So I recently got invited to a Dropbox folder with the an ipa for the iPhone app. I have to say, I love it. I love it a loooooot.

Although this might not have been what you guys were going for when you made this site, one of the major reasons I've used it over something parallel like Anki or Surusu is that it's soooo pretty. My handwriting's awful, so seeing me draw out these gorgeous kanji's a pretty big bonus for me. And the app's definitely beautiful. It's a pleasure to work with. I sit at my desk, with my wacom tablet, and then proceed to Skritter on my iPhone.

So, yeah, that's all I had to say. Fantastic job, guys. Just wanted to let you know how impressed I was by it.

Thanks, weirdesky! We've put a lot of work into the visuals in order to be able to impress new users on the App Store. Hopefully it'll pay off.

Now just trying to get the app finished up so that everyone can use it!

weirdesky....you wouldn't happen to mind sending me that dropbox folder link, would you? -.- ?

Forveya, if you have a jailbroken iOS 5.0+ device, email me your Dropbox email address.

Also in the dropbox group, and I agree. It's gorgeous and a blast to use. I find it more enjoyable than just swiping through my SRS reading deck.

I have the oldest iPhone that it will run on (I think?)--3GS--and it has been running really fast!

I haven't seen the app yet but I understand from these posts that it won't be an accurate depiction of your actual handwriting - I just wonder whether this is optional so that you can also check what your writing would (more or less) look like in "reality"?

@malaili2, I would have to say that in many cases new users are "idiots" that tend to judge an app by its cover.

@mprey You can turn on the "raw squigs" function, which then keeps your original strokes until the very end (if the character is recognized). I think this would meet your needs.

@malaili2 Your view has been made ad infinitum. There is now an option to download the beta onto a jailbroken device if you are up for that. I think you could stand to learn a bit of tact and stop being so combative.

@malaili2, I don't know how you came to the conclusion that there isn't any substance to the iOS app. As a beta tester I can confidentialy say the substance was the first stuff to be worked on and the look came second. And in my experience the most popular apps in the app store are always beautiful. People would rather have 3 beautiful / cute apps than one ugly app that can do what the 3 beautiful / cute apps do. It may be a hard pill to swallow but looks matter... a lot. I can see you really want to get it as soon as possible but Skritter needs to take care to make a good first impression with new potential users on the app store. If they fail to do that, it will badly damage their future earnings potential. Most users who see unpolished interfaces conclude the app isn't professional enough to bother spending money on. Then they make a mental note that the app looked like crap and never bother to check back to see an updated future release with a beautiful UI.

Also, other bonus: If you're like me and have thousands of reviews, it tells you exactly how many (I've got 1798), so that's also really cool (at least for slackers like me).

is there any support for the app on the ipod touch's wifi?

The Instagram acquisition (and not just that one) shows that the iOS app - if put on the market properly - will be worth _many_ times the web app.

Timing is just right. Try to get some injection of venture capital before the bubble bursts.

"is there any support for the app on the ipod touch's wifi"

It works fine on wifi. You only need a wifi connection for syncing and adding new characters though. You can review fine offline.

@nick: still no idea as to how much longer it might take? one month? two months? three? 685 reviews due after returning from a two week holiday in China so I am seriously considering jailbreaking my iOS device and registering for a Dropbox account.

约翰, I can't tell you how much longer it will be until we get through the first round of Apple reviews--they might require extensive changes, for example. So we won't have a release estimate until it's almost upon us. But don't jailbreak your device.

@约翰 Stiff upper lip on those reviews! I had to clear around 5000 after a 2 week trip around the new years... yikes! In the end it took around 2-3 hours per day for 3 days...

Nick, I haven't used Skritter in a while but am dying to use the iOS app. Have a jailbroken iPhone 4 on 5.0. Any chance I could get an invite to that Dropbox?

Yeah my device isn't jailbroken :( ..really looking forward to using skritter while walking around outside. Learning Japanese Kanji while walking will be so much more fun than getting a (pardon my french) numb ass sitting in front of the monitor for hours.

@icebear: you obviously have a much better retention rate than I have then. I skrittered for 2-3 hours yesterday and was only able to square away 150 of 700+ reviews. Learning just 10 new characters can take me anywhere from 3 to 8 hours. My approach of digging deep into the etymology and getting a grasp of the true meaning of each individual character may be just plain wrong as I am not properly remembering things (some characters I do not remember at all, some only 50-75%). I am looking forward to reaching 600 characters so I can start with the graded readers. Hopefully reading and vocabulary in context will enable long-term memorization of the individual characters.

If by any chance people using their jail-broken phones has freed up some of those precious 100 slots for testers, or there's any other way, I'd love to get involved without jail-breaking my itouch (newly bought to skritter).

I've got to the stage where I've had to put my account on vacation as I'm not on the computer enough to get anywhere. Also, I've grown to hate using a mouse - but can't justify buying some alternative input device with the app around the corner.

@约翰 I had the advantage that I had "learned" sight recognition of nearly all the ~2000 characters I've learned to write in the last 6 months on Skritter, over the few prior years when I was studying everything but writing. That means my retention rate is pretty high for the first few months of characters, although recently slowing down a lot on the rate of adding (characters, not words) as the truly novel ones are certainly harder to remember clearly.

I was just trying to playfully encourage you, not disparage - apologies if it came across like that. Stick with it!

Talafar, the tester slots only cycle once per year, so none have been freed up.

约翰, it's an interesting question whether digging deeply into etymologies or just blowing through reviews on the surface will lead to better progress. May I suggest an experiment for when you've finished your current reviews?

Try both styles at the same time and see what's working better. Split the new characters you're learning into two separate vocab lists, and add from each separately, spending the same amount of time on each but doing one list with very fast reviews and the other with very deep reviews. Then see which one you get to the end of first (ideally after a week or two).

If you wanted, you could then test yourself by exporting each list into a spreadsheet, blanking out the character column, printing it, writing each from memory, and then seeing whether your real retention rate is different for each learning style.

Pretty soon we'll all be able to skritter outside! Thats what I did today anyway, since it was a public holiday here in New Zealand.

https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=19f5fb00653dd303&resid=19F5FB00653DD303!2713&parid=19F5FB00653DD303!132&authkey=!AExL16XJEbYkXuA

It's gonna be worth the wait, everyone...

@nick: More good tips. Thanks. :)
@blakomen: You bastard! Just kidding.

Doing anything on an iPhone in the sun is pretty much impossible. The only exotic destination I can see myself skrittering at is the toilet. And at airports, bus and train stations. The "in between" places.

No; it'll need iOS 5, so that's a iPhone 3GS or better, iPod Touch 4th generation or better, or any iPad.

@Malaili2: If you want to Jailbreak your phone, you can use some jailbreak stuff to get it up to iOS 5 without too much trouble. I really like iOS 5, so I would recommend it just to be able to use that, but I'm a big jailbreaker, so keep that in mind.

The iPhone 3G won't be able to run it if you jailbreak it to iOS 5--it could hardly run iOS 4, and it will be much too slow to run the Skritter app.