The Sibley eGuide to Birds of North America

I love having this app on my phone and was excited to find it in the windows store. I just installed it on my Surface Pro 3 using Windows 10 so I can brush up on my calls and id. I will still use the app on my phone when I'm out in the field but this is nice for inside to study up. It did take me a few tries to figure out that there was a bottom menu that you have to get to slide up so you can do the filters etc.

I've used this app on iOS and Android for a number of years and love it. This Windows version gets the job done but the interface has several short-comings. These are: 1) the 'My List' and 'Contact Us' buttons cannot be hidden and chew up too much screen space. 2) Content is displayed on only about 50% of vertical screen space (at least on my Surface Pro 3). The header banner is too wide and bottom third is left as blank white space. 3) Songs and Maps no longer on separate screens. This requires unnecessary scrolling to access information. 4) Content does not resize to fit screen in portrait mode. Again requiring scrolling to see contents of a species page. Having portrait mode at all is a plus though. iBird, for example, is landscape only. 5) Grouping species by family results in some "creative" family groupings. Overall, if you want the Sibley guide on your Windows device, this app does it. But it isn't as user friendly as the same app on other platforms.

The Sibley printed guides may be the standard by which other guides are judged, this app is just not ready for this platform. It's extremely slow to load, is clumsy to search species and full of bugs. Wait until they get it right.