I was studying without a network connection on my ipod for about an hour and a half on the train the other day and eventually I started to review the same words over and over again. I realize that I need a network connection to add new words, but it doesn't seem like it should be too hard to have the device download an entire list's vocabulary and thus be able to add new words to my study-list even while offline, no? I'm just wondering if there are any plans for this to happen or if there are complications I am unaware of in regards to doing that, because I only ever study on the train, which never has a connection.

I'm a bit confused at how this works too and haven't spent much time with it. In my mind I assumed it pre-downloaded a portion of my words so when I don't have WiFi they can be sprinkled in like when I use the website. I went away for 3 days and was studying at 0 reviews with nothing added, so apparently that's not the case.

The next time I went out for a few days I double tapped the add button and selected for it to add more than 20 new items. It did, but I felt like I got all of them in the first day, rather than around 5 a day when I use the website or WiFi on my phone.

How's it really working? How should I handle longer periods with no internet access while still adding new things?

It is really hard to make it download a list's vocabulary without adding it, to then add it gradually later while offline. So no, it doesn't do that.

What one should do is to pre-add a bunch of words manually if you know you're going to study offline and need more words. Double-tap the manual add button to choose how many words you want. If you are going to be gone a long time and want a lot of new words, then you can do it more than once.

There is some code to try to spread out the new words when you have a lot of them, but it doesn't always work how you would want.

Ah, I figured as much. I suppose I could just add manually before I leave home, it isn't that much of a problem. Just a tad cumbersome. Thanks for the reply.

Any words you already studied will return when they are due. The only thing that you need to be online for is to add new words.

Right: as lechuan said. Your iOS client will download all of My Words and store it, so you can review forever offline without syncing. Then when you sync, all of your reviews will be uploaded, as well as any updates from the server. Reviews in both places merge as you might hope.

So you don't need to do anything to go offline for a few days and review your due items. It's only if you'll want new items during that time that you'll want to pre-add.

Thanks for the clarification. Perhaps I just over study too much before pre-loading new words while away so it thinks I want a bundle of new words at once.

The bright side is now with the ios app I have a lot more days of over studying rather than plowing through back logged reviews :)

Hi there!
This worked for me, during travelling, because the hostels had fairely good wireless. However in my student home (China) I can't get Skritter to sync although I have wireless. I tried so many times and I'm wondering, is there a way of syncing while I plug in the cable and connect the iphone to my computer? I would like to add words using the cable internet of my computer too (the whole point being that wireless doesnt't work for some reason).

Thanks!

Hi Renata,
this was discussed some time ago and the answer was: no it's not possible. I would see 3 possible solutions for you:
1) Why can't you connect to the wireless network? Either, they have to less WLAN base stations on the campus and there is too much concrete and steel between your iphone and the base station (does your iphone recognize the network at all?) or they require some specific non-standard settings. I think it would be worthwhile to talk to the IT guys on the campus to find out what is the problem.
2) You can get a contract with mobile data tariff from the GSM provider like China Mobile. This is the most convenient way, as you can sync then from everywhere, but it might be costly. I had it some years ago and my monthly bill jumped up by about 200 RMB, so I gave it up. I don't know what flat rate tariffs they are offering now, may be somebody can advise about this. My wife is using this, it works perfectly in China, but she got a flat rate contract with special tariff via her company.
3) As I understand, you are using a wireline LAN connection for your PC. You could buy a small router with wireless function and put it between your PC and the LAN access point. I am using TP-Link, 8-series, in my office and at home since some years, they work pretty well. Amazon is selling them today at 25.99 US$, so I assume you could buy it in a computer shop in China below 200 RMB, might be even below 150 RMB. The only difficulty is the set-up as they deliver it only with Chinese user guide. But for me the set-up was really easy and I just went through the basic set-up routine (which can be switched to English). It requires some basic knowledge, nothing special.
Hope this helps, good luck.

There might also be a software solution by which you can share your computer's WiFi connection as another WiFi network that your phone can then connect to. This is fairly easy on my MacBook. I have no idea whether this is feasible on Windows or Linux machines, though.