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Quick ipod touch question...

Aurora   February 11th, 2011 10:49p.m.

When Skritter does happen on iphone - will you have to be on-line to use it? Will we be able to use it offline on an ipod touch?

I am just thinking about buying an ipod touch at the moment and not locking into any of these iphone contracts...just wondering if i will be able to use skritter on it when you get it up and running...if i can i think i will have finally made my mind up :-)

Cheers - thanks for helping us all out making these decsions :-)

Donna

Christian   February 11th, 2011 11:46p.m.

There's been some information in a blog post recently: http://blog.skritter.com/2010/12/skritter-iphone-app-plans.html but as of yet not concrete announcement. Therefore, I would suggest to buy an iPhone/iPod touch for the pure enjoyment of it, and not for Skritter at the moment. But once the Skritter app comes out, it will be a truly happy day... I'm also waiting for it :-).

By the way: iPhones are available without contracts in several countries. I find the iPhone much more useful than the iPod touch, since you can also surf the internet via a mobile phone network.

Aurora   February 12th, 2011 1:59a.m.

Thanks Christian but looking at around $1000 for an iphone (to buy outright) and $200 for an ipod.

I dont really need a new phone, my dinosaur one works ok for what i need.

so if it looked like Skritter (when it becomes available) could work off line an ipod is the cheapest solution for me now and in the future... but I dont think it will be able to work offline - I was just asking just in case....

Cheers,
Donna

nick   February 12th, 2011 7:08a.m.

You will be able to do reviews offline, but you'll need to connect in order to get new words and to sync your reviews back to the server. You can do it via WiFi every so often on the iPod Touch and it'll work.

joshwhitson13   February 12th, 2011 9:26a.m.

Where on earth are you that an iPhone costs $1000 dollars?

Rory   February 14th, 2011 5:37a.m.

Australia

Redboxnic   February 17th, 2011 11:12a.m.

In Malaysia where I am at, an iPhone costs RM2,000 (US$1 = RM3.2). Like Rory, I don't need an iPhone because here in Malaysia, you get locked into the telco contract too. We have many free WiFi networks here so for me, the best choice was to get an iPod (which I did, on my last trip down to Singapore, for about S$480 or RM990). It's a little cheaper than buying an iPod in Malaysia. Anyway, I am waiting for Skritter to be available on iPod too. Can't wait!

A magical tool to learn Chinese   February 20th, 2011 9:51p.m.

If you're studying Chinese, we at http://www.trainchinese.com would like to recommend a magical tool we’re developing and using every day: trainchinese.
This is an application for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Android phones, Java phones, desktop computers, and online, which helps you to acquire vocabulary through a system of flashcards, based on the spaced repetition system: you learn several times, at regular intervals, a character or a word – how to read it, its pronunciation, how to translate it from English, and how to write it – until you know the word.

I’m a little bit lazy, so I don't want to have to check out by myself the characters or words I need to review regularly, even though it’s the key to success in Chinese. So that’s why I like this application because it does the work for me! The character or word will always appear at the right moment, just before I forget it, so that I learn the word again, again and again. And after that, I can say that I know it by heart!

I also enjoy the very complete built-in Chinese/English dictionary, where I can search by English, pinyin (with or without spaces) and even strokes: if you don’t know the pinyin for a character, you draw it on the screen, and you find it. That's quite useful, isn’t it?

You can download and use the application for free, and get enough flashcards per week for a basic learning program. But I advise you to subscribe, first of all because it’s not expensive: $3.50 per month, second of all because you will definitely love it, and you will need to get more from this application!

Why not give it a go and let us know what you think? We’d love to hear from you:
cs [at] trainchinese.com.

EM

Thomas   February 20th, 2011 11:44p.m.

Without downloading anything, it looks like this is just a pretty looking Anki app. I don't see any writing capabilities at all, other than maybe some stroke order help.

Personally, I'd rather Skritter.

Maybe someone who downloads the software can tell us a little more about it.

podster   February 21st, 2011 12:42a.m.

I did not download either but from the description above looks like the writer would really like Skritter. I'm currently using Skritter, Pleco (SRS flash cards), and ChinesePod in unison to study one simple Chinese Pod lesson at a time. Maybe a bigger outlay of money up front, but I heartily endorse all three, and since they have all been refined for a while now I am a bit skeptical about the newcomer. But then again, Skritter does not yet claim to be magical; maybe that's what my studies have been lacking.

Do you think they just slapped a new faceplate on freeware Anki somehow and are selling that?

How long before we see "Skratter", the program for writing Chinese and Japanese. Perhaps with something reminiscent of the Ice Age saber toothed rodent as a mascot.

Oh, and just to stumble back on topic for a moment, I read this week that capacitive touch screens do not lend themselves to use with a stylus, which may be why nobody seems to be offering them. I would really lean heavily toward a tablet with a stylus, since Skritter would probably be a top app for me, and I really like using my Wacom Bamboo currently. Unless I am writing "Wash Me" on the back of dusty cars in China I don't see as much use for fingertip writing.

Byzanti   February 21st, 2011 5:51a.m.

I find it amusing that an ad for a program is spammed in the forums of a product which is in every way infinitely superior to it.

podster   February 21st, 2011 7:59a.m.

after I posted the stylus comment I noticed on another Skritter forum thread that that a forthcoming tablet from HTC will have a stylus.

Lurks   February 21st, 2011 6:44p.m.

I saw that too. The HTC Flyer. This is very exciting, it could well be the ultimate Skritter tool.

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