Beta Dictionaries / Bundles

[mikelove]

Great! Just wondering, Mike. Do you know how to speak Cantonese?

Nope, but I've already hired someone who does.

 

[ACardiganAndAFrown]

We actually would be charging for these beta versions, I think - we'll make it perfectly clear they're unfinished and nobody should buy them without knowing that, but I don't see anything wrong with charging people for betas if they get the finished product for free.

Word. I don't think anyone (who knew what they were buying) would mind paying for beta versions, either, if the finished product was a free upgrade in the end.

We're not planning to offer a "pack" of the beta dictionaries, though, as they don't really go together and it's unlikely many people would want all three (the TCM dictionary is extremely interesting for people working in the traditional Chinese medicine field, but if you're a regular Chinese language student - however advanced / enthusiastic - it might not be worth the trouble to get).

I wouldn't mind paying for a "pack" but that's just me...I'm always running into TCM related things ad I know a bunch of Chinese people who would love to know the English of some of these things....

When would you roll out these betas, if you guys do decided to to release them like this?

 

[mikelove]

When would you roll out these betas, if you guys do decided to to release them like this?

Pretty soon, but we're talking about small enough intervals that any estimate I gave you could be off by several orders of magnitude so I'd rather not give one.

 

[goldyn chyld]

Since even these betas are in the "coming pretty soon" stage, I can pretty much imagine that we won't see the actual new bundles before next year...

 

[mikelove]

Since even these betas are in the "coming pretty soon" stage, I can pretty much imagine that we won't see the actual new bundles before next year...

Oh no, the "coming pretty soon" bit is only because we're waiting for approval from the publisher of one of the three dictionaries involved - once we've got that it should be pretty speedy. (and only one of the other new dictionaries requires publisher approval, so this shouldn't be a significant holdup with the later releases)

Things really are coming together, the big Android beta that we're finally about to actually release will be testing out near-final versions of almost all of our new cross-platform code, most of the remaining work to be done relates to UI (primarily our gorgeous new type design which is still in the process of being finalized) and data file conversions.

 

[goldyn chyld]

I see. That's better...

 

[Henry]

Either option would be fine with me. Anything to get them released!

As I've already been waiting for the Practical Dictionary (TCM) for two years or so, adding " . . . as soon as possible" seems kind of silly...but the idea of having it on my phone is still exciting, so please, release it as soon as possible!

 

[mikelove]

As I've already been waiting for the Practical Dictionary (TCM) for two years or so, adding " . . . as soon as possible" seems kind of silly...but the idea of having it on my phone is still exciting, so please, release it as soon as possible!

That one's getting very close indeed, we should be sending a converted copy to Nigel (who's got Pleco on his Android phone now) today or tomorrow to check.

 

[mathew]

I would also like to see a dictionary bundle.

I have been putting off buying the everything but dictionaries bundle, which I want,

because I don't want to have to pay for those things again if I later want to buy the dictionaries bundle which are currently only available as a get the full set bundle,

which I really don't need yet.

 

[mikelove]

I would also like to see a dictionary bundle.

I have been putting off buying the everything but dictionaries bundle, which I want,

because I don't want to have to pay for those things again if I later want to buy the dictionaries bundle which are currently only available as a get the full set bundle,

which I really don't need yet.

That's definitely part of our plans, yes - we can't keep involving the same add-ons in every bundle.

 

[TimBenderSLS]

I'm very much looking forward to the literary chinese dictionary - my current use of pleco involves far too much cutting and pasting into 汉典 for stuff outside the 规范词典, that I've more or less just turned to bypassing pleco altogether and just using internet sources directly. Which has meant that I'm once again chained to the front of the computer and dealing with internet lag...this upcoming release will really make reading a much more comfortable and fast experience.

 

[mikelove]

I'm very much looking forward to the literary chinese dictionary - my current use of pleco involves far too much cutting and pasting into 汉典 for stuff outside the 规范词典, that I've more or less just turned to bypassing pleco altogether and just using internet sources directly. Which has meant that I'm once again chained to the front of the computer and dealing with internet lag...this upcoming release will really make reading a much more comfortable and fast experience.

Actually several now, the first of which should be out in the near future - we were waiting on Apple to approve our second iOS6 bug-fix update (which they just did today) before submitting the new "early access" dictionaries for their approval, so now that they've done that we should be submitting them shortly and then we'd plan to release them more-or-less simultaneously on iOS and Android once Apple approves them. (they may require the beta version on Android, though, depending on whether or not we're confident enough to make that the official version by then)

 

[TimBenderSLS]

That's wonderful news! In 2 weeks there's a whopping 250 pages of 史记 assigned in one course for that week...that might be significantly easier to wade through

 

[HuShifang]

Mike - I'm planning on migrating my Pleco from iOS to an Android tablet in the near future (I'd gotten my hopes up about the Microsoft Surface, but after finding the pricing exorbitant am now looking at a Nexus 10), and am wondering how licensing issues will work out on the new dictionaries. If I license them after migrating my overall Pleco registration, will that preclude my porting them back from Android to iOS at some point in the future? (That is, am I better off buying them while my registration is still for iOS? I suppose the dictionaries' ultimate release date is a factor here too.)

 

[mikelove]

Mike - I'm planning on migrating my Pleco from iOS to an Android tablet in the near future (I'd gotten my hopes up about the Microsoft Surface, but after finding the pricing exorbitant am now looking at a Nexus 10), and am wondering how licensing issues will work out on the new dictionaries. If I license them after migrating my overall Pleco registration, will that preclude my porting them back from Android to iOS at some point in the future? (That is, am I better off buying them while my registration is still for iOS? I suppose the dictionaries' ultimate release date is a factor here too.)

You don't lose the rights to use them on iOS when you transfer them to Android, the only type of transfer we can't do is to transfer something that was originally purchased on Android to iOS.