The original Daily Bird app was architected with no back end: each instance of the app would call Wikipedia and Wikidata on its own and save that data locally on the device. I did that because I didn’t want to set up a bunch of infrastructure or sign up with some SaaS option that might be gone in a year. It never really made sense if I wanted to expand things to the web or Android, where it would be extremely helpful to be able to point to a single source of [bird] truth.
It took a while to do, and even longer to post, but I’ve re-architected and renamed Daily Bird to just Bird App (which is what I was calling it anyway), and launched it on web at https://dailybird.app in addition to the existing iOS app.
On the backend this is now a Next.js app with Payload as the content management system. Both of those decisions have already bitten me, with Next.js and React having a nasty CVE in December, and Payload being bought by Figma, but I’m pretending things are fine. With the new web-based Bird App data is simpler to keep consistent between all the instances of the app out there, and I can edit bird entries and add new info much easier. I’ve also added support for multiple images per bird, scientific names, among other small improvements.
Still on the todo list is favorites support on web and a login system to keep track across devices, and new regional categories to filter birds by.
As always, enjoy the birds.
🦆🐦⬛🪿🦩🐓