So it's officially been 6 months since Pleco for iPhone came out, and while I think we can now safely claim to rule the roost among high-end Chinese dictionaries on iPhone, we seem to still be lagging somewhat on the low end. Our free app gets fewer downloads than KTDict even here in the US, and in some markets lags behind several others as well, and we continue to come in depressingly low on the list of search results for "chinese dictionary" (though that may partly have to do with Apple's sort algorithm heavily favoring paid apps, which Pleco isn't technically considered to be, and apps that have been out for a longer time).
I suspect a big part of the problem is interface complexity, or the perception of it - a single toolbar with a search box and one or two buttons is a lot less scary than what we present people with - but there's not all that much we can do about that aside from explaining things better / streamlining the settings screen / etc; we certainly don't want to make our software less useful for paying customers for the sake of attracting more non-paying ones, so dispensing with a lot of the toolbars / making some options harder to access would probably be a bad move. Startup time may also be a factor, and we can't do much to improve that at this point either (opening lots of files takes time), but it should become considerably less of a problem with multitasking support in OS 4.
But what I'm wondering is: is there anything else the other free / low-end Chinese dictionary apps on iPhone actually do better than us, or any useful feature that they offer that we lack? Or something they give away / charge very little for that costs a lot more in Pleco? Is there something about our default UI configuration - the large / widely-spaced search results, say, or the use of tone colors, or the large font in definitions - that people who don't know how to change Pleco's UI settings are likely to consider a turnoff? Is the built-in PLC dictionary deficient enough in some way relative to CC-CEDICT that we ought to build both into our basic application? And are there any particular areas of UI complexity / confusion that we could improve on without making things less functional for our "power users"?
I suppose this shouldn't be much of a cause for concern - the only real function business-wise of the free app is to convince people to pay for the non-free upgrades, which it seems to be doing quite well - but we're also in the business of making great software, and if people are only going to spring for a free / low-cost dictionary anyway I'd rather it be ours than somebody else's. So candid feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.
I suspect a big part of the problem is interface complexity, or the perception of it - a single toolbar with a search box and one or two buttons is a lot less scary than what we present people with - but there's not all that much we can do about that aside from explaining things better / streamlining the settings screen / etc; we certainly don't want to make our software less useful for paying customers for the sake of attracting more non-paying ones, so dispensing with a lot of the toolbars / making some options harder to access would probably be a bad move. Startup time may also be a factor, and we can't do much to improve that at this point either (opening lots of files takes time), but it should become considerably less of a problem with multitasking support in OS 4.
But what I'm wondering is: is there anything else the other free / low-end Chinese dictionary apps on iPhone actually do better than us, or any useful feature that they offer that we lack? Or something they give away / charge very little for that costs a lot more in Pleco? Is there something about our default UI configuration - the large / widely-spaced search results, say, or the use of tone colors, or the large font in definitions - that people who don't know how to change Pleco's UI settings are likely to consider a turnoff? Is the built-in PLC dictionary deficient enough in some way relative to CC-CEDICT that we ought to build both into our basic application? And are there any particular areas of UI complexity / confusion that we could improve on without making things less functional for our "power users"?
I suppose this shouldn't be much of a cause for concern - the only real function business-wise of the free app is to convince people to pay for the non-free upgrades, which it seems to be doing quite well - but we're also in the business of making great software, and if people are only going to spring for a free / low-cost dictionary anyway I'd rather it be ours than somebody else's. So candid feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.