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Embracing iOS 7

I wanted to post an update on what I’ve been doing recently.

I’m hard at work on the update to a universal app which will include retina iPad support. As I’m sure many of you know, Apple revealed iOS 7 at this year’s WWDC. I plan to release the universal app in conjunction with the release of iOS 7. I’ll be updating the app to version 2.0 and the UI will conform to Apple’s newest design principles. I know a lot of people don’t like the new design. I didn’t either, at first. However, after using it for a few weeks, I can assure you that the OS itself is much better and the new, “flat” design grows on you. I have a couple of preview shots to show you how things are coming along.

Please keep in mind that these are work-in-progress so they’ll almost certainly change at least a bit.

Version 2.0 will only support iOS 7 so you’ll have to upgrade to the new OS before you’ll be able to update the app. I’m going to be releasing the final version of 1.1 soon which will act as a preparatory bridge to version 2.0. The update (ver 1.1.3) will require iOS 6.

I’m going to complete the new iPhone version first because that’s what I’ll be using for daily testing. As soon as that’s done, I’ll start working on the iPad UI and will release some preview shots as soon as possible.

Please don’t hesitate to let me know what you think of the design and what kind of new features you might like to see in the new version.

Happy Studies!

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Version 1.1.2 Released

Version 1.1.2 is available now. Actually, this update was mostly just for me. I cleaned up a lot of the code and tweaked how the font cache is managed a bit. However, I did want to add something that users would actually notice so I put in an option to automatically synchronize your card study dates when you tap the Study tab. You’ll have the option to turn this on or off the first time you launch the new version and you can change it later in the Settings app.

I guess I’m gonna start working on artwork for an iPad native retina version. It’ll probably take a while to finish up but hopefully I’ll have it done sometime this summer. Please let me know if you’d like to see any changes or additions to the app during the meantime.

Happy Studies!

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Version 1.1.1 Released

Version 1.1.1 was released today. It’s just a small update mostly to fix a bug but I did also add one small feature. I fixed a crash that would occur if you attempted to delete cards that had examples. I also added the ability to toggle an example’s hint (translation) from the Study Session long-press pop up menu. Tapping the left arrow on the menu will allow you to switch to the hint. This will allow you to have speech synthesis speak the hint just in case you’d like to do that for any reason.

Version 1.1.2 is also ready and currently waiting for review. This version adds an auto-sync option when starting study sessions. I’ll update again next week once it’s ready.

Happy Studies!

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Version 1.1 Released

Version 1.1 is processing for the App Store and will be available soon. This update integrates speech synthesis powered by iSpeech®. So, you’ll be able to practice repeating your words and example sentences along with a natural, human quality text to speech reader. Besides Japanese, numerous languages are available for reading translations. This feature requires a network connection and you may incur extra charges if you don’t have an unlimited data plan.

In order to use speech synthesis, long-press on any revealed entry during a study session. A menu will pop up.

Selecting “Speak” will bring up a popover player. You can change the speed of the voice to whatever you’re comfortable practicing with. Please keep in mind that the fastest possible setting is just slightly faster than a “normal” speaking speed, so if you can repeat smoothly along with that, you should be good to go.

Languages for translations can be selected from the Settings app.

If you change the language settings, you’ll need to select “Speak” from the pop-up menu again in order to make the changes take effect. While I know that there are many users in Thailand, Vietnam, and The Philippines, those languages are, unfortunately, not supported. Of course, you probably don’t really need to practice your native language anyway, so I think the feature will be useful for everyone.

Please do feel free to send along any feedback you might have about the new feature.

Happy Studies!

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Version 1.08 Released

Version 1.08 was released today. Just a couple of small but necessary fixes. First, the conjugation feature for examples will now ignore any newlines that happen to be in your examples or in the kanji entry for your cards.

Also, selecting 0 for max cards in Settings will now cause the app to properly ignore the option completely.

This should be the last minor update for this version. The next version will be a major update to version 1.1 and will include some new features that will greatly enhance the app.

Happy Studies!

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Version 1.07 Released

Version 1.07 was released today. I’m pretty happy with the stability and functionality of the app at this point so I think I’m going to try and market it a bit more. I’ve made some social networking pages for the app and I’ve added links to the About screen as well as a direct link to rate or write a review for the app on the App Store. If you like the app be sure to like/follow/rate or review it to help get the word out and get more people using it.

This version features one fix and a few tweaks. First, the app would sometimes crash when adding a single new example to a new card and then trying to cycle through the examples during a study session. These crashes won’t happen anymore. I also messed around with how new cards are sorted. First of all, new cards will respect the total max number of cards set in the Settings app. Before, you would get the max total plus new cards which wasn’t really sensible. Also, new cards that have been swiped left as incorrect but not yet memorized will still count as new cards and will be presented in study sessions before completely untested cards. Additionally, cards will be sorted by difficulty and then randomized. This will ensure that you’re getting your most difficult cards even if you’ve limited the total number of cards you have per study session.

If any of that doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry about it. Most users probably won’t really notice the difference but I do think it’ll enhance how quickly and completely you can memorize kanji and words even if you have a limited amount of time to study each day.

Happy Studies!

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Version 1.06 Released

Version 1.06 went live in the store a couple of days ago. The main change was to the way the app lays out text. I tried to strike a good balance between having the biggest font sizes possible, layouts that are aesthetically pleasing, and performance.

You now also have the option of putting in your own line breaks. You’ll notice some new buttons above the keyboard for moving between the different text areas when editing a card during a study session.

If you do put in your own line breaks, the app will choose the largest font available that respects the number of lines you wanted. However, the last line might still wrap again based on default wrapping if it’s too long and the font gets too small.

You can also use line breaks in your examples if you aren’t happy with the default layouts.

Some people might not like to have a single character on one line, so editing in a line break might make it look a bit better.

I’m prepping another update to guarantee compatibility with the newly released iOS 6.1 SDK and I’ll be addressing a new card sorting issue as well. Thanks for reading and be sure to let me know if you notice any issues with the text layouts.

Happy Studies!

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How to Study with kanji Flow

First, watch the Getting Started video:

You can also check out the linked tutorials’ play list on this post you haven’t already.

kanji Flow offers a lot of freedom in how you use it to study. If you like and use the Leitner system, you can probably make your preferred method of study work within the app’s available options. If you don’t know what “the Leitner system” is or you’ve noticed that the amount of kanji and/or vocabulary you’ve got in your study list is starting to get a bit unruly then I’d recommend that you study as outlined in this post.

You should be using the Flow study method. The app will keep track of how well you know each card and determine when you need to study the card again. Basically, it’s an algorithm managed, increasing interval study system. The more you know a card, the less the app will present it to you in study sessions.

It’s important to keep in mind that this algorithm isn’t going to give you perfect memorization. You’ll probably end up needing to review about 10% of your cards from each study session. That’s okay. You shouldn’t feel bad if you didn’t remember the card. If you never get any cards wrong then you have a perfect memory and really don’t need to be studying all that seriously anyway. Expect to forget cards. If you don’t immediately and confidently know the card, you don’t know it. Swipe it to the left and review it.

You should be using context-based study and (almost) everyone of your cards should have examples. This applies especially to verbs and nouns of a disyllabic origin (double kanji words). Download imiwa? (it’s free) and use it to import examples for your card. If imiwa? doesn’t have examples for the word you’re studying then check out the tip in this post. Simple nouns like りんご (apple) probably don’t really need examples.

If you’re studying reading, read the example out loud being sure to use the proper reading for the kanji between the 【】. If you’re studying writing, get out a sheet of paper and pen and write the example down replacing the ○ with the correct kanji. The point of this is to get used to how the word is used by practicing actually using it. Memorizing the whole dictionary isn’t going to do you any good if you don’t know which verb or word is appropriate to whatever situation you happen to find yourself in.

Good luck and please let me know if any of this isn’t clear in anyway. I’ll be happy to talk with you personally about how to get the most out of your study time with kanji Flow.

Happy Studies!