iOS 6

[mikelove]

Installed the new beta; can't say much about it until somebody else leaks something which I can then cite without violating the NDA, but I can say that Pleco actually seems to work fine on it without modification - even our DRM system, which we were a bit worried about. (that may still have to change for policy reasons, but I'm optimistic that we might not have to force everybody to reauthorize their purchases when they upgrade to OS 6, which was a support nightmare we were very much hoping to avoid) So far no showstopper bugs, which we had to deal with on both OS 4 and OS 5, and since we're still getting occasional emails about people upgrading to iOS 5 having problems with a year-old version of Pleco I'm very much hoping that remains true.

 

[goldyn chyld]

So is there any hope for 2.3 / new dictionaries getting released before fall 2012?

 

[mikelove]

So is there any hope for 2.3 / new dictionaries getting released before fall 2012?

A great deal of hope, yes - with the DRM less of a problem and hence one major programming challenge hopefully out of the way, it really is mostly a matter of waiting for enough dictionaries to be ready that we can make this a suitably high-impact release. And the completion estimates on most of those are looking quite good.

 

[numble]

Great news: Text to speech is no longer tied to language settings!

 

[mikelove]

Great news: Text to speech is no longer tied to language settings!

That is nice, except that ironically we now have our own licensed offline TTS engine

 

[Eddy]

A great deal of hope, yes - with the DRM less of a problem and hence one major programming challenge hopefully out of the way, it really is mostly a matter of waiting for enough dictionaries to be ready that we can make this a suitably high-impact release. And the completion estimates on most of those are looking quite good.

Well, in case you need to add an extra feature to make the release worthy enough then by all means, please feel free to add support for "note" fields in the flashcards module, he he! :mrgreen:

 

[mikelove]

Well, in case you need to add an extra feature to make the release worthy enough then by all means, please feel free to add support for "note" fields in the flashcards module, he he!

Heh, those are actually in tap for the *next* big update, which should be much faster than this one since we won't have the Android version taking up more than a year of our time in the middle of developing it. Flashcard notes are one of a number of features that are tied to in a major flashcard database system revamp, along with embedded images / audio, iCloud sync, much better statistics tracking, etc... so they're definitely coming but they're coming along with a bunch of other closely-related improvements.

 

[numble]

You can now host content on Apple's servers, up to 2 GB, with background downloading. Maybe better than maintaining your own servers?

 

[mikelove]

You can now host content on Apple's servers, up to 2 GB, with background downloading. Maybe better than maintaining your own servers?

We actually just use a CDN so they're not really that much trouble, and we'd need to continue doing that anyway since even if Google eventually adds a similar feature to Android Market it wouldn't cover people who bought our Android app directly from our online store. Plus we'd rather not cut off original iPad users and other folks who can't get OS 6... so a lovely idea in theory but it'll be years before we can actually consider adopting it.

 

[numble]

Would it maybe save some money, or solve some server issues for having to serve to multiple regions? Maybe just use Apple servers for iOS devices? I guess updating content would be a minor pain.

 

[gato]

I don't think Apple has servers within mainland China (downloading apps here is much slower than in HK), so going with Apple's servers probably wouldn't solve the GFW problem. Mike's main server problem is probably the GFW.

Apple doesn't care that much, as it doesn't expect to make any headway in selling content in mainland China, where users expect all content to be free.

 

[mikelove]

Would it maybe save some money, or solve some server issues for having to serve to multiple regions? Maybe just use Apple servers for iOS devices? I guess updating content would be a minor pain.

Unfortunately yes, particularly since they seem to want to review it too. Multi-region issues are usually pretty well addressed by using a CDN like we do.

I don't think Apple has servers within mainland China (downloading apps here is much slower than in HK), so going with Apple's servers probably wouldn't solve the GFW problem. Mike's main server problem is probably the GFW.

True - China users get directed to a server in HK at the moment. We could sign up with a China-based CDN but it's not cheap and we don't really get enough complaints about HK download speeds to justify it, particularly not with people already having to download a decent-sized file from one of Apple's servers outside of China just to get up and running with our app in the first place.

Apple doesn't care that much, as it doesn't expect to make any headway in selling content in mainland China, where users expect all content to be free.

Actually I'd be astonished if they didn't roll out a China-friendly download system at some point (which might strengthen the case for us to spring for a China CDN) - iTunes isn't about making money off of content, it's about inducing other people to make / sell interesting content so that people will want to buy Apple's phones. Even when a user buys the Pleco Complete bundle, Apple's 30% cut of that is only a fraction of what they made selling them the device they're running it on. Apple's making a ton of money in China in spite of the Chinese refusal to pay for content because they're more than happy to pay for fancy phones.

 

[Eddy]

Heh, those are actually in tap for the *next* big update, which should be much faster than this one since we won't have the Android version taking up more than a year of our time in the middle of developing it. Flashcard notes are one of a number of features that are tied to in a major flashcard database system revamp, along with embedded images / audio, iCloud sync, much better statistics tracking, etc... so they're definitely coming but they're coming along with a bunch of other closely-related improvements.

Fantastic, that will be a killer update. Can't wait!

 

[Z-Lo]

So is there any hope for 2.3 / new dictionaries getting released before fall 2012?

A great deal of hope, yes - with the DRM less of a problem and hence one major programming challenge hopefully out of the way, it really is mostly a matter of waiting for enough dictionaries to be ready that we can make this a suitably high-impact release. And the completion estimates on most of those are looking quite good.

Waiting and waiting for the new dictionaries... I check the App Store updates everyday specifically for Pleco's update!! Ugh...


.

 

[mikelove]

Waiting and waiting for the new dictionaries... I check the App Store updates everyday specifically for Pleco's update!! Ugh...

We're stil waiting on a few of them too, sadly - taking longer than we expected on a couple of them (including the hotly-anticipated-for-some-reason Classical Chinese one). We'll give you some warning before the update, so you really don't need to check the App Store every day.

 

[goldyn chyld]

So is there any hope for 2.3 / new dictionaries getting released before fall 2012?

A great deal of hope, yes - with the DRM less of a problem and hence one major programming challenge hopefully out of the way, it really is mostly a matter of waiting for enough dictionaries to be ready that we can make this a suitably high-impact release. And the completion estimates on most of those are looking quite good.

Waiting and waiting for the new dictionaries... I check the App Store updates everyday specifically for Pleco's update!! Ugh...


.

Same here.. :? Heh, although I'm not really checking iTunes because I know that there will definitely be an announcement before they get released, but I will be the first one in line to purchase them once they get released.

 

[erzangel]

What about the new bluetooth sharing feature from iOS 6? Would be great to sync flashcards this way.

 

[mikelove]

What about the new bluetooth sharing feature from iOS 6? Would be great to sync flashcards this way.

That doesn't appear to have showed up in Apple's APIs in any way we can get at - we're already sharing data over Bluetooth via our "Share Files" feature and that still seems to be about the best we can do for inter-device communication.

 

[scykei]

I just got iOS6. Wow have they improved their handwriting recognition. I couldn't get the built-in Chinese dictionary to work though. Is it really a new feature or have I read it wrong?

 

[mikelove]

I just got iOS6. Wow have they improved their handwriting recognition. I couldn't get the built-in Chinese dictionary to work though. Is it really a new feature or have I read it wrong?

It's pretty limited - works if you use the "Define" command after selecting a piece of Chinese text. (I believe simplified-only at the moment)