http://smokescreen.us/

George, Scott, Nick. Could you guys give this a shot for all the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users out there?

I highly doubt that will work for Skritter - and for all the Apple fans out there: HTML5 will not cure the web, there are some things that cannot be done without Flash, Silverlight or something similar...

Maybe it won't work but shouldn't we at least try it? It's open source so there is very little to loose.

As mentioned in an other topic it would be too slow.
George, Scott, Nick, you all know it would be possible with the CS5 cross-compiler. We are talking since MONTHS about an iPhone App and all you did was disappointing us several times. Looking at the forum this is the most requested feature (by the people who are paying you by the way) and realizing this is something i don't need 2 marketing assitants for.
Just get it started.

Wow!!!

What Nick, Scott and George are doing is ultimately their business decision, if they perceive the port version as "not feasible" (e.g. due to an unproportional work load relative to the payoff -> double maintenance of source code) this is perhaps frustrating for you but no reason to exaggerate or to get personal.

And if you ask me, well, I'm a paying customer too and I have absolutely no interest (in fact I strongly oppose the suggestion) that all resources for further enhancements of Skritter would go into the development of an exact copy of today’s version. Don’t accuse Skritter or its team of Apple’s shortcomings, try Android for a change ;)

Peace out...

The CS5 cross compiler wasn't used because apple changed their licencing agreement. I have nothing against android. I'm not accusing the Skritter team of anything. I'm not asking for them to hand port it and use lots of their resources. I'm not trying to get personal. Apple owns over 50% of the cellphone market in most countries. It just makes business sense.

I don't mean you ddapore and its perfectly reasonible to make such a request when there are new developments (although Smokescreen seems to be really slow once it comes to bigger applications).

I just wanted to emphasize my point that something like this: "[...] all you did was disappointing us several times[...]" is neither constructive critique nor will it make the Skritter team reconsider this point.

Btw: I doubt there is even one country where Apple's market share is higher than 10% of the cellphone market (and regarding the smartphone market Apple still won't make it over 30%) - RIM is far more popular in America and Nokia in Europe.

Having developed iPhone apps before I know that it would probably take a dedicated developer several months to port it to iPhone. With limited developer resources I can understand why there would be no iPhone app.

I would have to wonder if how many skritter iPhone app sales at something like $20 per sale it would cost to fund the development.

I wonder if we should start a thread which can count how many people would pay for an iPhone app to see if it would actually be worthwhile. Hmm maybe they should just do a poll?

Smokescreen won't work, unfortunately. It would be like stuffing a pug through a straw into an Altoid tin and expecting it to fetch afterward.

I am as disappointed as anyone that we don't have an iPhone app yet. Joschua, when I said I had a prototype with CS5, that was only one iota of what would be required to be useful, and even if I finished it, there are probably only a handful of Skritter users with iPhones who would jailbreak them to get it. We need to do it in an efficient way so that more people can use it, which either means hiring someone to do a native app (which we have tried five times, with none being up to it) or waiting for me to have enough time to do it myself--likely months.

So, I am sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, but we won't have iPhone Skritter until end of summer at earliest, and probably much later (I might start one in the fall). If your laptop is broken, I will be sorry to see you go, but mobile clients for Anki are probably your best bet at present. You can always resume your Skritter subscription after your computer is fixed.

To add my two cents to the discussion, I'm personally glad that the Skritter team is not currently focusing on an app for Apple's mobile platforms. Since I started using Skritter a couple months ago, there have been significant improvements all around, even if we don't count the current alpha phases of mnemonics, starred words, custom definitions, the new list editor, and anything else that might currently be in the works. Imagine if the team were focused purely on an iApp: none of these improvements would be in place, the app would probably still be in the works, and Nick would have a filthy beard and a volleyball named Wilson for a best friend. While I appreciate the value of an iApp for Skritter and its potential to improve the overall Skritter experience for (a portion of) the current subscriber base and also expand the subscriber base by increasing exposure, we have to consider the fact that this app would only be useful for a limited portion of the user base (let's be generous and say 35%), and the majority of users, even those with the iApp, would still default to using the browser version most of the time anyway.

I am not sure if I agree about the last one. If there was an iPhone client that had most of the features of the web version I would more than likely stop using the web version completely.

If there was an iPad version I would probably buy an iPad and mostly never use my laptop at home ever again.

Given the state of my wacom which is already rather worn out, I would be rather concerned about the ability of an ipad/iphone/ipod touch to handle being my permanent Skritter device...

I doubt a finger can damage a pice of glass in the same way a plastic tip can damage a plastic pad. Glass is believe it or not quite difficult to scratch. (:

That said, if I had an iPhone with a screen that needed replacing due to excess skritter practice I would be quite happy.

Ah... you guys need an ipad app and you need an ipad app huge... or at least html5 support - it should be done and done right. Like it or not, the direction is set. For higher learning, the legal profession, etc. The ship has sailed. Time to build an arc.

If an iPhone Skritter app were to come out, I would happily pay thirty bucks for it without even thinking twice. Heck, I might even be willing to pay more than that. The web-based app is great, and I used it to brush up on my Japanese, but I'm now learning Chinese and don't often tote my laptop with me to class. My iPhone, however, I have all the time. I doubt I'm the only one this applies to, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit astonished when I found that an app has been under discussion for years at this point but still doesn't exist.

There was an app called ShinKanji on the iPhone that was decent (not as good as Skritter, but not terrible) that used the Chinese handwriting function to quiz you on kanji. This first came out when the app store initially opened. I used the hell out of that thing, and I suppose I'll have to find something comparable for Chinese since Skritter just isn't an option. And in all honesty, I hesitate to subscribe to Skritter again as part of my study platform this time around because I'm just not as sure that I'll use it daily as I would be if it were on the iPhone and I could pull it out and work with it whenever I was standing in line, had some free time between classes or whatever the case might be. An iPhone app is completely portable. A web-based app, not so much.

Seeing as the squeaky wheel gets oiled, I figure I should put my two cents in. I am extremely happy with the progression Skritter has made since I started. I DO NOT OWN AN APPLE DEVICE. I know so many of you do, but many of us do not. Would it be convenient? For some of the user base absolutely. Should they derail all that they are doing for it? No, I don't believe they should.

I am sorry, but character based languages are the time sinks. They are the jerks that just take tons of hours involving you sitting there focusing on your characters. Nothing, not even Skritter, is going to change that. An Iapp isn't a magic bullet. Learning a character based language successfully is about discipline and time. It involves a ton of both at that. Nothing more.

Maybe it would not be a bad idea to think about developing some 'skritter' light application for smartphones. After all, I think there is more to skritter than just being able to write down the characters. I would be very happy to be able to use skritter on several platforms, meaning by this that i would be glad to have an application on a smartphone that I could use a a traditional flash card system, but with the same database and marking scheme as the full blown skritter.

Even if tomorrow there would be a full application on android of iPhone, I doubt it I would use it. Don't forget that in most countries these type of phones are still very much impaired by the huge cost of downloading data. Not as in the US where you have a lot of competition around and as a consequence flat fees for 'unlimited' bandwith. Here in Belgium it is still around 15 to 20 euro per month for 1 GB adding around 2 euro for every extra 100 MB. If I look at the data volume skritter is producing then a full blown product for me would certainly be a no-go zone.

If you guys are desperate, buy an Android phone. Skritter already kind of works on the more recent ones for reading and definition practice.

Skritter's bandwidth demands should only be about 10 kbps for the full version. So in one month, you'd have to practice about 30 hours on the phone to add 100 MB. However, a more fully fledged mobile version would cache all the strokes and sounds, which would cut that bandwidth down to at least half, probably much more.

Hey jww, I have a new android phone :o) I was wondering, when a writing prompt comes up, how you deal with that? If you skip it, it will mark it as "learned."

Looking forward to being able to skritter more on the go. Well, when I'm in a wifi hotspot, anyway!

Well, at least on my phone, writing is still kind of messed up. So for now I would actually disable writing practice on the phone and focus on definition and reading practice, both of which kind of work (definition practice better than reading practice, but both usable).

The writing practice is probably close to being usable. I can draw some strokes but it gets stuck on others; sometimes it draws a GIGANTIC BLOB OF DEATH; generally the writing window is simply too small. There is still some screen real estate on top which is taken up with stuff which could be hidden and shown on demand, and that would free up space for the writing area.

Another thing that people who want to practice writing might want to consider is getting a stylus for the touchscreen, something like this:

http://pocketnow.com/deals/video-capacitive-stylus-for-hd2-nexus-one-iphone

James

Ok, so if you disable writing practice, and a new word is added, the word will be added without the writing part, correct?

I'm on 2.1, trying to figure out when/how I will get 2.2 on my wildfire in China.

@nicki Yeah, it's bogus. They do have a plan to make it less bogus. One reasonable thing to do at the moment would be to set "adding words" to "manual" and only do (reading and definition) reviews on the phone. Or you could work on one specific list, and when you re-enable writing practice you could restart the list.

James

I have only just tried Skritter and the first thing that popped in my head was: "Wow! This would be awesome on my iPad." I'm happy learning on a desktop with the Flash version, but I'd definitely pay for an iOS version. I'd even go for a Java version for Android. Learning while you wait somewhere or are on a bus/plane/traveling would be perfect.