IPhone Chinese hand writing recognition

[Nob]

I have just found out that there is a handwriting recognition for the IPhone:

http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2008/...-adds-chinese-handwriting-recognition-newton/

Maybe that could facilitate the development of an Plecodict for the IPhone?

Greetings,
Nob

 

[mikelove]

This has been out for a while, actually - helps our competitors more than it helps us since we've already got a separate iPhone Chinese handwriting recognizer license. (which is, however, a lot better since it lets us do fullscreen recognition and support simplified/traditional simultaneously)

 

[DaXiong]

I just recently started learning Mandarin, and would LOVE to get my hands on Pleco for the iPhone.

Any idea, even roughly, how long a wait I am in for? 3 months? 6 months? Longer? (Please NOT longer! :? )

Thank you!

 

[ipsi]

I hate to say it, but you won't be getting a definite answer from Mike as he's sworn that he won't be giving a release date (and saying something like 'Maybe 3 months' is basically the same as giving a release date). Given that they've only just started work on it, I'd say 3 months would be extremely optimistic and 6+ months is probably more realistic. However, that's just my view as someone outside the company.

 

[mikelove]

Nope, not saying anything at all about release dates, upgrade policies, features, or pricing, though I might put a demo video up on YouTube once we've got the basic UI + fullscreen handwriting recognizer working smoothly.

 

[numble]

Any news on a youtube preview?

 

[mikelove]

Probably not until it's approved and about to be released, unless we do a beta test (still not sure on that) in which case the info would be bound to come out anyway and we'd at least want to be the ones to supply it. Otherwise I'd rather not tip off our large and growing band of would-be competitors as to what we're working on, or get people excited about features Apple makes us cut, or inspire even greater numbers of "why isn't it ready yet" emails...

(hate to be so uncharacteristically secretive, but this is easily the biggest release in Pleco's history, with or without flashcards in the first version, so I'm adopting a more cautious view towards just about everything)

 

[ruisi1]

Mike, any updates on this? My WM phone crashed (again), and my next smartphone will definitely be an iPhone. Almost as important, will you allow Pleco 2.0 for WM purchasers like me get the license for iPhone for free, or at least a reduced price? Thanks.

 

[mikelove]

Not much new to say on it, no. We have absolutely no way of knowing what our upgrade policy will be until after the software is finished / approved by Apple, unfortunately, since there's always the possibility they might reject the software if they don't like the policy we'd been planning on.

 

[DaXiong]

Hi Mike,

So how about that YouTube video? Ready to give us a preview of iPhone Pleco yet?

Or better yet, are we within a month or two of official release?

Thanks!

 

[mikelove]

My latest thinking on that is that it'll be more fun if we leave it to beta-testers - since we're not planning to require an NDA (unlikely we'd be able to enforce it if we did, aside from refusing access to later betas), people should be free to put up videos / blog posts / etc about their experiences with it, and those will be much more convincing than anything we'd do here.