Transferring license

First of all a hearty congratulations and thank you for bringing Pleco to the iPhone. Pleco has been my good friend and partner on this journey of learning Chinese for some eight years now.
PDA's come and go (especially the Palm's in the last incarnation...very sad), but Pleco marches forward on the latest technology. 多謝Michael Love!

I have a question about transferring my license. As my Palm started to act up on me quite a while back (and a few months ago gave up its digitizer altogether), I held off on upgrading to Pleco v2. My license is for v1. Should I directly transfer that over to my iPhone, or first upgrade to v2, then transfer. Does it change which add on's I would or would not have access to?

真的很高興得用iphone的普利科!
 

monkbent

Member
我也非常高興!!!!!

I was in the same situation as you, having not upgraded to 2.0 because my Palm died. I just went ahead and transferred the license without any problem. I am seriously so happy to have Pleco back. Doubt I'll ever give up the iPhone now.

:D
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
maimengzhu - it doesn't matter, you can transfer just as well without activating 2.0.

monkbent - thanks!
 
mikelove said:
maimengzhu - it doesn't matter, you can transfer just as well without activating 2.0.

Thanks, nice that the process is simple. And it is really great that our previous license can be transferred to the new platform. You sure know how to build a loyal following.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Well it is an excellent way to do that, but it also helps build confidence in future purchases to know that we stand behind our products and customers to that extent.
 

DSLAM

Member
Mike, if Pleco is available in the future for Android phones, would I be able to transfer from the iPhone to my Android phone? Just thinking long-term here and want to keep my options open.
Just downloaded it today for the iPhone and freaking love it so far!

Many thanks
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
That one we're really not sure about - any future Android version would mean signing new licenses and I can't speculate about what those licenses might allow as far as platform switching.
 

F_Kal

举人
Greetings Mike!

I'm a big fan of pleco quite some years now. It's been a great journey for sure thus far! I just got a new iPhone as a present, and now that pleco exists for iPhone -and since my wm6 PDA was quite old- I'm thinking of trying iPhone for the next year or two...Yet I got worried about the license-may-not-be-transferable warning!
Does it mean that if I switch to iPhone, I will not be able go back to a future Windows Mobile X version? Is this a certainty or just a just-in-case-warning? Is it Apple(iPhone) or Microsoft's (wm) issue? What about going back to the same version of windows mobile that I had before? Does this restriction also apply if I decide not to switch over now, and instead wait for a couple of years until I buy a new windows mobile PDA? I'm not sure I want to be stuck with iPhone forever (I'm a big fan of more open platforms) and I'm not sure I really understand how this licensing thing works... :?

Thanks again for such a wonderful product!
-Fotis
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
We're not sure about that - with other platforms we might support in the future it's a complete mystery, since until we've actually signed a license we have no way to be certain whether it'll permit free license transfers. As far as WM goes, there are some questions both on the Apple and on the licensor side that we're working out on that, so we aren't officially allowing transfers back at the moment and can't promise we will in the future either.

So basically, if you think you'd like to start using Pleco on WM again at some point, it might be best to purchase a separate copy for iPhone. Or brace for the possibility of having to repurchase it on WM at some point. Though we're really hoping it won't come to that...
 

F_Kal

举人
Thanks for replying!

it might be best to purchase a separate copy for iPhone
The above line made me wonder: Wouldn't it be more practical to transfer the license to iPhone and when/if you move back to WM(and if the license is no longer transferable), buy a new one?Correct me if my logic is flawed

Best wishes,
-Fotis
 

bokane

举人
I'm considering upgrading from a 3G to a 3GS; will Pleco and dictionary licenses transfer smoothly, or is there some ninja-ing that I'll need to do?

Also, happy real new year!
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
F_Kai - re-purchasing later would probably make more sense, yes, hence my "brace for the possibility of having to repurchase" comment. Though buying on iPhone does have the added advantage of simpler license transfers.

bokane - should transfer smoothly, but if you've just activated on the 3G recently you may need to email us for a timer reset first.
 
I currently live in Asia and have a Palm OS dictionary but plan on purchasing an iPhone once I return to the States next Summer. How long do you anticipate keeping the license transfer from Palm OS to iPhone for free? Is this a limited-time offer?

Thanks.

CNL
 
I was expecting to pay to transfer my license to iPhone. I was totally surprised it was free. This is beyond what any other company would do.
 
estudiando said:
I was expecting to pay to transfer my license to iPhone. I was totally surprised it was free. This is beyond what any other company would do.

Indeed! Most companies make it part of their marketing/growth plan to create new or upgraded products that will force their user base to pony up for an upgrade. If I have any inclination to purchase a Pleco add-on I do, as I want the value of the product and I want to support this great company that has been such a resource for helping me to get some leverage on the Chinese language.I just bought the Chinese-Chinese dictionary. I'm not really ready to use it, but I wanted to make sure some funds trickled into Michael Love's bank account. As a result, I'm getting better at reading Chinese as I use that bad boy regularly now. Talk about a win win situation.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
cedriclee24 - no plans to make it time-limited, the possibility of transferring licenses to iPhone is going to make people a lot less hesitant to buy a copy of Pleco for Palm/WM.

maimengzhu - I'm glad it turned out to be a worthwhile purchase.

Much though I'd like to take credit for niceness here, practically speaking, thanks to the way our licenses are structured we were pretty much going to have to charge either a) nothing or b) full price for iPhone transfers; there wasn't really a middle ground, once we start collecting a fee to change platforms the publishers all want their cut. So it wasn't a choice between giving it away for free and charging a reasonable upgrade fee, it was a choice between giving it away and charging a huge upgrade fee that would cost us a lot of goodwill and not even sell that many copies. We tried the latter approach initially with the Pocket PC version and it didn't work out so well, so with iPhone we wanted to start right off with a free upgrade.
 

keyclick

秀才
Re: Transferring license -device to device

Here's a related question... would it be possible to transfer a licence for one or more add-ons (HW recognition, stroke order, pronunciation audio, dictionaries) from one Ipod/phone to another one? My 9 year old got a ipod touch for Xmas, and I have loaded it up with Pleco, and want to buy the enhancements, but I hope to get a iphone in the future, so wouldnt want to orphan my licence on the Itouch and have to buy a new one. Obviously, we would have the licence in only one device at a time. He has no need for Chinese dictionary at this point :)

Hope this makes sense. BTW, the product is incredible. I have played around with the HW recognition demo from the Add-Ons in-app purchase page, and even my crude, beginner writing hanzi style can be readily recognized!

Thanks,Greg
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Add-ons purchased on the iPhone / iPod (i.e., through your iTunes account) can be used on other devices linked to the same iTunes account at no additional charge, so if you buy enhancements on his iPod, you'd be able to activate them on your iPhone as well (assuming he doesn't have his own iTunes account :).

As far as your Pleco purchases transferred from Palm/WM, though, those can only be used on one device at a time, but it's possible to move that to your new iPhone too - you just have to deactivate it on the iPod first. It's possible to merge in those iTunes add-ons with your Pleco license too while still using them on his iPod as well.
 

LiAnCrow

秀才
I've become quite dependent on the use of the flashcard system as a way to remember the newly encountered characters therefore I have been hesitant about transferring my WM license to iPhone. If I transfer my WM license over to my iPhone will I still be able to use the flashcard system on my WM device? I would surly remove Pleco from my WM device once the flashcard system is fully ported over.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Unfortunately no, you'd have to stop using Pleco entirely on WM once you moved your license over to iPhone. Though you could always start using the free version of Pleco on iPhone and transfer over once iPhone flashcards are out; any add-ons you purchased on iPhone that you didn't already own on WM could be merged with your WM license once you transferred it over.
 
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