iPhone SDK

J

josuevf

Member
Mike,

Any update as to the status of the iphone version? I'm about a week away from just buying another electronic dictionary, and just don't want to regret it if the new version is coming out within, say a month or so. I understand you're not allowed to give even an unofficial release date, but could you let me know where you guys are in the development process?
 
I

ipsi

状元
I believe the answer is 'Desperately trying to finish Pleco 2.0 so iPhone development can be started'. :(
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Yep, that's pretty much where we are. So there definitely won't be an iPhone version in 2008, which means if you need an electronic dictionary right now I'd advise against waiting for iPhone.
 
E

estudiando

探花
Undocumented iPhone app approval procedure:

This is from olivetree:

"Here is an update. After 5 weeks and 3 phone calls Apple rejected all of our updates without an explanation. We tried to get an explanation from them, but we were unable to find out anything. So we removed the store browsing and joining of iPhone BibleReader and resubmitted a new version on Saturday. This new version still allows you to download content purchased on www.olivetree.com and it allows you to download previously purchased content. Within 24 hours the NIV for BibleReader got accepted!! The other apps are still waiting approval. Once these applications get approved we are going to add the store browsing and joining of BibleReaders back in and try resubmitting. "

Apparently you can download content, but you can't be browsing/purchasing content. So you can use Safari to do the browsing/purchasing and then open up (the future) Pleco and download the dictionaries...
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
That depends on what Apple will let us get away with approval-wise - we've got a couple of ideas, but I don't want to mention any of them here until we know what we'll actually be able to do.

But I'm not too worried about the main point of this article, because we don't really rely on people stumbling onto our software in a catalog to find new customers - we haven't sold through PalmGear / Handango / etc in quite a few years. So there's not as much of a question of rising above the fray, most of the people putting Pleco on their iPhones will be doing it by going into AppStore and typing "pleco" in the search box (or "chinese dictionary," but the situation with that is very different than the one with games or utilities or other things that are numerous / difficult-to-describe-in-detail).

And since I don't think publishers are going to let anyone get away with paying them 30 cents in royalties for a $40 printed dictionary anytime soon, it's unlikely dictionary software prices on iPhone will go into the sort of freefall that prices of things like games have - someone charging $1 for a non-open-source dictionary is going to be losing money on every sale.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
The market's definitely going to mature - it's entirely possible to develop a sophisticated, powerful iPhone application (we're doing so right now :) ), it's just that the economy's bad and until recently the easy money was in churning out lots of little micro-apps - now that those revenues are starting to dry up the good programmers are going to turn their attention to more powerful, mature projects. In '09 we should finally see a couple of really good office suites, some more sophisticated games (almost anything you could do on a PSP / NDS, really - personally I'd love to see an iPhone port of Katamari Damacy), it's just that those things take longer to develop and until recently there hasn't been enough financial incentive for programmers to focus on that instead of silly little $1 gimmicks like Ocarina and Koi Pond.
 
K

kwoolf

Member
Hi Mike,

It's been a long time since I've visited. I was one of your earliest customers for the Palm version back in 2004, and you helped me with all the bugs I reported. Anyhow, I checked back here to see if you guys were still in business because I just bought an iPhone 3G here in Taiwan and wanted Plecodict. I'm happy to see an iPhone version is in the works. There is nothing worth paying for on the AppStore right now in terms of Ch-E E-Ch dictionaries, and I thing it would be a worthy investment to prioritize development of an iPhone version over a Plam Pleco 2.0. But if Wenlin beats you to the board, you might be in trouble!

Hope things are well and I wish you the best for the New Year!

Kevin (Taiwan)
 
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