New ChinesePod iPhone app released

jennyzhu

September 11, 2012, 02:25 AM posted in General Discussion

The new version of the ChinesePod iPhone app has just been released. It's a major overhaul of the old version in terms of design and provides much more support for your study. You'll be able to pretty use the app like you would the site (though exercise and comments are not integrated yet).

Please note that if you are using the old version of the iPhone app, it won't automatically upgrade to the new version. Please search for ChinesePod in the app store and install the newest version.

Enjoy and let us know what you think.

bababardwan

September 11, 2012, 03:54 AM

look forward to checking it out. Thanks for letting us know Jenny :)

bababardwan

September 11, 2012, 06:35 AM

"Please note that if you are using the old version of the iPhone app, it won't automatically upgrade to the new version"

Jenny, I have both ipad and iphone. I think you forewarned us a while ago that the updated version of the ipad app would be used for both iphone and ipad and taking a squizz that seems to be the case. I'm wondering if I upgrade my ipad app [from 1.0.1 to this new 1.1], when I connect my iphone to itunes will this automatically switch my old iphone app[2.0.6] to this new ipad/iphone 1.1 app also? Preferably I'd like to keep the old iphone app for the timebeing till I can compare the two. I'm sure once I can see the advantages of this new app [and make sure there are no disadvantages] I'll be switching to the new app on the iphone also, but in the interim as I say, I'd like to compare. Also, is it possible to have the old and the new app on the iphone at the same time [as it seems to me that the this updated ipad app ver 1.1 is a separate app anyway , and not a direct update of the 2.0.6 iphone app]?

pretzellogic

September 11, 2012, 06:52 AM

"Please search for ChinesePod in the app store and install the newest version".

I'm not clear on this. Does this mean that we need to uninstall the old version? Also, does the new version have a different icon on the iPhone so that we know its different from the old? Can the old version and the new version coexist on the same iPhone? ( same question as baba's question above)? Could you be logged into the old version, then log into the new version at the same time?

bababardwan

good questions pretz...I hope they all get answered. I think the reason that you have to go looking if you only have the iphone app is because it's not a direct update of the iphone app [on mine its version 2.0.6], but rather an update of the ipad app [to version 1.1] that now also works on the iphone.

pretzellogic

somehow, I know that as a user, I have to go hunting for the version number for the cpod app same as I have to do for IE or Chrome or Firefox, yet its still a hassle.

RJ

I have downloaded the new version to my i-touch (which functions the same as an i-phone) so I can answer some of your questions. The old version in the app store is called Chinesepod subscribers edition or something like that and the new one is simply Chinesepod. Your phone will tell you which one is already installed anyway. The icons are different but it is a very slight difference and I was able to keep and run both versions. I like the new version, it allows you to set lessons or dialogues to auto replay over and over and you can back up just a few seconds to re-hear something you have missed or jump ahead. In addition to your bookmarked lessons you also have access to the entire library of lessons as well as any courses you have on your desktop. Once in a lesson, how to back up is not real clear at first, but if you just click on the lesson name at the top it will back up a page and from there on its all very clear. Bottom line, its safe to try along side the other app and I'm finding it a significant improvement. I'm sure there are other goodies I haven't discovered yet but go for it. Its all good. As for Bugs - none yet.

bababardwan

September 11, 2012, 07:11 PM

Ok, I just made a comparison of the old version of the ipad app and the old iphone app before upgrading to the new ipad app version.

The old version ipad app is generally better than the old iphone app as it additionally has these features that the old iphone app does not:

library access, search function, sort by level [media has every other show thrown in such as QW, BST], bookmark, mark as studied, grammar tab [though missing a couple of words in the grammar description of terracotta warriors lesson..."emphasise certainty" and 得 (de)]. However the old ipad app had a retrieving your courses bug...I have no courses and it would stay on this endless search for a course.

The advatages the old iphone app had over the old ipad app were...flashcards,and no retrieving your courses bug

Just updated to the new version of the ipad app and found several major improvements:

flashcards have been added and there is no longer a retrieving your courses bug so immediately there are no longer any advantages the old iphone app has over the new version of the ipad app that I can see, ability to create flashcard decks, manage flashcard decks, with the grammar tab in the terracotta warriors lesson ["emphasise certainty" now appears but still missing 得 (de)], ability to save vocab [but one word at a time, can't save the whole lessons vocab with one click like you can on the website, though one thing I've noted is you get to choose which deck you're saving to....though personally I'd still be able to save the whole lessons vocab to a deck at once], ability to rewind audio 3 seconds is brilliant.

oh, I almost forgot. The old iphone app does have something the neither the old nor the new seems to have...."assigned" lessons. I'm not sure exactly how you got something onto the assigned list, but it may have been useful. Also, as I'm not using teacher services, I don't have anything under "courses"....is there a way to make this useful ...save a set of lessons there?

I'm yet to discover what is meant by "new offline indicators for course data, lesson media files and target word audio"...can anyone enlighten me?

So overall, I'd say some very significant improvements. Well done CPod and thanks !!

bababardwan

just downloaded the new app on the iphone as well, and its running like a charm, working beautifully. I'm chuffed that I can also download the lesson audio over 3G and don't have to be connected to wifi. A nice touch is that you get the lesson avatar in the background of the audio player [instead of a blank white background in the old iphone app]. Also, just realised the auto replay button maybe useful while driving if you want to listen to the lesson twice. Also, as suspected, and as RJ confirmed above, you can have both the old iphone app and the new iphone/ipad app both running on your phone at the same time [though apart from some possible use of " assigned lessons" in the old app, I can't see any reason now to use the old app as the new iphone app has some major improvements as above]

bababardwan

was testing quickly earlier and only tested the lesson dialogue audio actually. Just tried downloading the whole lesson audio over 3G for the latest media lesson and this showed up a disadvantage cf just logging into the website via safari. In the new app it took over 10 minutes to download the lesson and only then could I play it, whereas when you got the audio direct from the site, you can pretty much start listening to it straight away [or within a few secs] as it starts playing before being fully downloaded. Also the little green download symbols aren't as easy to see as a the bar representing the whole audio.

bababardwan

"I'm yet to discover what is meant by "new offline indicators for course data, lesson media files and target word audio"...can anyone enlighten me?"

...this seems to just refer to what audio for example, you have already downloaded [and thus don't need to be online to retrieve]

root

September 14, 2012, 12:11 PM

Just tried the new 1.1, great start.

Still a bit off the ideal, here's the main gripes:

1) hanzi, pinyin and English are shown together -- this is very bad for learners. Afaik, many studies show there should be only one pair showing for good reinforcement. The old quick review app did it well -- with an E<-->P button

2) breakdown is nice, but is missing 'glossary' feature to see more example sentences for this word. OpenLanguage iPhone app has had this function for a couple of months now, why not us on chinesepod?!

3) no search to look up a word. My favorite user story is to start by searching, then go to example sentence page, then pick a sentence and do breakdown. Then, from breakdown go to another word glossary page, pick an example sentence, do breakdown, and so on and so forth. I could do this for hours in the quickreview app, was genius, this! Alas, not in this app

Overall, an infinitely awesome improvement over v2, major improvement over v1, and a minor advantage over iPad app since now is more convenient on the smaller device. Yet still not as useful as a 4-year old quickreview app, but much closer now, keep up the good werk.

podster

Yeah, the old quickreview app was great, in some ways never matched. Maybe personnel turnover is the reason that apps seem to get replaced rather than evolve. (Remember the dictionary? Maybe there is a good reason, but I am disappointed that with the new app I have to again downnload each lesson I want to study, even if it is already downloaded for the old app. I am afraid this is unnecessarily hogging up space on my iPhone.

bababardwan

September 19, 2012, 10:04 PM

很奇怪啊！ recently got the new iphone app which was an updated ipad app that now works on iphone also...great. But now in my app updates, the old iphone subscriber edition app is showing it has an update [from 2.0.6] to 2.0.7...if you go on that it says the app is no longer supported and yet there is an update there [2.0.7]. What happens if I click on update?...is there really an update or will it delete this old app and start redownloading the new iphone/ipad app. I also have other apps I want to update, but I can't hit download all free updates if I don't want to change this old app. 怎么办？

podster

I had the same experience. I am afraid to "update" for fear of losing content I already downloaded. I don't want to lose the old app either, as it has a lot of content already downloaded, plus the hold app has some superior aspects. Did I mention that the vocabulary could be paged through with a very large display size. Being able to actually see the characters on a small screen is a huge help.

root

heh, i guess this is all in parallel to being afraid to update to iOS6 and lose all of China on the maps, or having shanghai move off into the sea :(

Very unfortunate there's no way to downgrade, i was so mad when v2 replaced v1 and was a serious reduction in functionality, so I can see how your worries are well-founded. We need a tester, has anyone tried 2.0.7?

bababardwan

"heh, i guess this is all in parallel to being afraid to update to iOS6 and lose all of China on the maps, or having shanghai move off into the sea :("

...not really. I updated immediately to ios6...it was expected...but this one didn't quite make sense...there was no explanation given as to what upgrading meant in this case. It's no biggie, but it'd be nice to know.