Dual Platform License (iOS, Android)?

I'm ready to begin on my audacious journey of Chinese learning with the aid of Pleco, Skritter, and whatever else looks promising. However, I appear to be facing a scenario that requires possibly two OS platforms, iOS, and Android. Does the Pleco license allow one to run the application on both Android, and iOS concurrently?

Pleco seems to run very well on my 16GB HTC One S Android smartphone, which is reputed to have a reasonably fast processor, and has an 8MP camera hopefully suitable for OCR. I am now subsequently persuaded that I need to add Skritter (http://www.skritter.com) to my chinese learning toolbox. Regrettably, Skritter only runs on iOS(iPhone, iPod, iPad). For various reasons, I wanted to commit to an Android smartphone to run Pleco among other things, but now my perceived necessity to use Skritter forces me to use an iOS platform.

I am considering:

1. iPod Touch 4th Gen (Skritter, Pleco)
2. Android (Pleco)

My understanding is that there is some synergy with the links between Pleco, and Skritter which might suggest the iPod Touch as a unified solution. However, I've read comments here that suggest that the iPod Touch 4th Gen isnt' an ideal solution. I read MikeLove's comments that the iPod Touch 4th Gen was equipped with inadequate memory, given its Retina class display, that it probably wouldn't have an upgrade path to iOS 7, and that others had observed that demanding games exposed the performance deficiencies of this device.

I was hoping not to have to invest in a pricey iPhone 5, or iPod Touch 5, when it appears that my Android phone seems well equipped to run Pleco.

Some Skritter users report that the iPod Touch 4th Gen works well enough, but I'd like to also know if this device can run both Pleco, including OCR, in combination. I assume both Pleco and Skritter will receive updates which will place increasing demands on its host (performance, memory, etc). What is the likelihood the iPod Touch 4th Gen will have enough performance to handle the short to medium term anticipated upgrades to both Pleco, and Skritter?

I'm thinking of using my Android phone for Pleco, and OCR, and an iPod Touch for the combination of Pleco and Skritter, and OCR if it's up to the task. Will Pleco's licensing accomodate this dual-platform scenario? Thanks.
 
Here's a suggestion. Get a Tablet. A google nexus 7 is the best value for your money right now. You'll be able to access the skritter website, rather than the cheesy iOS app, and get 10X the real estate in screenage amongst a million other non-apple benefits.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Anonsequitur said:
I'm ready to begin on my audacious journey of Chinese learning with the aid of Pleco, Skritter, and whatever else looks promising. However, I appear to be facing a scenario that requires possibly two OS platforms, iOS, and Android. Does the Pleco license allow one to run the application on both Android, and iOS concurrently?

Yes, but you have to buy on iOS; however, if you bought on Android it's usually possible to switch your license to an iOS one by buying the iOS version and then sending us proof of purchase so that we can refund your Android purchase. (please check with us first before doing this, though - we can't make it a 100% guarantee because Google could pull the plug on letting developers arbitrarily refund purchases at any time)

Anonsequitur said:
My understanding is that there is some synergy with the links between Pleco, and Skritter which might suggest the iPod Touch as a unified solution. However, I've read comments here that suggest that the iPod Touch 4th Gen isnt' an ideal solution. I read MikeLove's comments that the iPod Touch 4th Gen was equipped with inadequate memory, given its Retina class display, that it probably wouldn't have an upgrade path to iOS 7, and that others had observed that demanding games exposed the performance deficiencies of this device.

Exactly, yes - not a device I'd recommend at all.

Anonsequitur said:
Some Skritter users report that the iPod Touch 4th Gen works well enough, but I'd like to also know if this device can run both Pleco, including OCR, in combination. I assume both Pleco and Skritter will receive updates which will place increasing demands on its host (performance, memory, etc). What is the likelihood the iPod Touch 4th Gen will have enough performance to handle the short to medium term anticipated upgrades to both Pleco, and Skritter?

OCR is a problem due to the camera, which is totally useless for photographing text. Everything else should work OK for now, and I don't believe that our next major update will be a problem either as long as you don't install every single add-on dictionary and don't try OCRing a lot of very large still images / PDFs, but in general it's likely to get left behind in the not-too-distant future - iOS 7 will most likely drop support both for it and for the iPhone 3GS. For our part I don't think we would feel any obligation to keep supporting the iPhone 3GS and 4th-generation iPod past the end of 2013, and Apple could easily pull the plug sooner than that, just as they did when the iPhone 5 came out and made it impossible to develop for the iPhone 3G.

siamesefightingfish said:
Here's a suggestion. Get a Tablet. A google nexus 7 is the best value for your money right now. You'll be able to access the skritter website, rather than the cheesy iOS app, and get 10X the real estate in screenage amongst a million other non-apple benefits.

There's also the iPad Mini, which costs a bit more but gets you native Skritter instead of the occasionally-troublesome Flash version.
 
@siamesefightingfish
Thanks for your Nexus 7/tablet suggestion. I was hoping for an offline solution for Skritter though, and a mobile phone size form factor. I could tether a tablet to my phone, but that seems more complex and coordinating two devices seems to be less convenient to me, and perhaps battery capacity might be an issue running a 4G/Data connection for extended periods. Skritter's promotional videos of users of their iPhone version, skrittering out and about on the go, one-handed looks seductive. I just tried their web demo a few times on a 7" tablet on WiFi and it seems OK though.

@mikelove
Thanks for the prompt reply and insightful comments. Luckily I haven't purchased Pleco yet so I'm not locked in. I downloaded the great free dictionaries, and handwriting recognizer which all seem to work well on my Android phone.

I think your rejection of the iPod Touch 4G seems well reasoned and it may soon be headed to end-of-life for support and development as you suggest. However, after yet more research, it seems the Skritter folk have given it their stamp of approval for their app.

"Writing is like cutting warm butter with a steak knife. It's like cutting tin foil with scissors. It's like tearing shrink wrap off a new electronic gadget. It's that good. The only downside is that due to it's slightly less powerful hardware, it does stutter from time to time, but it's a minor inconvenience."

In their annual 2012 Skritter Input Method roundup, they give the iPod Touch 4G four out of five stars. http://www.skritter.com/input-review

I can get a used one for the going rate of about $120. If it works well enough as the Skritter folks say, then in about a year I could consider getting a more reasonably priced new or used iPhone 4S, or iPad Mini. If Pleco won't run well on it, then I could run it and OCR on my Android, forgoing the synergy of Pleco/Skritter on the same device.

I'm not sure if this strategy is wise or if I'm overlooking some critical considerations.

Thanks.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Anonsequitur said:
I'm not sure if this strategy is wise or if I'm overlooking some critical considerations.

Mainly OS compatibility - the current situation with games has gotten pretty intolerable: you can't release a game for iPhone without also having to support the iPod Touch 4G, but due to its RAM shortage you either have to spend a whole lot of time coming up with alternate / lower-memory graphical assets etc for it (difficult to justify given the dwindling numbers of iPod Touch 4G users) or ignore it and get swamped with 1-star reviews from angry iPod users. So I expect that Apple is under tremendous pressure from game developers to drop support for the iPod in iOS 7, even though there's a very good chance that they'll continue supporting the iPhone 4. And once they do, you're going to see a ton of developers quickly shift to requiring iOS 7 (even if they don't need any of its new features) so that they no longer have to worry about the iPod 4G.

I don't think we'd start requiring iOS 7 right away ourselves, but we certainly might design new features around it, so there could very well be a Pleco update a month or two after OS7 is released that adds some awesome new OS7-exclusive feature that you won't be able to get on your iPod. (much like OCR was for OS4) There could also be such an update for Skritter, though of course that's really up to them.

Anonsequitur said:
If Pleco won't run well on it, then I could run it and OCR on my Android, forgoing the synergy of Pleco/Skritter on the same device.

Actually, given the way things are currently shaping up I think that synergy would be largely device-independent - the tentative plan is to make Pleco/Skritter card list sharing server-based and to support it both on iOS and Android. (so ironically, you might be able to modify your Skritter vocabulary on an Android device that you can't actually use Skritter on)
 
After a little more research I'd like to recant my previous suggestion on the Nexus 7. It's got No internal memory. Big brother wants you to use google cloud. Instead I'd recommend and Asus Iconia. It's got a full size (non-micro) USB port which you can connect a usb pen drive or external HD, and a full HD screen. I don't want to hijack this thread and turn it into a hardware review, so I'll finish up by saying that using scritter's web site on a tab would be 10 times better than an iOS app on a tiny 3 inch screen. JMHO.
 
Thanks Mike for providing a great product and unbelievable support.

I've purchased Pleco for iPhone and recently and have purchased an ASUS Transformer Android Tablet. I would like to be able to run Pleco on both devices if possible. I've read the "iOS to Android License Migration" page but still have some questions:

1) I originally purchased Pleco (+Handwriting +TextFileReader +Flashcard +Extended Audio) for Palm and transferred the license to iOS and since added (+OCR +StrokeOrderDiagrams). There is a note on the "iOS to Android License Migration" page that I've read to imply that such a license will only work with one device after transferring, i.e. no longer be able to use it on my iPhone. Am I understanding this right?

2) Do I loose any Pleco functionality on the iPhone (my primary Pleco device as it goes everywhere I go and I'm addicted flashcards) after transferring? Would "Restore iTunes Purchases" still work?

3) After future purchase of add-ins using my iPhone will the add-ins be considered purchased on my Android tablet? What about the reverse situation of purchasing add-ins using using Android?

4) Are there any other downsides after transferring if I want to continue using my iPhone as my primary Pleco device?
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
spherelander said:
1) I originally purchased Pleco (+Handwriting +TextFileReader +Flashcard +Extended Audio) for Palm and transferred the license to iOS and since added (+OCR +StrokeOrderDiagrams). There is a note on the "iOS to Android License Migration" page that I've read to imply that such a license will only work with one device after transferring, i.e. no longer be able to use it on my iPhone. Am I understanding this right?

That's correct, yes - you can bring back the purchases that you originally made on iPhone with a "Restore iTunes Purchases," since those can be used on multiple devices, but items originally purchased on Palm/WM can only be used on one device at a time. (the same license terms that applied when you originally purchased them)

spherelander said:
2) Do I loose any Pleco functionality on the iPhone (my primary Pleco device as it goes everywhere I go and I'm addicted flashcards) after transferring? Would "Restore iTunes Purchases" still work?

It would, but you'd only get back the stroke order + OCR. Or we could help you activate stroke order + OCR over to Android and keep all of your purchases on iOS. But I'm afraid it's not possible to have everything on both platforms without buying again.

spherelander said:
3) After future purchase of add-ins using my iPhone will the add-ins be considered purchased on my Android tablet? What about the reverse situation of purchasing add-ins using using Android?

Yes for iPhone purchases, you'd have to register / transfer them to Android (wouldn't happen automatically) but since they weren't originally made on Palm/WM you could keep using them on your iPhone as well. No for Android purchases, Apple generally doesn't like us selling stuff outside of their store and only seem to tolerate it for Palm/WM because we're not actually selling that software any more and are just supporting previous customers.

(sorry this is so cumbersome, but even this level of platform transfer support took a ton of effort / negotiation which I suppose is why so few other mobile app developers do it)
 

leoninto

秀才
siamesefightingfish said:
After a little more research I'd like to recant my previous suggestion on the Nexus 7. It's got No internal memory. Big brother wants you to use google cloud. Instead I'd recommend and Asus Iconia. It's got a full size (non-micro) USB port which you can connect a usb pen drive or external HD, and a full HD screen. I don't want to hijack this thread and turn it into a hardware review, so I'll finish up by saying that using scritter's web site on a tab would be 10 times better than an iOS app on a tiny 3 inch screen. JMHO.

How does it not have internal memory? The N7 comes in 8/16/32GB sizes. It's just like the majority of phones nowadays that don't have a microSD slot. I bought a N7 to replace my Touchpad running Android just so I bring it around more often. A full size tablet is just too heavy to lug around day to day without a car.
 

antonbond

秀才
I just bought the Pleco license for Android two days ago and love it tremendously. However, I do have an iPad which I'd love to install the paid version too. How do I go about doing that without have to purchase another license?
Thanks.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
antonbond said:
I just bought the Pleco license for Android two days ago and love it tremendously. However, I do have an iPad which I'd love to install the paid version too. How do I go about doing that without have to purchase another license?
Thanks.

Contact support@pleco.com - basically, you'll need to buy the iOS version and then send us proof of purchase so that we can refund you for the Android one. (you can then activate the iOS version on Android) Apple's rules forbid us from selling iOS software outside of their store, but no such restrictions apply on Android, so we can do this as long as the original purchase is on iOS.
 

jasneo

Member
Hi, sorry to barge in this old thread.

Would like to know whether emailing to support is still applicable if I need to have the Pleco on dual platforms or just key in the registration ID from iOS in Android device?

And one more question: am I permitted to use one license for multiple devices on dual platforms.

Thanks.
 
Top