Pleco Desktop

gato

状元
Lastly, where are your ads, I haven't see one anywhere. If someone hadn't told me about you, I would never bought Pleco.
There's an ad on http://www.chinese-forums.com/

according to my experience, here in Europe. Few students own an IPhone or a smart phone. But almost each of them has a notebook running mostly XP and sometimes Vista.
There are quite a number of very good Chinese dictionaries and flashcard programs on the desktop today, not to mention the many online dictionaries. At US$100-150, I'm not sure that our hypothetical European student would spend money on Pleco desktop rather than use the free software. I think it's in the mobile/phone space that Pleco has a unique competitive edge.
 

radioman

状元
This is an interesting string, diverting for a minute from studying...

My own two cents is that I am frustrated because only now am I coming up to speed the real depth of Pleco. I think I have used most ALL the iPhone apps and none compare to the depth of the Palm version. So, I walk around with an iPhone to suppliment, but it sure does not run as my main study tool. The flashcard program for Pleco on the Palm is complicated. But if you are really in the study game, the depth is remarkable in its sophistication. There is nothing like it. I even just created and imported a custom dictionary for "Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters" and it works seamlessly. Not sure where else I could do that.

Getting iPhone versions of any of the modules into the Palm, I would welcome and use. Hopefully "iPleco" will maintain some level of sophistication to set it apart. Personally, I would love to get a great reader that could store words and bookmark. My Palm is currently not "wireless" so to have handheld that accesses global sources as opposed to what I can download to a card makes a tone of sense. Seems this is a perfect application for those times you just want to get something to eat, or head out without a full blown computer.

With this said, from a marketing perspective, I shared in the past that it took me a year and a half to understand what Pleco was. Significantly crippled dictionaries in the test version, etc., I never was able to use it so moved on within 5 minutes. (My loss, unfortunately). Setting aside the significant license challenges, if there was a way to quickly show full functionality for a week or so, I would have invested much earlier. Many people on the iPhone or iPod touch just download things and try them (to the extent they are free or 99 cents), I have literally hundreds of programs that I would never have tried if it was like the Blackberry, where I need to struggle to find apps, etc. The Appstore in and of itself is a great marketing vehicle.
 

thph2006

进士
gato said:
There are quite a number of very good Chinese dictionaries and flashcard programs on the desktop today, not to mention the many online dictionaries. At US$100-150, I'm not sure that our hypothetical European student would spend money on Pleco desktop rather than use the free software. I think it's in the mobile/phone space that Pleco has a unique competitive edge.

Gato, Would you mind listing the desktop (non-internet-based) Chinese dictionaries and flashcard programs you think are good. I've been looking and haven't been too successful locating a quality product. A pointer would really be appreciated.

Cheers, tom
 

ciaocibai

进士
I just want to second lingoes, it's really a fantastic product! Obviously no flashcard functionality though :-/ Nor a mac version.

The problem is finding a product that combines all the good features together. Like pleco! Haha.
 

stisev

进士
I have used Wenlin extensively in the past in my Chinese lab and it doesn't even come close to the usability/design/sheer raw power of Pleco. Seriously, it's like comparing a Subaru WRX STi to a Ferrari F40(<-Pleco). The WRX STi performs very well, but the F40 kicks its everloving ass ;D
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Heh, thanks. Though being 6'2" I don't think I could comfortably fit into either one of those cars...
 

Jim

榜眼
Surprisingly Mike, you would fit quite well into either of those cars even at 6 foot 2. And I add my voice to those all for getting the Pleco F40 on the damn road.
 

MALAILI

进士
Mike,

I have been thinking about marketing the desktop, and features is definitely something that will influence people's decision to buy.

Some features take a lot of time and effort to design and implement, like stroke recognition, which for me the mouse would be acceptable, albeit not great, but one of the things I think that would influence a lot of people to purchase a desktop model, would be the inclusion of sets/decks of flashcards. i.e. Textbooks commonly used around the country and the world. Yes, I know there are probably more than a few, but recently, I all but quit using Pleco flashcards when I discovered that all of the vocabulary from my textbook(s) were already made and available on a website called yellowbridge. I didn't have to look up any words etc.

Their functionality is not as good as yours, but only having to click the book and the chapter(s) Studying and reviewing is an easy task.

They, Yellowbridge, were able to get these texts onto their website, so I am sure you can do the same. He also offers to publish lists from other textbooks if someone submits them to him. With your following, I "know" you could have more input than you could handle.

Ease of use and convenience are compelling reasons to make a purchase.

So, please get going and give us a desktop.

When are you coming to Beijing again?
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
In-software content download is something we're premiering on iPhone (by necessity, since there's no other way to get content onto it) but will eventually be bringing to WM / desktops too - once we've got that we can have a whole nice little catalog of flashcard lists to search through / instantly download from. Considerably harder on a PDA than on a desktop, though, particularly with Apple intentionally stripping out OS X's simple, friendly built-in download API on iPhone and making everyone write their own.
 

MALAILI

进士
Considerably harder on a PDA than on a desktop, though, particularly with Apple intentionally stripping out OS X's simple, friendly built-in download API on iPhone and making everyone write their own.

I thought we were talking about a desktop version. What does that have to do with it. Focus please.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
I was attempting to explain why we didn't already have a feature like this in 2.0, given your comments about how much easier it was to download content in Yellowbridge. But fair point, probably best not to go off on a tangent like that without explaining why :)
 

MALAILI

进士
Actually, Yellowbridge is a web based program, so their is no downloading involved, just click the titile, click the volume, and click the chapter. I'm sorry too, I was suggesting the word list(s) as a feature for the desktop, not the handheld, although that would be wonderful if you could.

Good luck with the i-phone (the sooner that is complete, "maybe" the desktop will get going)
 

mongrel

举人
MALAILI said:
Good luck with the i-phone (the sooner that is complete, "maybe" the desktop will get going)
mikelove said:
by mikelove » Thu Sep 17, 2009 4:50 pm
We're starting to do some pretty concrete planning for version 2.1 now; essentially it'll be the next thing we do after the initial iPhone version
 

garysaville

进士
Wenlin seems to be dead in the water. It's OK at what it does, but it has an interface that would feel more comfortable on a computer from the late 90s. Windows open over top of each other and changing between dictionary and audio mode is a hassle. Pleco has a great interface and far more features. If half of its features are put in a desktop version, it would still be far ahead of Wenlin. With the rummers about a Mac tablet pushing desktop powered machines into truly portable devices, I think Pleco desktop will be a very popular product that will hopefully wake companies like Wenlin out of their slumber.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
mongrel - 2.1's not really a major project like the iPhone port or desktop version; it's the sort of thing that we probably spend about a month or two developing and a month or two beta-testing and refining (and much of that latter part can be done simultaneously with desktop development). It's just that even that time isn't something we're going to be able to put in until after iPhone's out.

garysaville - I don't want to give away anything, but suffice it to say they're not nearly as dead as you think they are. And I'm still betting on the Apple tablet running iPhone OS instead of OS X - I'd much rather it ran OS X, I think it'd be a better product if it was open / flexible like that, but I just can't see Apple giving up the level of control they have on iPhone; a few technically-minded people like myself might refuse to shell out $800 for a device that can't run unsigned software, but the average user will look at the vast array of applications available and not care about the ones that aren't.

Still, there are certainly a lot of exciting possibilities on desktops / tablets, and even if Apple's going to release a heavily-crippled one, other manufacturers might not.
 

stisev

进士
I can't believe people actually use Welin. Our school had a two-computer license for this program and I got to try out the latest version. It had a decent dictionary, but the interface was APPALLING!

Mike, we need Pleco backup on Windows-based system! I can't wait until you release Pleco for Windows. God, I'm going to do the happy dance that day. You deserve all the success in the world. You are a top-rated developer, with unbelievable support, lightning-fast fixes and GALAXY-class product. I hope you program Pleco for every platform and it becomes the world standard!
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Thank you. I'm really looking forward to desktop development, actually, combines the power / ease of what we've experienced on iPhone with the openness of WM / Palm; we can write a Mac OS application with fifty undocumented APIs and a start banner that makes obscene comments about Steve Jobs' mother and Apple can't do anything about it :)
 

stisev

进士
I would advise you to develop for PC (Windows)-based system before mac. IMO the market is much bigger here.

Basically:
1) Improve WM6.5-7 touchability
2) Iphone
3) Windows
4) Android
 
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