Need HWR advice iOS v Droid

[Hopfrog]

I currently use Pleco for the iPad. It is my main tool for learning Chinese and I spread the word every chance I get. In fact, Pleco pretty much guarantees that I will always own a tablet and will dictate what tablet I end up buying, because it is the one product I absolutely cannot be without.

I find the HWR (Pleco's, not Apple's) on the iPad to be an absolute dream. I am constantly amazed at how Pleco suggests the right character with some fast, sloppy scribbling. Ironically, the one character I can never get it to recognize is one of the simplest ones: 子

Unfortunately I am growing less enchanted with Apple as time goes on. I am really getting annoyed with the closed environment and find that all the books, shows, movies I can find cheaper elsewhere. While I used to look at the coming Windows phone/tablet with a laugh as being too late to the party, I must say those products are starting to look appealing, but they have one major strike. Currently no Pleco support, so won't even be an option for me. So my only other option is an Android based tablet.

To anyone who has used both, how does Pleco's HWR addon perform on a droid tablet compared to an iPad? Any other major differences between the two formats in terms of performance and ease of use? Can my flashcards easily be ported over to a new OS? Thanks in advance.

 

[skripp]

Firstly I'd like to add that I've never owned an Android tablet, only a phone.

I've used Pleco on both and I'm pretty sure the HWR is exactly the same. No difference what so ever.

Only thing that I can say that the iOS version does better is the built in lyrics reader (it's great!). But if you don't use that, then I'd say there is no real difference and you shouldn't worry about switching.

I haven't moved my flashcard files myself, but since there is both import and export functions in Pleco I assume this won't be a problem.

I do agree with you that the closed Apple eco-system and their HORRIBLE user interface (many will argue with me, here ) is annoying, but the iPad is so thus far so far beyond the competition that it's not even funny. Hopefully google will fix all the quirks soon. They are announcing some product today, so here is to hoping.

 

[mikelove]

I've used Pleco on both and I'm pretty sure the HWR is exactly the same. No difference what so ever.

Yes, same algorithm / template database; the actual stroke capture is a less smooth because certain Android hardware manufacturers (<cough>HTC<cough>) don't know how to write a decent OpenGL driver and hence we're not able to hardware-accelerate it like we do on iOS, but the recognition part of it is totally identical.

I haven't moved my flashcard files myself, but since there is both import and export functions in Pleco I assume this won't be a problem.

Nope, but you probably want to "Backup Database" / "Restore Database" instead of exporting/importing to make sure that all of your profiles get moved over too.

Hopefully google will fix all the quirks soon. They are announcing some product today, so here is to hoping.

Nothing particularly exciting, a $200 7" tablet with similar features to what other manufacturers are charging $250 for. It'll probably compel Amazon to drop the price of the Kindle Fire to $180 or something, and maybe Samsung will drop the Galaxy Tab 7 to $220, but it's not a major game-changer like (say) a 7-inch iPad would be.

 

[gato]

Google's trying to pull an Amazon, using subsidized hardware to sell content.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... TopStories
Google focused much of its presentation Wednesday showing off its library of movies, magazines and music.

"We wanted to design a best-of-Google experience that is optimized around all this great content," said Hugo Barra, Google's Android product management director.

 

[mikelove]

"We wanted to design a best-of-Google experience that is optimized around all this great content," said Hugo Barra, Google's Android product management director.

Lovely in theory, but are users really going to buy enough content to make it worthwhile?

Probably something that should worry Samsung, though, as they have less to offer content-wise than any other big mobile device player at the moment (even Microsoft) - they may have to buy their own media company. (unfortunately the cheapest / most beleaguered big one is Sony and there's no way in a million years the Japanese authorities would let them do that)

 

[gato]

As they are trying to make money from selling content, it is also questionable how "open" Android will continue to be. This adds to the concern raised with the Motorola acquisition.

Sony's Hollywood division is basically Columbia, if I'm not mistaken, and not indigenous to Japan. But none of these studios would be a cheap purchase at this point. I'm not sure Samsung would be good at running a studio, anyway. They can always license or just be a middleman. They need to improve their store app first. It seems a bit clunky.

 

[albercliff]

I'm thinking about the possibility of using Pleco on a new Nexus 7 tablet. Will it be possible?

 

[mikelove]

As they are trying to make money from selling content, it is also questionable how "open" Android will continue to be. This adds to the concern raised with the Motorola acquisition.

Good point, though making access to Google APIs an all-or-nothing thing seems to be working reasonably well so far - nobody wants to buy an Android phone without Android Market, and Google can hold that over vendors' heads if they try to switch to another default search engine or another default music score. But if the Kindle Fire does well with a totally alternate ecosystem it may force Google to go closed-source for Android 5.

I'm thinking about the possibility of using Pleco on a new Nexus 7 tablet. Will it be possible?

It certainly should be - if it doesn't work from the get-go we'll order one and fix it.