Comparison

Penn Mobile vs Birdathon

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Penn Mobile

Streamline your campus experience with essential tools for student life. Access study room bookings, dining hall menus and hours, course schedules, and laundry machine availability. Quickly find fitness facility hours and emergency services.

Highlights
  • Study room booking
  • Dining hall hours and menus
  • Course schedule access
  • Laundry machine availability
  • Fitness facility hours
  • Emergency services access
Features
Read full description

Study room booking, dining hall hours, course schedule, daily menus, laundry machine accessibility, fitness facility hours, and quick access to emergency services! Penn Mobile was designed by students in Penn Labs with the intention of making your school life simpler. What does this mean? No more carrying your laundry four floors up trying to find a laundry machine. No more hunting for dining hall hours on the web. And no more struggles trying to book a study room. You can now do it all at the press of a button. Enjoy!

About

Birdathon

This app helps birdwatchers create and organize detailed checklists of their observations. It automatically records time and location, allowing for easy editing and customization. Users can visualize their sightings on maps, add field notes, and export data for sharing or further analysis.

Highlights
  • Observation-centric checklists
  • Automatic time and location recording
  • Customizable maps with boundary overlays
  • Field notes for additional observations
  • Multiple checklist sorting options
  • Data export to CSV and other formats
  • Create checklist templates
Features
Read full description

Birdathon is an observation-centric tool for creating birding checklists. It helps you organize your checklists and share them with others. Use Birdathon in the field to quickly record whether and where a bird is seen or heard and the number observed. The time and location of each observation is automatically recorded. You can adjust the location, time entries and the count of birds observed at any time to ensure your records are accurate. You can add breeding codes to your observations. Checklist maps display the locations of your observations. You can overlay county boundaries for every US state. You can add a range circle such as a 5MR (5-mile Radius) to your maps. You can import and overlay custom kml/kmz files onto your maps. An Overview feature lets you see your combined observations for any time period, and displays a map showing any boundaries you have selected, so you can utilize the map feature even when you are not actively checklisting. You can export Overview data into a csv text file or create a new checklist template from the Overview. Your checklists can be viewed in taxonomic order, alphabetically, by rarity or as a timeline of species. You can enrich your checklist with field notes and add observations such as mammals, butterflies, wildflowers, etc., to make it a more complete record of your experience. You can organize your checklists into categories such as Day List, Year List, County List, Life List, etc., and assign color themes to your lists. Bird species may be added and deleted from your lists at any time. You can create new checklist templates from your previous lists or import templates created by others. You can change which template is being used. You can import text files into Birdathon, making them into templates or new checklists. Different export options for your checklists allow you to import into eBird or another copy of Birdathon. The bird species source data and other resources used in this app come from the following sources: AviList, a unified global checklist of birds, is the core data set used for Birdathon. https://www.avilist.org. Some data has been integrated from the following sources: The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world (https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/), the American Ornithological Society's (AOS) Checklist of North and Middle American Birds (https://checklist.americanornithology.org), and the American Birding Association's (ABA) checklist of North American Birds (https://www.aba.org/listing-taxonomy/) Alpha codes come from The Institute for Bird Populations’ Standardized 4- and 6-letter Bird Species Codes. https://www.birdpop.org/pages/birdSpeciesCodes.php. County boundary data is from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) TIGER/Line 2019 Shapefiles found on the United States Census Bureau's website at https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series/geo/tiger-line-file.2019.html. Boundaries should be used as general guidelines and not be considered precise. Note especially where county boundaries follow creeks, rivers, ridge lines and other natural features, and so are of much finer resolution than can be shown on Birdathon’s maps. California breeding bird atlas blocks come from the California Bird Atlas, https://www.californiabirdatlas.org. California Bird Atlas logo and breeding code descriptions used with permission.

Screenshots

Penn Mobile4 screens
Birdathon4 screens

Verdict

The call

Penn Mobile and Birdathon both sit at 4.6 stars, but that hides the real split: 100% of Birdathon's written reviews are positive against 53% of Penn Mobile's. Penn Mobile's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 4) and update cadence (every 4 weeks vs every 4 months). On price, rating, ads and monetization model there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Birdathon sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Penn Mobile asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Penn Mobile against 4.7 for Birdathon. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Penn Mobile has 410 ratings behind it against 15, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 53% of Penn Mobile's written reviews are positive against 100% of Birdathon's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Penn Mobile ships an update every 4 weeks, Birdathon every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on September 8, 2026 and September 19, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Penn Mobile versus Birdathon: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPenn MobileBirdathon
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (410 ratings)4.7 (15 ratings) — better
Positive reviews52.6% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings410 — better15
Update frequencyEvery 4 weeks — betterEvery 4 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.616.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size31 MB192 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperUniversity of PennsylvaniaBarry Langdon-Lassagne

Customer experience

Penn Mobile

All ratings410 ratings
Positive89.3%
Neutral3.2%
Negative7.6%
Written reviews19 reviews
Positive52.6%
Neutral10.5%
Negative36.8%

Birdathon

All ratings15 ratings
Positive93.3%
Neutral0.0%
Negative6.7%
Written reviews11 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Penn Mobile

Reported bugs

9 issues
  • Unable to log in after Duo pop-up
  • Cannot load dining halls or retail dining
  • Unable to log in with PennKey
  • App does not open after recent update
  • App prompts to log in every time
Show 4 more
  • App does not save login after exiting
  • Pop-up message: "Couldn't connect to API"
  • App crashes frequently
  • Dining hall information is incorrect or not shown

Requested features

6 requests
  • Include fitness center hours
  • Include building directory of campus
  • Fix API connection issues
  • Update app for better stability
  • Fix login bugs
Show 1 more
  • Improve login persistence

Birdathon

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Penn Mobile

No in-app purchases

4 purchases

Birdathon

One-time4
  • Good Tip$0.99
  • Great Tip$1.99
  • Amazing Tip$2.99
Show 1 more
  • Incredible Tip$4.99

Questions

Is Penn Mobile free?
Penn Mobile is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Birdathon free?
Birdathon is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Penn Mobile or Birdathon?
Birdathon is rated higher. Penn Mobile averages 4.6 out of 5 from 410 ratings, while Birdathon averages 4.7 from 15 ratings.
Do Penn Mobile or Birdathon have ads?
Neither Penn Mobile nor Birdathon shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Penn Mobile or Birdathon?
Penn Mobile ships an update every 4 weeks, and Birdathon every 4 months. Most recently, Penn Mobile was updated on September 8, 2026 and Birdathon on September 19, 2026.

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