Google Android

M

mandu

秀才
jwctpe said:
Hi Mike,

I love Pleco thank you.

I'm looking at buying an android device this week (still using a 5 year old palm!) I understand Pleco for android is not yet ready but if you had a choice between the NEXUS S or Incredible S which do you think might be more compatible?

Thank you,

Jeff
Click to expand...


The fact that you are always free to upgrade your Nexus means you can always be up to date with the very latest version of Android. Other phones can't offer this guarantee, even though HTC isn't bad in that respect. A Nexus means maximum options for upgrades.

If Pleco demands the latest and greatest version of Android, you'll be covered.
 
H

hunghey

Member
@mikelove,

I know you don't want to unveil system requirements for your Android version of Pleco yet, but I was wondering if a phone could get away with 'just decent' specs using your software? What would be the advantages of having a powerful Android phone besides a speed boost in using the software? From your iPhone product description - "Fantastic Performance - we've been refining our software for 10 years, and our search engine (though extremely powerful / flexible) was originally developed to offer decent performance even on a late-90s vintage Palm Pilot, so searches and dictionary entry rendering are very fast." From this I'm assuming that a middle of the range Android phone - hardware-wise - is sufficient in handling Pleco well? I hope you can answer these questions for me, thanks :)
 
J

jwctpe

Member
mandu said:
The fact that you are always free to upgrade your Nexus means you can always be up to date with the very latest version of Android. Other phones can't offer this guarantee, even though HTC isn't bad in that respect. A Nexus means maximum options for upgrades.

If Pleco demands the latest and greatest version of Android, you'll be covered.
Click to expand...

Thank you Mike & Mandu for your advice. Much appreciated. I bought the Nexus S. The ability to independently upgrade Android offers maximum flexibility for the future.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
hunghey said:
I know you don't want to unveil system requirements for your Android version of Pleco yet, but I was wondering if a phone could get away with 'just decent' specs using your software? What would be the advantages of having a powerful Android phone besides a speed boost in using the software? From your iPhone product description - "Fantastic Performance - we've been refining our software for 10 years, and our search engine (though extremely powerful / flexible) was originally developed to offer decent performance even on a late-90s vintage Palm Pilot, so searches and dictionary entry rendering are very fast." From this I'm assuming that a middle of the range Android phone - hardware-wise - is sufficient in handling Pleco well? I hope you can answer these questions for me, thanks
Click to expand...

Basic dictionary searches should certainly be nice and fast on any compatible Android phone, but there are other parts of Pleco that benefit from a fast processor. OCR is the biggest one at the moment - live OCR certainly, but Android's not great at scrolling large images (seriously, compare any Android gallery app with an iPhone one - they badly need a hardware-accelerated large image viewing widget) so even still-image OCR will feel a lot more responsive on a faster device. The multi-dictionary search feature we're cooking up will benefit from a fast processor too, as will other complicated new search types like full-text user dictionary searches.

There are also some not inherently performance-intensive things that happen to be slow on Android. Complicated interface layouts (optimize them though we might) tend to slow things down a bit, so you'll see a significant difference in UI responsiveness in a few screens from a faster processor. Handwriting input is buttery-smooth on most Android devices but is about 1/10th as responsive on HTCs (and possibly some other, smaller manufacturers we haven't tried yet) due to our workaround for a bug in their graphics drivers, so if you want handwriting to be as smooth as it is on iOS then you'll want a non-HTC or a very fast HTC.

character said:
"Second, and perhaps more interestingly, Bradley stated that AT&T will remove its third-party app store restrictions — allowing users to download applications hosted outside of the official Google Market."
Click to expand...

That's a good sign, but at the moment I'm actually a lot more worried about Amazon - their app store restrictions are so onerous that it would be downright impossible for us to bring much of the licensed content we offer to their app store, even if we really wanted to, and there's every reason to expect that a future Android-powered Kindle will only be able to run apps downloaded from their store.
 
S

sui.generis

探花
Just started running XDAndroid Froyo on my TP2, thought I'd drop in and see if Mike had sworn off the OS yet. :wink: Glad he hasn't.

character said:
http://www.bgr.com/2011/05/06/att-vp-dishes-on-android-windows-phone-handset-plans/

"Second, and perhaps more interestingly, Bradley stated that AT&T will remove its third-party app store restrictions — allowing users to download applications hosted outside of the official Google Market."
Click to expand...

Pretty huge news, actually. I hope the gist is that the prohibition on sideloading will end, and the 3rd party store angle gets the focus because these days tech writers have forgotten there are mechanisms other than app stores to get apps from. :roll: At least at some point Mike had considered selling Plecodroid direct so some store isn't pocketing 30% off the top (which I fully support. I'd rather Mike get my money and improve the product).
 
S

Sarevok

进士
So, does this new section on the forums mean that we can expect the beta release soon? I've been putting off the purchase of a new Android device for this very reason, as Pleco is an essential piece of software for me. Good that I did - there were some really interesting devices entering the market recently (namely Samsung Galaxy S II).
 
K

keyclick

秀才
Woot! This is like the wave of excitement at a concert or movie theater when the setbreak music stops and the house lights dim! :D

Bring it on!
 
N

neilperks

进士
Hi Mike,

Can you clarify, when it talks about copying the folder to SD card, does this mean the internal SD card or any external SD card ?

Apologies if i missed the obvious

Cheers

Neil
 
I

ipsi

状元
In theory, either should be fine, but I would imagine that using an external SD card is probably a safer bet. If in doubt, try both and report back :)
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Either should work; at the moment, we look for files in:

  • the root directory of your SD card (/sdcard)
  • every subdirectory of it (/sdcard/anything)
  • any directory in the above two with "Pleco" in its name
  • your app-specific data directory (/sdcard/Android/data/com.pleco.chinesesystem/files)

Though we may tighten this a bit in later releases to improve startup times.
 
A

andria

秀才
Horray! So is there a recommendation for particular tablets or phones that recommend for Pleco? Or does it just come down to having the latest version and the fastest specs? I read the part about some HTC phones not having the best handwriting input. Any that are most recommended? Thank you.
 
J

JRyn

Member
Such a great news ,at last we have Pleco for Droid...

but I wonder when The complete version with all dictionaries will be available for Droid ??? I'm looking forward to it.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
sui.generis said:
FYI, the http://www.pleco.com/androidscreens.html page says 'iPhone screenshots' at the top.
Click to expand...

Fixed, thanks!

andria said:
Horray! So is there a recommendation for particular tablets or phones that recommend for Pleco? Or does it just come down to having the latest version and the fastest specs? I read the part about some HTC phones not having the best handwriting input. Any that are most recommended? Thank you.
Click to expand...

That handwriting issue has actually turned out to be less of a problem on 2.3 - the bug is still there but the workaround doesn't seem to impose as much of a performance penalty. We also think we may have a way to rejigger that workaround to make it even less of an issue (more of an incentive now that we found the same bug on the Motorola Xoom).

Personally, my primary Android phone is still an HTC Desire (basically identical to a Nexus One) - it's a year old design, but I find the newer 4.3 inch devices to be less comfortable to hold than 3.7 inch ones like the Desire, and the performance seems to be fine for Pleco OCR and other things. But Android phones come in a lot of different shapes in sizes so it's really a personal decision - definitely get one that's upgradable to 2.3, though, and make sure it has at least an 800x480 screen (easily the most common size now).

JRyn said:
but I wonder when The complete version with all dictionaries will be available for Droid ??? I'm looking forward to it.
Click to expand...

We made a conscious decision not to offer that yet, since it won't be "Complete" for very long with all of the new dictionaries we're releasing this summer. (we may not even continue offering a Complete bundle on iPhone after that - the odds of someone actually wanting every single one of the increasingly-specific dictionaries we offer are pretty slim)
 
W

Wan

榜眼
Not a very productive post, but still: Thank you so very much for releasing an Android version of Pleco! Awesome!
 
J

JRyn

Member
Hey Mike, so now if I'd need more dictionaries than the three offered in professional pack, I need to order them separately or I can order Pleco Complete pack for Window Mobiles and then transfer license to Android?...

I understand than in the future almost all people may not need all of your expanding database ,but I think just 3 for professionals Packs is too less and buy them separately is too pricey. May be you just change the package name to "Advanced Pro", for example,with all main dictionaries for daily-life ....
 
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