Screen real estate question

[Hopfrog]

I currently have an iPhone/iPad. When I look up words on my iPad using HWR the screen is basically split in half with the bottom for writing and possible characters (characters only) and the top half listing possible words (characters and definitions). On my iPhone I do not get that top half listing of possible words and, long story short, I gotta have that!

My question is regarding 7" screen sizes and the large Galaxy S III screen. Do either of those screen sizes do what the iPad does in terms of splitting the screen in the same way that the iPad does, giving a listing of possible words on the top half?

Thanks in advance. Really thinking a 7" screen size might be perfect since my main reason for using a tablet is Pleco word lookup while watching Chinese TV, but I am not willing to give up that great feature because it save me so much time.

 

[mikelove]

I currently have an iPhone/iPad. When I look up words on my iPad using HWR the screen is basically split in half with the bottom for writing and possible characters (characters only) and the top half listing possible words (characters and definitions). On my iPhone I do not get that top half listing of possible words and, long story short, I gotta have that!

You can actually get that on the iPhone too - Settings / Panels / Handwriting Interface / Background -> "Transparent" will allow you to draw on top of the search results and see the results update as you do. You do still need to press a button (an "ON/OFF" toggle, or just "Done") to be able to actually tap on a result, but you get to see a lot more results than you would if the handwriting box was in the bottom half of the screen, and you get a much larger space to write in than you would if the handwriting box was confined to the bottom of the screen. (though that's an option too if you use the built-in iPhone handwriting input option - it's not quite as accurate as ours and a lot of people feel like there's not enough space, but the option is there)

My question is regarding 7" screen sizes and the large Galaxy S III screen. Do either of those screen sizes do what the iPad does in terms of splitting the screen in the same way that the iPad does, giving a listing of possible words on the top half?

Nope, actually even on 10" Android tablets our handwriting is full-screen and there's no option for transparency. (we'd like to fix this eventually, but we can't prioritize doing that over making some similarly important improvements on iPads, given their relative sales numbers)

 

[Hopfrog]

Oh wow, just set that up on my iPhone and that is so flippin' cool. This product continues to amaze and surprise me and I have recommended it a few times over on reddit. I would also encourage other Pleco fans to check out the /china http://www.reddit.com/r/China/ and /chineselanguage http://www.reddit.com/r/Chineselanguage subreddits as they are constantly asking "what chinese app should I get?" "what is the best chinese dictionary?"... etc... Obviously everyone who reads these forums knows what the correct answer is, so lets help 'em out!

Here's an example: http://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/ ... _learning/ Can't say I was shocked when so many others chimed in about the greatness of Pleco, but it was reaffirming.

That feature certainly makes my phone viable again for HWR lookup, but it is not quite the same as having the little HWR box and not having to on/off. The phone is probably too small for proper half/half as it is done on the iPad but here is a vote that it get implemented on Droid at some point. My wife is becoming quite attached to the iPad and I can't help but thinking those 7" tablets would be perfect for HWR while watching TV. :mrgreen:

 

[mikelove]

Oh wow, just set that up on my iPhone and that is so flippin' cool. This product continues to amaze and surprise me and I have recommended it a few times over on reddit. I would also encourage other Pleco fans to check out the /china http://www.reddit.com/r/China/ and /chineselanguage http://www.reddit.com/r/Chineselanguage subreddits as they are constantly asking "what chinese app should I get?" "what is the best chinese dictionary?"... etc... Obviously everyone who reads these forums knows what the correct answer is, so lets help 'em out!

Yeah, perhaps I should have a Reddit presence myself too but at some point you have to admit you can't cover everything - perhaps I can come up with a script to use in cases like this that alerts me whenever anybody mentions Chinese dictionaries or Pleco.

That feature certainly makes my phone viable again for HWR lookup, but it is not quite the same as having the little HWR box and not having to on/off. The phone is probably too small for proper half/half as it is done on the iPad but here is a vote that it get implemented on Droid at some point. My wife is becoming quite attached to the iPad and I can't help but thinking those 7" tablets would be perfect for HWR while watching TV.

It's doable, but we've already had to spend more time than we'd like on Android UI lately because some manufacturers (particularly HTC, a company that's been doing things to make our lives more difficult for 8 years now) have started doing wacky things with the Android 4.0 fallback menu button, necessitating us to spend time on some UI changes we hadn't been planning to make until 2013. So we really can't afford to do much more with Android UI until after we've gotten our big iOS update out.

Apple is very likely to release a 7-inch tablet this fall, though, and now that Google's thrown down the gauntlet with the Nexus they'll probably have to charge $200 for it (or maybe $300 if it's Retina), so it might be worth waiting a bit to see how that works out.