documents and images? How are they backedup on your end? I hate having all my parrot stuff in there only to find out one day your server crashed and we lost everything :)
Hi and thanks for your interest.

I wanted to be able to respond quickly to user requirements cross-platform and since the app isn't too graphics-intensive, it's a hybrid app.

The privacy policy and terms of use are linked to at the foot of the home page. Your scrolling issue is something I'd like to know more about. You mean when you drag down it doesn't scroll down at all?

As for making money out of this, I don't. The advertising money is pennies and I'm considering removing it altogether for now, but the subscription channel was made necessary because I'd like to cover my costs with GoDaddy, since I use a business-level hosting account which guarantees daily backup etc.

The subscription page only comes up when a user attempts to use functionality that requires it. This is a more intuitive approach to user experience as I expect few will want subscription to be the first thing they want to do when checking the app out.

The data you save to our server will never be sold to anyone and is there to use in the 'BBSpace' social network component of the app, and to recover your data if you recover your profile (log in) on another device.

I hope this covers your points well enough and I look forward to any feedback you may have. I'm not a UI expert and am just putting things together in a fairly ad hoc way but I hope the app is useful to some.
 

jh81

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It does :)

Might i suggest the option to change the font to something different, system font perhaps... im a sucker for UI Design ;-)

I wouldnt mind paying a monthly subscription fee depending on the amount of space i have to save pics and other important documents :) start with something small, maybe 99ct as a starter, people are much more willing to pay small amounts if it leads to something nice, and you can always scale up :)
 

birdlover123

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It does :)

Might i suggest the option to change the font to something different, system font perhaps... im a sucker for UI Design ;-)

I wouldnt mind paying a monthly subscription fee depending on the amount of space i have to save pics and other important documents :) start with something small, maybe 99ct as a starter, people are much more willing to pay small amounts if it leads to something nice, and you can always scale up :)
Yes, I've been thinking about adding a settings section where users can choose between fonts and colors etc. Could put that on the todo list.
With regard to uploading documents, at the moment users can only upload images. For each bird profile, one main image plus up to 6 extra images. Same goes for any 'for sale' items added in the BBSpace social network component. All of that can be saved to the cloud server.
As for price, on iOS the current options are $0.49 for 1 month or $1.99 for 6 months.
 

jh81

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Hmmm... well that would mean you have to sell a lot before you even make breakeven :(

The scrolling problem is here, on my iPad, it simply wont scroll below any that is originally on the screen.
 

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birdlover123

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Hmmm... well that would mean you have to sell a lot before you even make breakeven :(

The scrolling problem is here, on my iPad, it simply wont scroll below any that is originally on the screen.
Ok thanks. I'll try to replicate the problem on a test device and make any necessary changes to the next update.
 

birdlover123

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Hi All

There have been a couple of updates to the app since the last update so here are the changes that have been added:

- Print out your bird images and data
- Send your bird data and pictures via email
- Added 'App Settings' box in home page for customizing fonts and colors (thanks users Lincee and Bill)
- Added 'Pairs' section for users to document paired birds
- Added '1 Week Free Trial' option in subscription page
- Removed footer advertising throughout app
- Added 'New Features' box in home page
- Fixed Sound Library icon
- Fixed image of Rainbow Lorikeet (thanks user Rozalka)
- Added scrollable action button section in My Birds List
- Non-subscribers can now view BBSpace
- Minor fixes and improvements
- Added 'Back' button in subscription page
- Improved home page performance and display
- Fixed problem with extra images in My Birds on Android

Any feedback is always welcome and I hope its useful for you.

Nick
 

jh81

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Great i am gonna test it!

Since im an Apple Developer i can only test it on iPad OS (which will be iOS 13) but then at least you know it works on the upcoming September updates ;-)

Edit 1) i subscribed to the 6month option, it pops up a window asking me to wait to be redirected. But the redirect never happens. Ofcourse now i cant test it on iOS 12 so it might be a beta testing issue :)

Edit 2) in species it would be nice if we could show an image of the species tree, beginning by the top level of the birds family, all the way down to the species itself?
 
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birdlover123

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Great i am gonna test it!

Since im an Apple Developer i can only test it on iPad OS (which will be iOS 13) but then at least you know it works on the upcoming September updates ;-)

Edit 1) i subscribed to the 6month option, it pops up a window asking me to wait to be redirected. But the redirect never happens. Ofcourse now i cant test it on iOS 12 so it might be a beta testing issue :)

Edit 2) in species it would be nice if we could show an image of the species tree, beginning by the top level of the birds family, all the way down to the species itself?
Hi and thanks for the subscription. It went through okay although I take your point about the redirect. If you can remember what feature you were trying to access prior to the subscription page appearing, I should be able to fix it.

I'm not sure if the current version of xCode even supports debugging for iOS13 but I'll check for the next release. I started out developing on Android and so now I still add new code and test on Android before transferring to iOS and fixing any issues on that.

As for the species tree, I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Are you referring to the taxonomy used to classify species? If you can find something similar on the net, please send me a link and I'd be happy to take a look.
 

metalstitcher

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I have android and I will give it a go. I'll let you know what I think :)
 

metalstitcher

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One small thing. There should be different sub-species of lovebirds. Peach faced, Masked, Fishcers. I know doing all the mutations would take forever but at least the sub species could be a possibility.
 

birdlover123

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One small thing. There should be different sub-species of lovebirds. Peach faced, Masked, Fishcers. I know doing all the mutations would take forever but at least the sub species could be a possibility.
Thanks a lot for trying it out, metalstitcher.

I'll definitely look deeper into the lovebirds issue. It's just a matter of how to present a lot more information in a clean, concise way that's easy to navigate and doesn't make the whole system harder to understand, if you see what I mean. Also, I'll need to understand the differences between 'mutations' and 'species'. Giving a separate entry in BirdBuddy to a species is fine of course, but for mutations I wouldn't know how to classify them all.

With chickens and macaws that are mutations, I have used a separate entry in BirdBuddy - the 'Hybrid Chicken' or 'Hybrid Macaw' type. Would it be okay to have a 'Hybrid Lovebird' entry that the user could choose, and then describe the nature of the mutation in the 'notes' section of that bird's profile? I wonder what you think.

Let me know this, and any other suggestions you may have for the app coz I'm eager to improve it all the time.

Thanks

Nick
 

birdlover123

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Nick
Hi All

A new version of BirdBuddy is available now. The upgrades are:

- Added new Q&A section
- Added Q&A widget to home page
- Added links to BBSpace and Q&A sections in home page
- Fixed issue when Facebook picture is used as avatar
- Fixed home page performance issue on initial startup
- Other minor fixes and improvements

I'd be most grateful if you could take a look and let me know what you think.

Cheers

Nick
 

birdlover123

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Hey everyone

A new version of BirdBuddy is available now from the App/Play store. Changes include:

- Added 'Like' system in BBSpace's Pet Birds section - signed in or not, you can 'like' another user's pet bird profile and - if signed in - see who liked your pet bird's profile
- Added pet bird videos in home screen - browse people's pet bird videos from around the world
- Chat function now available without subscription
- In home screen, click usernames to see their profiles in BBSpace
- Fixed date labels in Metrics graphs
- Added 'notes' in Featured Bird section of home screen
- Smaller fixes and improvements

Hope you like it. Let me know what you think!

Nick
 

AkasyaEllric

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I played around with it a little bit but, I can only add one of my three parrots. Canary winged parakeet and brown headed parrot aren't available, no biggie since I know they aren't super common. Let me know when they're added and I'll play around with it more! I did add my plum headed parakeet though :)
 

AkasyaEllric

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Also, under plum headed sexual characteristics, it may help to clarify that they all get a gray head around a year regardless of sex, and at 2-3 years the males will change over to their full colors :)
 

birdlover123

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Also, under plum headed sexual characteristics, it may help to clarify that they all get a gray head around a year regardless of sex, and at 2-3 years the males will change over to their full colors :)
Hi
Thanks so much for trying BirdBuddy. I hope you enjoy it.
I'll try to squeeze your suggestions into the next release, which should be out in a couple of weeks' time.
If you have any other suggestions they'd be most welcome as I'm always trying to make it more useful and enjoyable for people.
 

AkasyaEllric

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Hi
Thanks so much for trying BirdBuddy. I hope you enjoy it.
I'll try to squeeze your suggestions into the next release, which should be out in a couple of weeks' time.
If you have any other suggestions they'd be most welcome as I'm always trying to make it more useful and enjoyable for people.
I liked everything else I saw! I enjoy the idea behind it as well. :D I only added that bit with the plum headed parakeets because so few places actually talk about that and I didn't know that Diggle would be gray before he was purple.
 

birdlover123

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Hi Everyone

Just to let you know, the new version of BirdBuddy is out now with the following improvements:

- New 'Recipes' page in Diet section
- Users are now notified when other users interact with their content (eg likes, votes and replies to questions)
- Added 5 new breeds of Quail
- Added Canary-Winged Parakeet to supported species (thanks user AkasyaEllric)
- Added Society Finches and African Ringneck Parakeets (thanks user FinchFeathers)

As usual, if you find any bugs or have any questions or suggestions, please let me know here.

@AkasyaEllric - You mentioned in your comment above that you were unable to find "brown headed parrot" as a supported bird type in the app. In fact that species is supported, but it is listed as 'Brown Headed Poicephalus', which is an alternative name for the same species - Poicephalus Cryptoxanthus. I hope this is of help.
 

birdlover123

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Hi All

Just to let y'all know, the new version of BirdBuddy is available and the only major change is that its now back to being 100% free - no more in-app purchases and no advertising. In the app store it may say there are in-app purchases but i've disabled them programmatically within the app, so sections such as Life Events (diary) and Metrics logging are now free again. I'll just have to find another way of making money lol.

Search 'My Bird Buddy' in app store or 'BirdBuddy' in play store if you want to check it out.

Enjoy!
 
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