OT: Favorite apps

[Cedar]

I’ll kick off this thread with some favorite apps for mobile phones or tablets.

Do you like birds? Do you ever wonder what birds you are hearing or seeing nearby?

There is a great free app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology named Merlin Bird ID that enables you to identify birds with your phone or tablet. Just take a picture of a bird and it will identify it for you, or it will give you several possibilities to choose from if the picture is ambiguous.

You can also have Merlin help you identify a bird by asking a few simple questions about the bird’s size, color, and location.

The coolest feature of Merlin is Sound ID, which uses your phone’s or tablet’s microphone to identify birds by their songs, chirps, or calls. It’s fantastic! This morning, Merlin identified 26 different types of birds near my back deck in 15 minutes.

There is a related free app named eBird that enables you to submit bird sightings for scientific research, education, and conservation. There also is an interesting website, birdcast.info, that enables you to track bird migrations in your area and nationally.

What apps do you like to use?

 

[vtcwbuff]

My wife has the bird app. We sit out on our deck most evenings and she has collected hundreds of bird calls. In the meantime I have the "Air Traffic" app running on my phone. It identifies commercial aircraft giving origin and destination and flight parameters.

What an exciting life we lead!

 

[KY Card Fan]

I’ll kick off this thread with some favorite apps for mobile phones or tablets.

Do you like birds? Do you ever wonder what birds you are hearing or seeing nearby?

There is a great free app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology named Merlin Bird ID that enables you to identify birds with your phone or tablet. Just take a picture of a bird and it will identify it for you, or it will give you several possibilities to choose from if the picture is ambiguous.

You can also have Merlin help you identify a bird by asking a few simple questions about the bird’s size, color, and location.

The coolest feature of Merlin is Sound ID, which uses your phone’s or tablet’s microphone to identify birds by their songs, chirps, or calls. It’s fantastic! This morning, Merlin identified 26 different types of birds near my back deck in 15 minutes.

There is a related free app named eBird that enables you to submit bird sightings for scientific research, education, and conservation. There also is an interesting website, birdcast.info, that enables you to track bird migrations in your area and nationally.

What apps do you like to use?

I love Merlin. I use it pretty much every day.

 

[HuskyNan]

If you have a iPhone, you can snap a photo then look up what you took a picture of with the Information function. I use it a lot, especially with so many different flowers here in Florida, different from the ones I’m used to in Connecticut. You can also use it with birds, landmarks, famous people, etc

Use Visual Look Up on your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

Visual Look Up recognizes items from your images like art or landmarks so you can quickly get more information.

support.apple.com

Look for the sparkly letter i. I took the picture of the hibiscus then looked it up.

 

[HuskyNan]

My all time favorite app is Shazam. If you hear a song and can’t quite identify it, Shazam it and it will show the song’s name and the name of the artist. My current favorite app is Skyview. It’s a really cool app that tells you what planet or constellation you’re looking at. Just point your phone at the sky.

 

[Kaizen]

LINE is the fastest growing mobile messenger app in the world, bringing users closer to their friends and loved ones. Enjoy free messages, voice calls, and video calls anytime, anywhere. LINE is available on smartphones, including iPhones and Android devices, and also PCs and Macs.

 

[KY Card Fan]

If you have a iPhone, you can snap a photo then look up what you took a picture of with the Information function. I use it a lot, especially with so many different flowers here in Florida, different from the ones I’m used to in Connecticut. You can also use it with birds, landmarks, famous people, etc

Use Visual Look Up on your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

Visual Look Up recognizes items from your images like art or landmarks so you can quickly get more information.

support.apple.com

Look for the sparkly letter i. I took the picture of the hibiscus then looked it up.

View attachment 88180

I use Picture This to identify plants. I find it reasonably accurate but it fails sometimes. My Master Gardener friends give it mixed reviews.

 

[EdSaid]

I’ll kick off this thread with some favorite apps for mobile phones or tablets.

Do you like birds? Do you ever wonder what birds you are hearing or seeing nearby?

There is a great free app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology named Merlin Bird ID that enables you to identify birds with your phone or tablet. Just take a picture of a bird and it will identify it for you, or it will give you several possibilities to choose from if the picture is ambiguous.

You can also have Merlin help you identify a bird by asking a few simple questions about the bird’s size, color, and location.

The coolest feature of Merlin is Sound ID, which uses your phone’s or tablet’s microphone to identify birds by their songs, chirps, or calls. It’s fantastic! This morning, Merlin identified 26 different types of birds near my back deck in 15 minutes.

There is a related free app named eBird that enables you to submit bird sightings for scientific research, education, and conservation. There also is an interesting website, birdcast.info, that enables you to track bird migrations in your area and nationally.

What apps do you like to use?

Merlin is a great app. I use it every day. Super easy to use.
I also use the Skyview Lite app to look at stars and planets. You can point it in any direction, downward, upward and it will show you the stars and planets, even during the middle of the day. Only downside is they constantly want me to buy an upgrade. I also use my altimeter App all the time. Right now in Massachusetts I'm 135 feet above see level, house in Florida is 14 feet above sea level. Last summer we were in Lake Tahoe, Utah and Northern Arizona, and we were above 7,000 feet for most of a nine day period.

I have a speed App that I've used when traveling on a boat/ship or train just to know how fast I'm moving . My other top App is the National Parks App. Somehow these all tie in together.

 

[Kaizen]

 

[EdSaid]

View attachment 88188

What does it mean when I don't have any of those Apps? Not a cool kid? Maybe cuz I have a head full of grey hair!

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

What does it mean when I don't have any of those Apps? Not a cool kid? Maybe cuz I have a head full of grey hair!

Your sane. I have Facebook, rarely post, do get to see how some long time distant friends are doing. I have their messenger, but at least so far as I know I didn't do anything to get it except accept a friend's message. She prefers that to texting, although she does both.

I have Zoom on my computer because we belong to a speaker series that - at least since Covid - has had a "zoom" option. In fact, a bonus event is strictly zoom this coming week.

I don't do much with YouTube, but I suppose will be signing up for their streaming service and NFL Sunday Ticket.

Otherwise, none of the others on my phone or computer.

 

[McFly]

What does it mean when I don't have any of those Apps? Not a cool kid? Maybe cuz I have a head full of grey hair!

I don't have any of them either, but I'd be grateful for a full head of hair of any color.

 

[EdSaid]

Using the Merlin App at 6:00am this morning in Southeast Massachusetts I recorded 18 different birds

Tufted Titmouse
Carolina Wren
American Crow
Ovenbird
Northern Cardinal
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Eastern Towhee
Brown-headed Cowbird
Black-capped Chickadee
Blue Jay
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Pine Warbler
Wood Thrush
White-breasted Nuthatch
Cedar Waxwing
Common Raven
Canada Goose

 

[mbr33ct]

View attachment 88188

Call me boring when it comes to phone Apps. I'm a Tracfone customer and basically these are the main features I use, voice calls, texting and take photos. The only downloaded App is of my Credit Union and that's mainly used to deposit a check when I happen to get a personal check. Of all the Apps listed above the only one I use and use heavily is YouTube but not on phone on my Roku and 65" TV.

 

[Ozimoto]

My wife loves the Merlin app. My personal favorites are Clime for weather, the Google suite, Audacy and Spotify for music, and Star Chart.

 

[Pharos]

What does it mean when I don't have any of those Apps? Not a cool kid? Maybe cuz I have a head full of grey hair!

Given the description you give of yourself, I'd say you know exactly what it means. From my side, it means freedom.

 

[Pharos]

I like: Feedly, Myfitnesspal, Olive Tree Bible, LastPass, and Scrivener for Mac...

 

[Pharos]

Oh and... My dad was a lifelong birder. He loved "birding around" more than anything. He was part of the group that founded the North American Hawk Migration Association (based on the idea that data collected by amateurs would be useful). He was CT Audubon Pres a few times. Has a plaque on a bench at Light House Point in New Haven, CT.
I'm not a bird watcher. Probably a bad choice. There must be a group for children of bird watchers like Nar-Anon, maybe Twitch-Anon. Don't misunderstand I'm mostly kidding. But... as a young kid the cool offer of an outing from Dad was, "Hey, want to go to the PU?"... which was the local sewage treatment facility. And driving anywhere could be interrupted by the car pulling to the side of the road and "Hey, I think I see something." It was a little unnerving to ride with Dad when we had a VW Bug; his nose was always on the windshield. In Feb. 2020, I held him in my arms as his breathing ceased. Will always miss him. We talked a lot in the last years about Heaven and about how to trust Jesus about that; so hoping to see him again.

 

[Kat]

The Merlin app is fantastic. Another product from the folks at Cornell, along with Colorado State, and Amherst, is BirdCast. It tracks bird migrations every night, all over the U.S. Besides giving the bird count, it lists the various birds that are on the move, and you can get more info on each bird.

 

[vtcwbuff]

We are in SE CT. We had a visit from a "new" bird this afternoon. We were in our usual end of work(?) day spot (deck) with an end of work day adult beverage, when we heard a bird call that we had never heard before in nearly 40 years of living here. Merlin identified it as a black billed cuckoo.