I am planning to make that leap into the smart phone world and have come to that inevitable fork in the road. Part of the reason I want a smart phone is to practice characters while on the go, but, reading some old posts, it doesn't sound like skritter is available on the iphone because apple and flash are not working together. Can I get a confirmation that this is still the case? Should this be a deal-breaker for me and the iphone, or is there a way around this problem with the iphone? The only reason I was leaning toward an iphone before is because all my friends who have them say that the choice is clear. Is their something else I am not factoring in here? I am in China and plan to be for at least the next two years, in case that should guide my decision on what to buy.

Also, is it possible to use skritter on the droid while not connected to the internet?

Nick is writing an app for iphone at the moment. He said he was considering doing an offline mode. It's not available yet.

Android Skritter is just Skritter in a web browser. There is no offline mode. It is however, already available...

Another reason to consider an iPhone is that Pleco dictionary is available on it (with cool features, such as live camera-based character recognition). Too bad Skritter is only on Android, and Pleco is only on iPhone. They both have plans to support the other platform, but neither of them has a definitive roadmap. For now I simply decided to postpone my decision by a few months, but I can't wait infinitely.

I was just researching this as well. The choice is clear comment would have been true two years ago. Now it is getting blurrier and blurrier. The issue with android is that you have to see which phone in particular you are getting. All Androids are different. I am reading that a lot of analysts seem to think that in the long run Google will win, but that is 5 or more years out. You are currently living in 2011 not 2016. Depending on the phone you get, some people say some Androids are as nice as the Iphone right now. Others say none of them are.

As for Chinese it looks like Nick is working on really nice things for the Iphone version. His comments leave me feeling that going back and polishing the Android version to where it is as nice as the Iphone version will be A LOOOOONG ways off. That is if he ever goes back and polishes it at all.

Making the Android app a little nicer will probably happen, but it'd be very tough to make it a lot nicer any time soon--the Flash code for it is already pretty optimized, it'd just be some more interface work. I will do some more on that for the Android tablet layout soon.

I'd feel really bad if someone waited for a long time to get an iPhone waiting for the Skritter app to come out, which is why I'm not saying anything other than "a long time". It will be much nicer than the Android version, I think, although I may leave some features out that the Android one will still have (like being able to combine writing and tone prompts or reading and definition prompts).

Just trying to give you some more information; I know it's a tough decision. Whichever one you get, you could also look to eventually get the tablet version of the other to cover whatever's missing from the one you do get.

Yes I have been agonising over this for a while now too! I nearly bought an i-phone the other day and changed my mind at the cost of the calls!!

Nick, excuse my lingo ignorance - by tablet version does this mean the i-pod? What would be the tablet version of the android?

Cheers,
Donna

@Aurora the tablet version of the iPhone would be the iPad. There are a number of Android tablets. The most famous right now is the Samsung Galaxy but there are many other options:

http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/portable-computing/15-best-android-tablets-in-the-world-905504

Sadly I think Pleco alone settles the debate at present. There's nothing remotely like it on Android and it's ridiculously useful for the serious Chinese student.

Of course there's always the option of buying an iPod just to run Pleco.

I have been happily using an iPod Touch to run Pleco for a while now. I don't have a tablet yet, but with the tablet-optimized version of the Android operating system (3.0 / Honeycomb) to be launched imminently on several devices I might eventually go for a next generation Samsung Galaxy Tab. If it proves to be a good match with Skritter that would be a big plus, but so far I really don't need mobility for my Skritter habit.

Yeah Lurks, if you wanted the best of both worlds that would prob be cheapest option - Android phone and an i-pod - still a bit too much though.

I also want to run games like these for my little ones http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/piggy-picnic/id412674857?mt=8&ls=1 and the Wink to Learn Apps, so if I want Sktitter and the pleco, and these games, then an android phone and an i-pod seem to be the go...

oops that message from Rory was from Aurora - wrong log in :-)

cheers,
Donna

Just buy an HTC Droid or Galaxy. Already works with Skritter. Critical mass is building much faster for Droid as well. Also software tends to be cheaper on Droid from my understanding. I used to have an Iphone but now I currently have an old Symbian and looking to get a next generation Samsung or HTC when they release dual core versions in a few weeks. Only a jailbroken Iphone can compete really with Androids on software. On hardware top androids out compete on picture, battery, processing, multitasking and so on. You need to compare products based on your preferences though.

Another thing that detours me from Apple is that they seem to intentionally leave key components out on devices so that they can sell the next version which again is missing a major thing. Also their obsession with control is somewhat sick. While there will be 100 Droids on the market, there will only be one uniform Iphone. I personally prefer choice and customization, if that is something important to you than go with Droid. If you want the lifestyle and prestige of having an Apple, then get that one.

Just keep in mind guys that iPod's camera is unsupported by Pleco (because it doesn't support autofocus), so the character recognition probably doesn't work.

Nick, will you let us know when "a long time" status will change to "pretty soon"? Or is it more likely that we won't know anything until a public beta appears out of the blue?

what's so good about pleco ?

It has an OCR as well, which makes looking up characters very fast.

you can use OCR with iPod Touch 4, but it's not officially supported, however, it works better than I expected...for signs and so on it works just fine, smaller text is critical, depends on the exact size, characters, contrast and so on...you can try before buying it though...

Unfortunately, with the way the App Store works, I'll only be able to offer a private beta, although I'll make a blog post when it's time to get testers (as well as email the ones I already have), so you won't miss it. I might post more videos when I get more features working, but I won't give something like a "pretty soon" estimate until it's looking good in the hands of beta testers.

I will just chime in from the Japanese side of things since this thread so far has been overwhelmingly chinese oriented. (I know the OP is referring to chinese but just in case someone comes in wondering about the japanese side of things...)

The iPhone blows android out of the water when it comes to Japanese apps and support. The iPhone offers native handwritten character recognition (both chinese and japanese) and has native 9-key and IME keyboards as well.

There is one app in particular that I use (though there are many others) called simply "Japanese" that offers everything I could ever want. It's got built in SKIP, radical, and handwritten search.

Here is some more information about the iphone/droid debate from a good source.
http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2010/08/31/back-to-the-iphone-its-all-about-chinese

Here is a video of pleco in action on the iphone.
http://plecomirror.com/ocrdemovid.html

Keep in mind that pleco is currently saying that a droid version of that app is in the works...

The Pleco on Android is going to be some sort of cross platform implementation, it's not expected to be as good.

The Sinosplice comment is a bit out of date. Smart Keyboard Pro does English and Chinese (and a large number of others) and will switch between them at the press of a button, iPhone style, so that's not a plus for iPhone any more.

That said the dictionaries situation is a showstopper. CE-DICT powered dictionaries are good for emergencies only imo.

Bohan, at the risk of being a Pleco fanboy. I'll give that a go... It's a product of a company that has focused on Chinese dictionary applications since before the iPhone existed. It's got multiple dictionaries which you can switch between, you buy the ones you want or get a good-value bundle. The sketch character recogniser is the best I've seen anywhere and it's ridiculously useful. The camera recogniser is supposed to be amazing too but I just run it on an iPod so I wouldn't know. I regularly use features such as character look up, examine stroke order and compound words. The way you can pop-up click on words in text you're reading, or dictionary entries, is ridiculously useful. For example you can use the bad ass huge 21st century dictionary which has no pinyin, but you wont care because you can just tap on anything you can't read.

On top of that it's got the best flashcard implementation on mobile phones full stop.

Honestly, I love Android. I wish it was on Android because the iPod's low res screen annoys me but if you're really after a proper mobile Chinese application, there's Pleco and then there's a world of amateur toys. That's how it is.

@ Lurks Thanks for the reply. So what's so good about its flashcard feature?

Lurks will give you a more intelligent answer than I can I am sure, but to me the flashcards are great because of the smart way they determine a variable interval for review, similar to what Skritter does. It's the spaced repetition system ("SRS"). Beyond that, the card program is customizable in many different parameters, probably with dozens of permutations. If you are the sort that likes to tweak settings, you will love Pleco. Personally I gravitate toward default settings. It's also relatively easy to import / export cards.

It's insanely configurable and will, of course, choose data from the dictionaries of your choosing. One thing in particular that's worth mentioning in the context of skritter is that you can use the character recogniser as your answer in flashcards. That's not like Skritter in that it's not going to guide you through drawing a character, you'll be shown a list of candidates and more than likely you'll see the one you want.

However it's still a pretty darn useful flashcard scheme. I particularly enjoy getting side tracked, examining characters I don't know, finding some useful compound words and adding those to my flashcard list while I'm in a session. I figure if I'm learning a character, it's better to have it in context in a few different words. I also prefer to have full dictionary definitions appear so I can look at example sentences, but most people probably use the Pleco version of ABC which has been tagged to show excellent concise entries.

I tried a HTC Desire (Android 2.2, 1Ghz processor) today with Skritter. There is a few tenths of a second delay between writing each stroke and it appearing on the screen. This would make it pretty much unusable or at least very inefficient on a day to day basis.

@Neil Lurks made a similar comment about the video I uploaded a while back showing Skritter on the Galaxy tablet. I guess I'm just not as sensitive about little delays like that. Last night while I was stuck waiting for some food with nobody to talk to, I Skrittered on my Nexus One and it was fine. Sure, it could be faster, but so could my computer running Chrome; I was still able to study and make progress.

I think the Desire is pretty similar to the Nexus One. You can see the Nexus One's tech specs here:

http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_google_nexus_one-3069.php

James

It does bother people to different degrees, that slowness. One key point is that the rendering is separate from the recognition, so you can still get good speeds by writing the whole character and waiting for the drawing to catch up with you. (You do have to be careful, since you won't know as quickly if a stroke is misrecognized.)

With the eee T91/Win7 the difference between 1 and 1.3Ghz (overclocked) makes all the difference in usability. So hopefully when the mobile processors get a bit more speed this issue will go away. HTC are bringing out a 1.5Ghz 7" tablet with stylus soon...