Category: Release Notes

Update Release Notes

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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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Version 1.05 Released

Version 1.05 which supports 4-inch device screens was submitted to the App Store yesterday, Nov. 20th, 2012. It usually takes Apple a week or two to get to it though.

Actually, they already got to it today and it should be live on the App Store soon.

However, I’m actually not happy with the way the fonts are being laid-out on 4-inch devices. They’re bigger, of course, but for some reason the app isn’t doing a good job of keeping single, long words (like eavesdropping or misunderstanding) on one line. So, I’m gonna tweak that a bit and put out an update to address it. I’m also thinking of having examples come up in a random order so that you don’t see the same one at first every time. Please let me know what you think.

Happy Studies!

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Version 1.04 Released

Version 1.04 should be live in the app store soon and has the following features:

  • Tweaked iOS 6 performance

  • Fixed card resetting from the card detail view

  • Added card copying during study sessions

  • Tweaked Upgrade restoring

The app should be a bit smoother on iOS 6 and will provide visual cues that it’s working in the background when syncing study dates or starting a study session.  You can also copy cards while studying and there have been a few minor bug fixes/tweaks as well.

I’m still waiting for my 4-inch device to arrive but as soon as it comes I’ll be able to properly test and release the next update which will support iPhone 5 and iPod Touch 5.