Pleco iOS/Android differences

[TheAlmightyBob]

[quick version of a post that was lost due to timed-out login....]
[apologies if this is discussed elsewhere already.... I didn't see anything anywhere...]

Since I didn't see anything written on the subject, I did a quick side-by-side of the demo versions. This post should be taken as curiosity rather than complaint.

Questions:
- Are there plans to bring these features to parity, or are there OS/design differences keeping them this way?
- Are there other significant differences that I'm missing?

Observed differences:
- Android displayed dictionary entries with newlines cleanly separating definitions and example sentences, whereas on iPhone (as on Palm) they ran together. Not sure if this is due to screen size rather than software version?
- iOS allows selecting/copying definition text; Android does not. This surprised me...
- iOS seems to have more options for the popup definitions, such as the magnified characters. Maybe related to iOS' superior text rendering?
- iOS OCR continuously autofocuses, whereas Android requires manually hitting the focus button. Other android camera apps continuously autofocus, so I'm not sure why this would be different or if I'm missing something...?
- Android supports the application "sharing" concept.... don't know if iOS has anything similar.
- Android has the voice recognition (btw, is there a mode to use this in the paid flashcard add-on?)... but maybe that's coming (or I just didn't see it) in iOS5?

 

[mikelove]

- Are there plans to bring these features to parity, or are there OS/design differences keeping them this way?

See below.

- Are there other significant differences that I'm missing?

• Document reader is much more limited on Android - currently only a "Text File Reader" with no web / lyrics support; this is primarily because it's easier to switch into / out of Pleco on Android and hence we don't view these other modes as as big a priority, but we probably will add the Web Reader in some form eventually (perhaps using a Pleco-server-based mobile page optimizer of some kind). But it also costs half as much because of this
• OCR modes are handled a bit differently - pretty much all of the same functionality is there, but the "Block Recognizer" still-image mode from iOS is now just a "Scroll rec area" option in the still-image recognizer on Android, so definitions always appear at the bottom of the screen (as in a live / scroll-lookup OCR session) rather than in a separate bubble. But it does more-or-less the same thing, it's just a simpler interface.
• iOS has lots of options for doing things with files that are absent on Android, because Android has an open filesystem and easy USB file transfers and hence there's no need to include our own ways of doing those things. So no command for sharing files between devices, e.g., since there are lots of Android apps that will take care of that task for you.
• Android version supports custom fonts (put your Chinese font file in /Android/data/com.pleco.chinesesystem/files/fonts/chinese and then kill / reopen Pleco), though iOS eventually should too.

Observed differences:

- Android displayed dictionary entries with newlines cleanly separating definitions and example sentences, whereas on iPhone (as on Palm) they ran together. Not sure if this is due to screen size rather than software version?

Purely a software version thing, iOS is getting those in 2.3.

- iOS allows selecting/copying definition text; Android does not. This surprised me...

We haven't yet found a way to do that and also support our popup reader function, and we think the latter is more important for most users. However, you can copy the complete text of a dictionary entry to the clipboard by choosing "Copy to clipboard" from the menu. Or if you're on a tablet / using Pleco with the optional definition-plus-results-on-the-same-screen feature, tap-hold on the search result list item for the entry you want to copy and choose "Copy Full Entry to Clipboard." You can also tap on the clipboard icon in the popup reader toolbar to copy out whatever text you've selected with the popup reader.

- iOS seems to have more options for the popup definitions, such as the magnified characters. Maybe related to iOS' superior text rendering?

Magnified characters are the only one I can think of, and we got rid of those simply because they're not a very popular feature and we wanted the button space for other things (audio + clipboard buttons). If we get a lot of complaints we can certainly add them back as an option, though. The 字 button options are integrated into the regular dictionary definition screen on Android.

- iOS OCR continuously autofocuses, whereas Android requires manually hitting the focus button. Other android camera apps continuously autofocus, so I'm not sure why this would be different or if I'm missing something...?

Turn off macro mode (tap on the flower icon) and it'll start continuously autofocusing. Macro focus is an Android-only thing - with iOS I think the camera decides itself whether to enter macro mode or not - and we leave macro on by default because people mostly use OCR to look up close-up text, and most phones that support macro are next-to-hopeless at close-up focusing with macro turned off. (you can permanently change that default in Settings / OCR / Live)

Update: Actually, it looks like continuous focus may be bugged even with macro turned off - we'll investigate further, thanks for bringing it to our attention. However, most of the time you're probably going to want to stay in the non-continuous-focusing macro mode.

Update #2: Checked our logs and it turns out we disabled it due to some hardware compatibility issues (on some devices it actually makes the already-buggy Android camera drivers even buggier) - however, we'll add it back at least as an option for the next release.

- Android supports the application "sharing" concept.... don't know if iOS has anything similar.

Only for document files, and we do support it for those.

- Android has the voice recognition (btw, is there a mode to use this in the paid flashcard add-on?)... but maybe that's coming (or I just didn't see it) in iOS5?

Chinese voice recognition (via Google's servers) is a built-in operating system feature on Android, so it's free and doesn't require much work for us to use. For iOS the only good Chinese voice recognition options are third-party systems that we'd have to pay a per-user fee for (and still rely on a network connection), so while we may eventually add it as a paid add-on, it's unlikely to be free unless Apple expands their speech recognition APIs to cover Chinese.

 

[TheAlmightyBob]

Great in-depth response, hope others find it useful as well.

1. Is there a place to look for better Chinese fonts than the Android default? The characters certainly looked much better on iPhone than a Droid Razr (don't know if there's variation between Android devices).
2. The text-selection thing is interesting. So text-selection is easier/free with iOS? Is it generally difficult to do on Android? I've noticed that it's not available in as many places as I would expect, but thought that was just a case of developers who hadn't bothered. I agree with prioritizing the pop-up function, of course.
3. I thought there was also more information available directly via the popup from iOS, without hitting the arrow to go to the selection's entry, but sounds like any such things were simple redesign.
4. Didn't know about macro mode. Does the lack of this on iOS cause difficulties, or is it just smart enough that it's not necessary? Do the bugs in camera drivers make OCR less-reliable, or just cause development headaches for your team?
5. I had assumed that Apple's speech recognition would be supporting Chinese... I suppose natural language parsing would be a heck of a challenge though...

 

[gato]

5. I had assumed that Apple's speech recognition would be supporting Chinese... I suppose natural language parsing would be a heck of a challenge though...

You can try iFlyDictation (讯飞口讯) for Chinese voice recognition on the iPhone. Its accuracy rate may only be about 90%.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iflydict ... 11739?mt=8
iFlyDictation
By Hefei iFly Digital Technology Co.,Ltd.

 

[mikelove]

5. I had assumed that Apple's speech recognition would be supporting Chinese... I suppose natural language parsing would be a heck of a challenge though...

You can try iFlyDictation (讯飞口讯) for Chinese voice recognition on the iPhone. Its accuracy rate may only be about 90%.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iflydict ... 11739?mt=8
iFlyDictation
By Hefei iFly Digital Technology Co.,Ltd.

I've written them several times and they don't seem to be interested in working with us, unfortunately.

 

[etm001]

Hi,

I thought it would help to check-in and see what differences exist now between the Android and iOS versions of Pleco. Some thoughts/questions:

• The iOS version just got a big update. Obviously the UI was completely updated; beyond that, at a high-level, where does the iOS version differ from the Android version?
• Flashcards are due for an overhaul this year (2014). Can we expect feature parity on both platforms when the update is released?
• Any Android-focused updates planned for 2014, either to close functional gaps between the two platform versions (which AFAIK aren't that significant), or to introduce functionality that capitalizes on current/upcoming Android platform features?
• In the foreseeable future, which platform's current and/or roadmap functionality do you see influencing the development of Pleco more, iOS or Android (if at all)?

I would like to give you guys credit for keeping almost complete parity between the two platforms, this despite the fact that (AFAIK) the vast majority of revenue is generated from iOS sales; not every developer is committed to doing this (i.e., plenty of Android apps play second fiddle to the "Cadillac" iOS version.)

Oh, and one request/plea: it would be awesome if the Android version of the Pleco reader was updated to support the same file types as the iOS version now does...

Thanks!

 

[mikelove]

The iOS version just got a big update. Obviously the UI was completely updated; beyond that, at a high-level, where does the iOS version differ from the Android version?

Lots of refinements to the search algorithm, though those are all coming right back to Android automatically as we sync up the platforms. Also some other easily portable features like the new SENTS tab. And at least some portion of our lovely new type design.

Flashcards are due for an overhaul this year (2014). Can we expect feature parity on both platforms when the update is released?

This isn't really a single 'overhaul' in general - we're trying very hard not to do those anymore; it'll be broken up over several different updates, and of course after those big changes we'll continue improving flashcards steadily from there. The relative timing of those updates on iOS versus Android is still up in the air, and in fact some things may be divided between multiple updates on one platform and come out in a single update on the other - we have a LOT of very enthusiastic flashcard users on Android so we'd very much like to get a beta version of any big flashcard change out on that as early as possible in order to get their feedback.

Any Android-focused updates planned for 2014, either to close functional gaps between the two platform versions (which AFAIK aren't that significant), or to introduce functionality that capitalizes on current/upcoming Android platform features?

Sure, we're working on one right now to heavily the UI and bring over all of the cross-platform bits of the big new iOS update. As far as capitalizing on Android features, honestly I don't see a whole lot there that I'm excited about at the moment - the most popular requests on that front most relate to proprietary Samsung APIs, and given their recent chastening by Google on that front I'm not sure how much longer those will even continue to exist.

In the foreseeable future, which platform's current and/or roadmap functionality do you see influencing the development of Pleco more, iOS or Android (if at all)?

iOS, I think, simply for financial reasons - if a feature is possible on iOS and not Android it's still relatively easy to justify doing it, if a feature is possible on Android and not iOS then we generally only do it if it's either a) very easy or b) makes a HUGE difference. But for the most part our development isn't that influenced by either - larger design trends (content over chrome, e.g.) and our overall goal to streamline / simplify things and eliminate the relics of our origins on Palm/WM trump all of that.

I would like to give you guys credit for keeping almost complete parity between the two platforms, this despite the fact that (AFAIK) the vast majority of revenue is generated from iOS sales; not every developer is committed to doing this (i.e., plenty of Android apps play second fiddle to the "Cadillac" iOS version.)

Thanks! Easier for us because so much of the code is shared, which again comes from those Palm/WM origins - we've been doing most of our development in neutral cross-platform C code since 2006 or so.

Oh, and one request/plea: it would be awesome if the Android version of the Pleco reader was updated to support the same file types as the iOS version now does..

That specific one is almost entirely about platform capabilities, actually; iOS includes built-in support for decoding DOC/DOCX/PDF files that we can tap into, Android doesn't. And we don't know of a robust DOC/DOCX or a robust PDF reading library that we can license under acceptable terms on Android. We could support EPUB and HTML, and we might, but Android's easy 'share' support tend to diminish the value of the latter (very easy for people to bring up text or the text contents of web pages in our current reader), and the former while doable is considerably harder to debug on Android thanks of the fragmented web browser situation. (EPUBs are basically just .zip files full of web pages, and reformatting those web pages to behave nicely as ebooks takes some doing)