I just sent version 2.3.0 of the Skritter iOS app in for Apple review. It'll probably take longer than usual because millions of apps are being submitted for iOS 7 this week. iOS 7 comes out on September 18, but the app update will come out later.

With 2.3.0, we're going from requiring iOS 5.1 to requiring iOS 7.0. This means that iPad 1, iPhone 3GS, and iPod touch 4th gen will no longer be able to download Skritter from the App Store. So if you're thinking of using one of those devices to Skritter, or keeping any of your devices on iOS 5 or 6, then you'll want to make sure you have the current app version now, since you won't be able to download it in a week or two.

Why increment the minimum version? iOS 7 has a bunch of new UI stuff that makes it hard to keep backwards compatibility. We're not using most of it, but we're using a little bit--and we're also using the new background fetch mode, which should hopefully let Skritter sync with your iOS devices while they're just sitting there, so you don't have to worry about, say, your iPad not having the reviews you did yesterday on your iPhone when you pull it out on the subway.

Other than that, the update is mostly a bugfix update. More details to follow in the newsletter on Sunday.

So I have an iphone 4 with iOS 6.. so if I accidentally deleted the app I won't be able to use skritter anymore??!

How to identify the iPod Touch model: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1353

xiaomai5, I'm now ensuring that I have downloaded the 2.2.1 version of Skritter on my computer (using iTunes), but, yeah, if you lose it on the computer & iPod, you're screwed.

Not good

iPhone 4 can update to iOS 7, so there's little reason not to do that. Really, the devices which can't run iOS 7 are quite old. iPod touch 4th gen is 3 years old, iPhone 3GS is 4 years old. iPad is 3.5 years old. Skritter often requires too much memory to stay stable on these devices as it is right now anyway.

You can check the Skritter iOS app version on the Help - About section of the app, at the top.

ah no problem in that case then, thanks Nick :)

According to the Apple support site, the iPod touch 4th gen is less than 2 years old and the 5th generation iPod touch was introduced 11 months ago! So, if you bought an iPod one year ago, you are out!

I'm really not happy about this.

Sorry, you are right, the white 5th gen iPod touch is less than 2 years old, the black one is three years old (it's too early for me, not enough coffee...).

Malaili, iPod touch 4th generation are selling for $100-$130 on eBay. You could then chip in a bit more and get a used 5th gen iPod touch, or an iPad mini.

I'm pretty upset about this too, though my rant is directed more at consumerist society in general than at Skritter in particular. The fact that every three years we are expected to throw away a perfectly good device worth several hundred dollars and buy a new one is just ludicrous.

Any design changes for the new version?

apple stopped selling 4th gen ipod touch in april or may 2013 (they sold 4th and 5th alongside each other), so not the longest life if bought it at the end - best sell on ebay I'd say, they get amazingly good prices for outdated (but not necessarily "old") technology gadgets compared to other manufacturers. Just curious, why can't have old version of software on apple store too (as well as new one), don't they allow that?

You'll still be able use the Skritter app on your 4th gen ipod touch-- you just won't be able to use the latest version of it.

I'd recommend copying the actual "Skritter 2.2.1.ipa" file from where your apps are stored on your computer to a separate folder so that you always have a backup copy of it. If you for some reason have to restore your ipod touch and have accidentally downloaded the latest Skritter app to your computer via itunes, you can still transfer the older version to your touch.

The 4th gen ipod touch came out in Sept. 2010. That is a pretty old device in today's market. It's just unfortunate that people who bought it retail 12 months ago won't even be able to update to iOS 7.

@junglegirl, couldn't agree more with you! Hope your chinese studies are going well, xiaomai

Yup, just make sure to grab that Skritter 2.2.1.ipa if you want to make sure you can keep running it on your iPod touch forever. We're not deprecating the old server protocol or anything, so as long as the device breathes, we'll try to keep it Skrittering.

The new version is updated to go along with a few iOS 7 aesthetic changes, but we tried to keep it mostly familiar. There are many bug fixes, and I improved a bunch of things with text formatting in the top prompt area.

As a iOS developer myself I can say it's not very easy to keep compatibility and features across all iOS versions. However, to require an iOS version that's just released is just silly. It will take some effort to make some features only available on iOS 7, it is not really hard and very much possible. So i'm surprised about this choice, it's one of your main product lines!

My company still has iOS5 as a minimum, and we will move to iOS6 soon.

Please, re-think this decision, and build some backwards compatibility in the app.

Nick: did you test an iPhone 4S with the new update? If so, how did it go? Is it slower than the current version? Thanks!

As long as we can keep using the Ipod 4th Generations to Skritter I guess it's fine. I'll just be careful not to delete the app.

Any particularly snazzy new features we're missing out on?

Fortunately my devices are not in the "outdated" category, but a suggestion:

What about keeping the old app available as "Skritter for iOS 5/6". I noticed that the music streaming service Spotify does this with its app. Does it mean additional costs for the developer? I mean, the "old" code already exists

+1 to having a separate "old Skritter" in the app-store. You can specifically state in the description that this version is not in development...

I normally skritter on my iPod Touch that will not work, but since I'll now have to drive to work, that won't happen much either. But I'm not particularly keen on upgrading the iPad to iOS 7.0.0. I like to wait until at least the first patch so the major bugs can get ironed out...

dannygrob, usually I would agree with you, but the crazy UI changes Apple has made in iOS 7 made it much, much easier to make a clean upgrade than to preserve compatibility (especially with the translucent status and nav bars).

joeymac1981, I run an iPhone 4S myself and have primarily tested on it. It's as smooth as ever.

Talafar, you'd be missing out on background fetch, Midori integration for Japanese, a bunch of bugfixes with prompt top text layout, a fix for a rare sentence sync crash, Advanced Study list items not replenishing in the review queue, and a few other minor things. If you're not currently running into these bugs, then it's not a big update.

luleadam, having a separate old version in the App Store would be possible, but it takes a long time to do and is a hassle. It would be less work at this point to just sign up whoever can't upgrade and needs the old app on TestFlight and distribute it that way. I'm not predicting a huge demand for the old version, assuming that most users who will need it already have it.

nomadwolf, you can wait as long as you want to upgrade to iOS 7 and download the Skritter app update.

Ok thanks. Yeah I haven't been running into those bugs, and don't need to background fetch. Fingers crossed that it stays stable :)

Thanks Nick!!

Haven't managed to test this personally yet, but it seems like Apple has solved the problem by (finally!) allowing users to download old versions of apps if the new ones aren't compatible with their devices:

http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/17/apple-begins-offering-last-compatible-version-of-apps-for-users-running-legacy-versions-of-ios/

We were actually planning to release an alternate older-iOS version of Pleco (which would have been a massive hassle both to create and to maintain - two separate sets of IAP catalog items, e.g.) but thanks to this we no longer have to.

Wow, that'll be sweet if it's true! Let's keep our fingers crossed that it works. Thanks for the heads up, Mike.

In other news, our app update is approved early, so it'll be ready with iOS 7 tomorrow.

Now that iOS7 has killed skeumorphism dead and gone all texture-less, could we have an iPad dark theme with no textures please? (The argument against switching on the iPad dark theme was that it would take 40,000 hours or something to redo the large and unnecessary textures). Thanks!

No.

I did yesterday install iOS7 and today the new skritter app but I run in to one minor issue i think. The day is not switching. It is 7 in the morning here and skritter should change day at 4 i think. Still I have yesterdays time and stats. On the web I can see that I do increase yesterdays stats when using the iOS app but today's when I use the web version.

Hmm; I wonder if something is changed in the way that Apple is giving us timezones. Have the timezone settings on your device changed when you did the iOS 7 update? What timezone is your iOS device set to?

I have it to Beijing timezone and automatic time. The time/date is correct on the device but skritter still gives me yesterdays time and items. No change after the upgrade to time zones.
I have tried to trick the system to change to 5 in the afternoon today but still no change.

Anyone else in the Beijing timezone seeing Skritter not give the right day on iOS 7?

Day 2 it did switch correctly at 4. It now seems to record my data on correct day as well. The whole day yesterday it continued to run on the day before stats. Web version did work and they never synced. Probably just a glitch form the installation. Everything seems to working fine now so case closed I guess.

I'm 100% not happy that I cannot use Skritter on my iphone 4 with iOS 5 anymore. The app should have not been allowed to be downloaded to a device which is not iOS 7.

I only used Skritter on my iphone up until this point, now I don't have a means to use skritter at all (I don't get time on my computer any more). I don't wish to upgrade to iOS 7 and I need a reasonable solution to rectify this problem, otherwise I'll seek a refund on my remaining skritter subscription and you'll lose a customer for next year.

I emailed support already, my id is ambiticus

ambiticus1, sorry to hear of your frustration. I'm not sure why the App Store would have downloaded the iOS 7 version to your iOS 5 device.

Is there a reason why you're not updating your iPhone 4 to iOS 7?

I wish that an email or some other form of notification would have been sent out before 2.3. I have not yet upgraded to 2.2.1, but can't upgrade to 2.3 since I have an iPhone 3 and an iPod 4. I'm definitely tired of lining Apple's pockets every 2 to 3 years, especially since my devices are in perfect condition, but it compounds the frustrating when there is no way to download Skritter's last non-iOS 7 upgrade.

It seems I'm constantly changing devices in order to use Skritter. About a year ago, I switched from using Skritter on my iPod 4 to using it on my iPhone, simply due to skritter crashing a lot on the memory-starved iPod.

ambiticus1, do you have an itunes backup of the previous app version that you can restore?

My wife's iphone 4 is running iOS7 and Skritter. It's working quite well.

高君睿, I did briefly mention it in the newsletter, but we try to keep those short, so it would be easy to miss.

Did you need the 2.2.1 update (some bug fixes on top of the 2.2.0 update which added sentences)? I can get you in on TestFlight with an old beta build if so; just let me know. Same offer for anyone else stuck needing 2.2.1 and unable to download it from the App Store. (Try downloading it, though--it's possible it will give you the last compatible version like Mike's blog link suggested.)

Thanks Nick! I did upgrade both on my iPhone 3 and iPod 4, and per Mike's link, they both upgraded to the older 2.2.1. All is good.

As I mentioned above, I'm getting tired with Apple's still new devices (iphones, ipods, ipads, and computers) not being able to upgrade, so I'm thinking about going Android. Last I heard, Skritter has no plans for doing an Android app. Is that still the case?

Thanks again.

Malaili, it's a 3GS.

1.
I'm fed up with these improvements wich are not improvements of the volume of junk devices in the landfills.
2.
Did the so old iOS 5/6 version 2.2.1 will benefit bugs correction in the future ?

I've gone through two Palm devices, a Windows Mobile HP iPaq, and one android device over the past decade in order to keep using Pleco dictionary (my other favorite Chinese learning tool). iOS has thus far provided the best support to legacy users by offering free OS upgrades for older devices, something that I never got with any of my previous non-Apple mobile devices.

This is an outrage. Of course everybody is okay with it as long as they aren't affected, but the reasons you gave for switching don't convice me at all.

It's bad enough that you don't have an Android app and lock millions of potential customers out, but locking people out that explicitly bought a shitty iDevice just to practice Chinese on it and that you lock them out for close to zero benefit really ticks me off.

I knew that Apple locks people, apps and users' rights out, doesn't fix bugs to leave holes in their apps and so on, so it doesn't surprise me that thousands of old apps suddenly become obsolete because they want to sell an icon pack as a revolutionary upgrade for their shit. But I didn't think that you would imitate that kind of behavior.

If I really can't use Skritter on my Ipod 4 anymore it goes straight to the trash and my Skritter subscription is canceled.

It seems you can't afford building an Android app because your user base is too small and you don't generate enough money to hire people to make it.

Still, you lock your existing users out so that you can "use a little bit" of "the new UI stuff", which probably doesn't add any functionality? This is mind-boggling to me.

How many users are you going to win because the app becomes a bit prettier? I don't think anyone will shy away from the app because of its looks. It needs to be FUNCTIONAL.

Now how many users are you going to lose with this move? Keep in mind that iDevices are notoriously overpriced and lose their value very slowly. So now people have to spend a couple of hundred bucks because you decide to beautify your app. Thank you very much.

2.2.1 is still available and you can still use Skritter on the old devices for the foreseeable future. I know it's a long thread it's easy to miss, so I'll repost the relevant bits.

"Apple has solved the problem by (finally!) allowing users to download old versions of apps if the new ones aren't compatible with their devices."

"Thanks Nick! I did upgrade both on my iPhone 3 and iPod 4, and per Mike's link, they both upgraded to the older 2.2.1. All is good."

"I can get you in on TestFlight with an old beta build if [you can't get 2.2.1 through the App Store]; just let me know."

Taking into account some of the earlier posts on this thread, I might get "trolled" for this comment ;-).....but skittering on my new iPhone 5s is very smooth. Much better and less sticky than the 4s :-)

Nick,

"I know it's a long thread it's easy to miss, so I'll repost the relevant bits.

'Apple has solved the problem by (finally!) allowing users to download old versions of apps if the new ones aren't compatible with their devices.'"

You happened to end up having this solution, but you were willing to leave customers with sub-iOS7 devices out before Apple graciously allowed users to download apps in old versions, weren't you? IMHO, distantvoice's criticism is still perfectly valid, as you were going to hazard the consequences. I imagine, since Skritter really *is* great, many people begrudgingly bought used but still expensive iStuff only so they can use Skritter on the go. I'd be mad as well.

Not that I *personally* care since I exclusively use the web version anyway. Just sayin' that your target group is a relatively niche demographic as is already, so you might wanna consider aiming for an audience as broad as possible. If you can avoid narrowing it down to people who'd buy iStuff, and a new one every other year at that, all the better, don't you think? Peace.

No, I was going to manually send them the old version using TestFlight, since as you say, buying a device just to Skritter and then having it stop working would suck.

Really? My bad, it didn't sound to me like that was the initial intent; I thought you said in the first post that the iOS app wouldn't be available below iOS7 in very near future and that only after many people complained you said that they could have an old beta through TestFlight if they insist. Granted, it's an alright solution, as is that Apple grants old app downloads now, but it's not like they were there and obvious to all from the beginning of this thread.

Hello Nick,

Could you please send me an old version of Skritter using TestFlight, that is compatible with the iPhone 3G and iOS 4.2.1? According to both my experience and a post on this thread, Apple's old version download function doesn't work for Skritter & the iPhone 3G.

Many thanks.

IIRC, even the first version of Skritter on iOS required iOS 5, so if you have 4.2.1 I'm afraid you'd probably be out of luck.

@junglegirl @malaili @distantvoice - let me know when you drop your old iDevices In the trash/scrapheap because I will be happy to save the planet by fishing them out and selling them used.

I'm amazed that so many people can afford $15/month for a Skritter subscription, but can't afford $100 or so every other year to upgrade their iPod.

To all those people still complaining about the lack of an Android app what is stopping you from putting up $100,000 or so of your own money and paying a developer to build an Android Skriter interface based on the new Skritter API? Not so sure about how many sales you will have on Android all of a sudden?

@joeymac1981 Yes Skritter is fantastically smooth on the 5S. Well worth the old camera lens I dug out of the back of a cupboard and sold on Ebay to pay for the upgrade.

@Alan, you wrote: "I'm amazed that so many people can afford $15/month for a Skritter subscription, but can't afford $100 or so every other year to upgrade their iPod."

I'm completely happy with my iPhone 4S and the iOS 6 on it, so why should I waste $700 or so on a new iPhone 5 just to have Skritter with a slightly better looking interface? I can afford it, but it's a waste of money!

P.S.: Installing iOS 7 on iPhone 4S means that the performance will be worse and the OS will start having lags. Now everything IS perfect, but I assume it won't be once I install iOS 7. That's what bothers me.

I haven't noticed any performance problems on a 4S with iOS7, small sample of 1 though I'm afraid. Why do you assume that performance will be worse? Battery life is no different if you co into the location settings and disallow everything.

You are making a decision not to upgrade your phone to the newest OS- you will start to have compatability problems with many apps in the next year or two. Maybe Skrittet has been a bit ahead of the curve by requiring iOS7, but they have implemented a background fetch which improves syncing, not just a "slightly better looking interface".

$100 every other year was based on selling an old iPod and buying a used one new enough to run the latest OS- obviously keeping an iphone up to date would cost a little (but not much if buying used) more.

Oh and by the way, after a few weeks with iOS7, I would find it quite frustrating to go back. The slide up thingy alone (which is even available while locked) makes it worthwhile.

@Alan, yes, I realized that I would have to update to the new iOS sooner or later, but under normal circumstances I would probably wait one year or so, to see what experience other people have, to wait for bug fixing updates, etc. But when it was announced that the next version of Skritter would only work under iOS 7, I felt that I was being forced to migrate to the new iOS, so to speak, "ahead of schedule." :)

It's good to hear that you haven't noticed any performance problems on a 4S with iOS7, but I also read a lot of complaints about performance on other internet forums, so I don't know whom to believe.

Besides I really don't like the design of the new iOS, so I hoped that I could perhaps wait until a jailbreak for it is available, so that I could install some hack that makes the OS design less flashy. (In fact, I haven't used jailbreak on my iPhone before, but now I'm not so sure...)

As you can see, in this matter everything for me boils down to the strategy "let's wait and see" and that's why I felt unhappy when I was forced to change the OS right now. I think even the people who are totally delighted with the new iOS can't deny that the new iOS is extremely controversial, it's nothing like when iOS 5 or 6 was released. So apart from what you or me might be thinking about this, porting Skritter to iOS 7 so hastily, not waiting until things calm down, was not a very good idea.

So you are worried about reliability and performance, but you want to jailbreak your device and install some barely tested unofficial hacked-up UI to make it look a little different?

I don't think iOS7 looks flashy at all- if anything it is less flashy, cleaner and simpler. Granted it is a little different, and some people might not like it, but in that case don't upgrade. Just don't complain that you can't install airbags in your model T Ford which you love the look of so much.

@Alan:

> So you are worried about reliability and performance,
> but you want to jailbreak your device and install some
> barely tested unofficial hacked-up UI to make it look
> a little different?

Well, these are two completely different situations. If I upgrade to iOS 7 and then realize that I don't like its design or performance, then there will be unfortunately nothing I can do about it. As far as I know, Apple already closed that "door" back to iOS 6. That means, once I enter the "shiny new world" of iOS 7, I can't go back to iOS 6 any more.

As for the (potential) jailbreak solution, everything is reversible. I can do the jailbreak, then install that (at the moment, only hypothetical) "barely tested unofficial hacked-up UI," then test it for as long as I wish to see if I like it, if it makes the system unstable, if it worsens the performance, etc. If I don't like something, I can uninstall everything (including the jailbreak) any time I choose.

BTW, thank you for a list of links related to iOS 7 performance issues that you gave me in a different thread, I'll study them later.

You can downgrade from ios7 back to earlier versions, using an unofficial procedure that is well documented online. You have to have saved your SHSH blobs before you do the upgrade though.

Of course, like when jail breaking, if anything goes wrong during the downgrade that bricks your phone, you are going to be shopping for a new phone.

Could anybody sum up the new features of Skritter on IOS 7?
I still have iOS6 (on iphone 5) and with the battery life reduction and the fucked up calender, I am not really motivated to switching to 7.
Nick, do I understand it properly, that - at least for the moment - the only difference is the automatic sync (which drains battery life) ?

This auto-update *could* be a motivation for me to switch to iOS 7, but only if this fixes the problem with the huge delay after syncing (like, having to wait 2-5 minutes to see the *actual* number of reviews pending...)

@Alan, it looks, what you said is not quite correct. All the sources I know of indicate that only the owners of iPhones 4 can downgrade using the procedure you mentioned, but there's no chance for owners of iPhones 4S like me, unfortunately:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-downgrade-to-ios-6/

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/167450-downgrading-from-ios-7-to-ios-6-why-apple-wont-let-you

If you have different information, please post a link.

BTW, the second link just above shows a nice side-by-side comparison of the iOS 6 vs. 7 home screens. Well, it's a matter of personal taste, of course, but the screen of iOS 7 does look flashy to me, with the icons "Music" and "Phone" being the most annoying. I don't really think that I'm biased, because I already got used to the idea that I have to upgrade sooner or later, so I'm reading more articles on this topic and trying to get used to the look of the new OS, but it seems I just can't get myself to like it...

zhangyanglu, there are also some bugfixes in 2.3.0, especially with sentence text layout. It's still unclear how reliably the auto-update works to keep you in sync; that one's kind of experimental so far. There's also the next update we're almost done with, which will include a few sound-related improvements.

@nick

I would also like to receive an link for an older skritter build. I have an iPad 1 plus an iPhone 4 I am trying to not upgrade to iOS7. Please don't forget about me if you finally distribute the old build via testflight.

zedwill, I sent you a TestFlight invite.

@nick, received.
Thank you very much

Hi @nick, could you send on over a TestFlight invite? I'd like to grab the 2.2.1 version for my 4th gen iPod.

HELP! I've been a member of "the cult of mac" for well over a decade, with all that it entails. This year, I've finally been able to actually USE my xcode for developing apps, and have been trudging along for over six months, along with my renewed study of Japanese. However, I CANNOT change my devices over to iOS 7, because the 2 courses I'm in actually grade based on apps being self-contained within the version in which I started. I can't go back over many dozens of app assignments and make them compatible with the newest OS.

I have less than a week left to go through my foundation in Kanji, and would like to run Skritter on the last version of 6. The upgrade seems dangerous in my situation and I don't mind paying- so is there any way I could get the developer's test version? It may be wonky for most, but I'd shell out DOUBLE if I could just get it to run on my mini.

Hi aeronix,

I was at the same situation. You can download the app on IOS6. It took me some time playing with the options but when downloading, you should be getting a dialog telling you to download a compatible version, instead of the latest. I don't know when exactly shows up. It took me days. But it is doable.

There is also an email on the mailing list saying that there is a html5 client in beta. I don't know if that works at all on IOS. You might check it out:

html5.skritter.com

I'd like to toss in that the html5 application doesn't currently work on ios browsers. It is something that is planned to be supported in the future though.

I sent you an email--if you register your device quickly, I'll get the old build out to you and the others who have been waiting since the last batch today.