ChinesePod iPad app released

using it on iPhone it does seem clear that it is an app designed for a bigger screen. I hope the next version will bring back things like the very large fonts for paging through vocabulary one by one. I really can't read any of it comfortably, and if I were in a moving vehicle (this is supposed to be about mobility, right?) it would be excruciating. The addition of a search function is a huge plus, and there are a number of design elements that make it more visually appealing. Inclusion of the photos makes it easier to spot previously studied lessons.

Glad to see the iPad app making steady improvement.

Are there still plans to support basic subscriptions?

I let my subscription lapse earlier this year because I do all my studying offline, and trying to sort mp3s on my mp3 player and keep track of which lessons I have and haven't studied was getting to be a pain. The iPad app looks like it would solve this issue, and looks to be a great incentive for renewing my subscription once it supports a basic subscription.

The version 1.1 is a great improvement.

Here is my "wishlist" for 1.2:

- Add offline support for Flashcards (currently they cannot be used unless online)

- Add a button to download all audio examples inside the lesson at one go. (All audio examples = everything that is behind a "play" button in the dialog, expansion and grammar).

goulnik,

I'm not sure, but I've been left with the impression that the community search just works for searching for usernames. I don't think I've ever had it work in finding anything else. Sometimes using google will do this function. eg you could try googling "Chinesepod+ipad discussion"

not a problem, very thrilled here about the new app, and the upcoming iphone update. Of course, now expectations have been raised, so will complain a little bit more than before, too -- it's a sign of improving app quality !!

I apologize for the inconvenience! It's in the new version. Hope Apple approves it soon.

Nick,

Thanks for your feedback!

Thanks Podster! The iPhone app should work on your iPod touch as long as your OS is 5.0 and above. It does have search function. But the flashcards are not SRS enabled yet. We do provide an offline mode. As long as you download the content while you have wifi, you'll be able to use it later without internet connection.

Jenny, do you need help testing the forthcoming iPhone app? I understand its a completely new app. I'm really looking forward to it. Will it still work on any iPod Touch? Will it include a search function? A way to organize the order of lessons? Spaced repetition system flashcards? Indexing even in the absence of a persistent Internet connection? I use the old app every day, but a refresh / remake will be be most welcome. Thanks.

Great to hear that! I'm testing the next version which supports the iPhone. Pretty excited about that.

Thanks for the feedback. I've forwarded onto our iOS developer.

Testing the new iPad app version (1.1?).

Offline mode seems to work perfectly now. Great job guys! And the Flash Cards have been added, cool! (Although I am having some issues with playing some of the audio).

Great!

... but ... it does seem that the update breaks one thing. The lessons where I have previously downloaded (in the older version) the audio have a problem now. Those lessons are marked as downloaded, but actually the application shows that the audio files are not downloaded. And the problem is that the application refuses to download the files, pressing the download button does nothing. The audio download works fine for new lessons.

(If someone will debug the problem, little more details: the problem is only with the audio files. I noticed that in offline mode the lesson can still opened. So the lesson itself is properly cached, but something is wrong with the cached audio files or something.)

But luckily there is a workaround. Clearing the cache from the settings (which will delete all downloaded content) will allow the app to download the audio files again.

Great to hear that Jenny. Looking forward to the new version.

Jenny,

Please make sure that the upgrades to support offline mode are included in the (soon-to-be-released?) iPhone app as well. I thought this was a fairly well known bug / design limitation, but maybe your developer is quite new and has not had the benefit of our frequent constructive criticisms. Looking forward to the next iPhone app and the improved iPad app (when I get my iPad).

Thanks.

Thanks for your detailed explanation. I've just checked with our iOS developer, he says he made a suite of upgrades to better support offline mode. The latest version was just submitted.

I downloaded lesson, review and dialog audio. I think the problem might be that there is no way to download the lesson itself (text, pcs, etc.).

So when you start the lesson the app still needs to download the content (excluding the audio) from the web. Because only the audio files are saved into the device.

Or the app needs to check something from the server before the lesson can be opened.

Whatever the reason is for needing online connection when opening lesson that has been previously accessed, I really would like to see that removed/fixed. The usability of the app is now very limited when there us no access to Internet.

"Chinese for busy people", sorry to say but this busy person who does most of his studies while commuting is dissapointed.

Did you download the full lesson audio or only the dialogue?

miskat, I feel your pain. I don't have an iPad yet, but with the old iPhone app I live in dread that I will step onto the plan for the 16 hour flight, accidentally swipe to refresh the contents and thereby make my entire (already downloaded) library unable to be accessed because I have no Internet connection. I don't know why Chinese Pod does this. Maybe they want to authenticate you as a current subscriber? I have no plans to drop my subscription, but I wonder if I did how much of the content that I think I "own" might vanish. Maybe I should be backing everything up in iTunes just in case. Has anybody read the fine print on their subscriptions / software agreements?

The offline mode is still pretty broken.

Real life example from this morning:

- (At home) I decided that today I will study two lessons and downloaded the lesson audios.

- (At home) Now the app was showing that these two lessons are download.

- (At home) Started studying the first lesson.

----------left home-----------

- (Bus) Continue studying the first lesson.

- (Bus) Go back to "main menu" to switch the lesson

- (Bus) "Cannot load the lesson" (which the application claims is "downloaded")

- (Bus) Stared out the bus window for the next hour and half

Could you please fix this.

Very cool, using app every day, my lesson listening rate went from 0 per year to 13 in last two weeks!!

thanks for letting us know Jenny.

Thanks for the answer. I still can't get it to work but hopefully it'll be fixed at some point.

Another thing I've noticed is that you can't get tap on the last word or sentence in the vocabulary and expansion sections and get it to open. It'll only work if you tap on the second to last word first.

Lunetta,

This is from our tech team:

It is not a bug, but more like a design issue. This has been the way it is for a while, we have to also concern the connection speed between mobile apps and our web server.

The display order of self-study list currently will only be synced on the type of devices, i.e, if a user bookmarks a lesson on a computer, then the display order will be saved for all web site user interaction, not to mobile apps. However, changing display order on mobile apps will result the same on web site interaction.

While we work out the kinks, what you could do now is to 1) log out and log back in to sync the data, or 2) in settings-> clear cache to erase memory and reconnect to the server.

Lunetta,

I've forwarded this issue to the tech team.

Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for helping us identify problems and improving!

Yay! Thanks for the reply.

Funny , just saw this two minutes ago -- http://chinesepod.com/blog/Mobile%2BApp%2BFeedback%2B%2526%2BWishlist/1046

Looks like you will get your wish!

Thank you for your feedback! Will add in to the app wish list.

Thank you for the great suggestions! Vocabulary management is indeed coming in the next version. Offline mode suggestion also a top wish from users. I am pretty sure we'll work it in.

Goulnik,

Long time no see! Thank you for the feedback and suggestions! The email address should give you an automatic reply first. Maybe your email system filtered it? In any case, thank you for sharing your thoughts!

哈哈.

你的手和前臂谢谢我. 这个滑块给我一下 "repetitive stress injury"

Jingcai ! worked out these hotkeys and how to reset them. I can't believe how many transcripts I've worked on where this would have made a world of difference...wished I'd known about it sooner...should have looked I guess, hehe. Duoxie Douxie pengyou :)

thanks mate. the vlc tip for listening to the podcasts is a great one. Most youtube clips I only ever watch once, so I don't think I'd dowload just to skip a brief ad, but I'll keep it in mind anyway. xiexie :)

Because VLC is video oriented, the default increments range from something like 4 seconds to much longer, like an hour I think. You'll have to reset them in the settings window.

YouTube videos I would download and view them in VLC. To skip commercials I'd sacrifice one of the hotkeys and set it to say 2 minutes.

he2xu4,

"4 hotkeys for jumping back, 4 forward"

..great tip...thanks. I have vlc player but haven't used it for podcasts.I'll have to check it out.

"2, 4, 6, 8 seconds"

..was this the default or your customisable jumps? I love the idea of customisable jumps.

"Most of them have special buttons for skipping commercials"

..I would like this for youtube clips [don't need it for podcasts]...any suggestions?

Bababardwan,

I've been using podcast apps for a long time. Most of them have special buttons for skipping commercials, so I expect to have some kind of decent quick jump in any audio player for spoken audio. Some hav customizable jumps.

Chris

I'm using VLC. It's more of a video player but it has 4 hotkeys for jumping back, 4 forward. It has a simple interface. I looked into transcription software and other audio players. All not a good fit. It's surprising someone hasn't written something. I'm looking for the Mac though. Not so sure about Windows.

yes, great suggestion. I'll 3rd this. I recently noticed on the iphone you can cycle back 30secs, but yeah, those sliders are wildly inaccurate on iphone.

This would be especially helpful for those in the Transcripts with Tal group. I have to resort to using WMP or similar, since as you say, the slider is not at all accurate. Hexu, could you let me know the name of the app you currently use on your laptop that you mentioned above? Is it better than WMP?

oh, thanks mate..that's good to know. It wasn't the case originally with the old iphone app...originally you could only download content via wifi.

I am able to download lessons via 3G/cell radio on the iPhone app. I would think that the iPad app doesn't discriminate - as long as there is an internet connection, it would download.

Jenny, it really is great though. There are lots of positives I haven't mentioned above. To start with, downloading and login went perfectly ...swift, easy and without a hitch. It's what I'd call very "clean" ...it's very easy to use, intuitive, and without distractions. I like the dialogue tab options....the drill down and the translation toggle for each line. And it's all working perfectly. Great job !!

What I'd be most interested in is this. For both this app and the upcoming iphone version, to make them truly mobile, will they be able to download via 3G? I think I have commented on this before in relation to previous apps, but I don't recall if this was ever discussed in relation to this new app [but my memory is a little hazy on this....I don't know where that thread would be now to double check, so please forgive me if we are going over old territory...anyway, if we are, things may have changed since then, so an update on the situation there would be nice.] I don't have 3G with my ipad [so can't test it at the moment], but I do with my iphone, and besides, I could always connect my ipad to a mobile hotspot.

Thanks again :)

This is the first version. Always room for improvement.

buyongxie Jenny.

"You can filter level in "Library" on top right"

..sure, yeah, I saw that...but I meant for the extra channels like news and features, qing wen, deng deng. I might have missed it though.

hehe, it might be best to have the ipad without the distraction of the community...time for serious learning, hehe.

re video, ok, no biggie, but will it be possible in future? ..video on iphone not so great anyway, but on ipad it's awesome. Anyhow, maybe you can't answer an IT question like that at this stage, but it would be nice in the future, but I'm just getting greedy, hehe.

Cheers Jenny :)

Thank you for your feedback! You can filter level in "Library" on top right. There are no discussion and exercise in the app since the focus of the app is to help people get easy access to lessons and manage them. Like most apps, the features & functions on the app are not exactly the same as those on the site. It's about leveraging difference devices to perform what they are best at, i.e. convenience and mobility. The app can't play video content because our Academic Management System doesn't support that to iPad, a legacy problem when the infrastructure was built 7 years ago where there were no tablets and smartphones.

trying some other video lessons doesn't work either. Pressing the download button ...this message keeps flashing up briefly [too brief to capture all the details] but something about "expected status code"...and them some numbers and letters.

Also, doesn't look like you get the discussion tab either. I'm a little less likely to post from an iPad ...but it would be nice for brief comments...and also it would be nice to be able to read others comments. Will this be introduced in an update?

We started with the first iPad version which is what the next version that supports iPhone will be based on. It's a complete overhaul of the current iPhone version. It will take about 2.5 months to build and test the app. Then off to Apple for review. I'd be really excited to use the new one.