Scotland’s Big 5
Scottish National Heritage
Free on Apple iOS
I have to say, Scotland, you done good.
This app really doesn’t leave much to be desired. Beautifully set out, Scotland’s Big 5 is part of the Year of Natural Scotland 2013, which aimed to show off the country’s natural beauty with a year-long programme of events.
The app features five of Scotland’s iconic animals. The Scottish National Heritage have wisely branched out from the likes of the red squirrel and included crowd favourites like the fairly adorable ‘Whiskered Diver’, or otter, and the ‘Curious Seadog’, or Harbour seal.
Each section has photos, fast-loading video of the animals in action, audio of their calls, an overview of the animal and its habits, interesting key facts, how to identify the animal, including how and where to spot them in the wild and a locations map, as well as links for further reading.
The main dashboard, as it were, also has a map of all the national parks in Scotland, for all your rambling desires.
The photos are beautiful, as is the video, and the information is simple but interesting. The app is beautifully laid out and very easy to use and there are all the usual sharing options on social networks which for once I was tempted to use.
It’s a fairly hefty download at 45MB but I loved that the videos were all downloaded in one go, as opposed to the (much bigger and HD) BBC Earth Wonders, which required separate video downloads.
And best of all, this app is free. I can’t think of much else Scottish National Heritage could have done better, except perhaps to have a few more awesome animals.