SAN ANSELMO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Peterson Birds of North America, an app for iPhone and iPad, based on Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s (HMH) best-selling Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America book and seven other Peterson Field Guides, has won the coveted 148Apps.com 2011 Best App Ever award for Best Outdoors App. The Peterson app, developed by Appweavers Inc., was one of ten finalists nominated in the outdoors category. Peterson bested competing apps from Nike Inc., Vito Technology Inc., and Occipital to claim the top slot.
Now in its fourth year, the 148Apps.com Best App Ever Awards celebrate the best of the more than 500,000 apps available for Apple's mobile devices. This year also included categories for apps running on the Android operating system. According to 148Apps.com, the contest received over 1.5 million votes—more than 3 times the number of votes cast the previous year. 148Apps.com is one of the oldest and most respected app review websites, having launched shortly after the Apple iTunes App Store debuted in July 2008.
"Field guides are a natural fit for mobile technology and Peterson are the best field guides available," said Nigel Hall, President, Appweavers. "It's a tremendous honor to have our users vote us Best App Ever."
Roger Tory Peterson wrote the first guide to birds designed for a general audience. The Peterson Birds of North America app takes the time-tested organization and design of Peterson's field guide to birds of North America book and updates it with the multi-media, search, and sharing capabilities now available on mobile devices. The app uniquely groups illustrations of similar species, and adds one-tap access to maps and audio. This lets users quickly compare birds by sight, range, and song from one screen. Like Peterson's books, the app is designed to appeal to the average person, while also providing the rigor and depth of content demanded by serious birders.
“The iconic legacy of Peterson Field Guides continues with this award-winning app,” said Gary Gentel, President, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade Division. “With this app, users have access to a world of knowledge and multimedia capabilities, like never before.”
About Appweavers Inc.
Appweavers is a San Francisco Bay Area software company focusing on outdoor apps for mobile computing devices. The company has a multi-product licensing agreement with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for development of mobile apps based on the highly respected Peterson Field Guide series of books. Appweavers' free Peterson Feeder Birds of North America app, featuring details on 160 North American backyard birds, has been downloaded over 120,00 times.
About Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s Trade & Reference Division
With nearly two-centuries of award-winning history, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s Trade and Reference Division continues to publish some of the most renowned novels, non-fiction, children’s books and reference works in hardcover, Mariner Books trade paperbacks and ebooks. Its distinguished author list includes eight Nobel Prize winners, 47 Pulitzer Prize winners, 13 National Book Award winners, and more than 100 Caldecott, Newbery, Printz, and Silbert Medal and Honor recipients. HMH publishes such distinguished authors as Philip Roth, Temple Grandin, Tim O'Brien, and Umberto Eco, as well as The Best American series®, The American Heritage® family of dictionaries, The Gourmet Cookbook and other culinary classics, the Peterson Field Guides and books by J.R.R. Tolkien. Along with a celebrated lineup of children’s authors, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's Book Group is the publisher of some of the best-loved children's books and book characters including Curious George, The Little Prince and The Polar Express. For more information, visit www.hmhbooks.com.
For more information about Peterson apps, see petersonguides.com
Peterson Birds of North America is available now from the iTunes App Store
Peterson Feeder Birds of North America is available now from the iTunes App Store
For more information on the Peterson Field Guides, see: petersonfieldguides.com
For more information about the 2011 Best App Ever awards, see: 148Apps.com
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