It has always been possible to use Bird Journal on an iPad, but only as an iPhone app. This meant over-sized text and graphics and also being harder to find in the App Store.
The recent Bird Journal iOS app update solves this. The same app is designed for both iPhone and iPad screens. We also took the opportunity to enable landscape orientations, increase the resolution of images to ensure crisp display on the iPhone 6/7 plus and fix a number of bugs.
Our initial effort was to try to reuse the same full V5 user interface found in our desktop software. While this was clearly possible, our experiments showed performance was not satisfactory. Startup time was increased notably, especially on older devices. There were also challenges preserving edit screen behaviour to ensure the fastest and most tailored experience for recording in the field.
We decided keeping and extending the existing mobile user interfaces was the best choice. The apps will be as fast as possible and fit with the design style of iOS/Android. Behind the scenes we'll be making changes to ensure we can add features more quickly, have less to maintain and bring more consistency between platforms.
Don't forget to visit our feedback site to let us know what mobile features you'd like to see next. And if you have a moment, please consider leaving a review on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. These really help others discover us.