One of the things studying Japanese using mobile devices and computers lacks is the sort of hands on approach and muscle memory training you get from actually writing out hiragana, katakana and kanji. I’ve sort to address that with iKana Nōto and it’s really only possible thanks to the iPad’s large multi-touch screen. You certainly can’t write seriously using a mouse or trackpad and the iPhone screen is really too small for writing more than single characters, and even then complex kanji can be a challenge. I wanted to make it easier to practice writing both vertically and horizontally and so iKana Nōto has a selection of templates that allow for both styles.

Writing a postcard in iKana Nōto

The large writing area makes it easy to draw kana and kanji alike and you can pick the writing tool and stroke width that suit your style. Setting the cursor position is easy and the previous and next buttons on either side the writing area adjust depending on whether you are writing vertically or horizontally.

The rethink

One of the reasons iKana Nōto took a little longer to release than originally planned was because the direction of the app changed midway. Originally I was planning a more direct port of iKana touch, scaled up the iPad’s big screen. But it rapidly became apparent just upsizing things wasn’t really adding any value or making good use of iPad’s potential. Instead the reference side of the app has been reduced to a small part of the overall functionality.

The original iKana Nōto design

The future

I’m planning to add more templates and add a kanji reference and dictionary to the app over time. I also have plans for a Mac companion app that will allow printing and creation of nice high-resolution versions of your nōtos. Stay tuned for more details.

The iPad screen is pretty big and scaling flash cards up isn’t that exciting. Let’s try something different…

iKana Nōto – coming soon to iPad

• British Red Cross
• American Red Cross

Thank you.

So I’ve decided to release NewsLife 2 directly today and forgo waiting for the MAS approval to do a joint launch. NewsLife has been totally revamped for version 2 and I think you’ll love it. The direct download version will actually be more up-to-date than the version submitted to the MAS as I’ve had an extra month to add in some additional goodies. For you the customer at least, this cloud has a silver lining!

The Mac is really important. We all love our iPhones and our iPads, but we have these amazingly powerful computers and we want great apps to run on them. There’s a wealth of amazing Mac software out there from small developers, but because you’ll never find it on a store shelf and because the Apple centric media and blogs have all but ignored Mac software for the last couple of years unless it was from Apple, many people don’t know it exists. The MAS has the potential to put our apps in front a lot of new eyeballs and to remind a lot of people what great software is available to them. The simple purchase and installation process is the icing on the cake.

Probably the main worry among Mac developers at the moment is pricing. The App Store has promoted a massive race to the bottom in terms of pricing. The fear is that this will happen with Mac software too. I’m sure we will see lots of 99¢ apps in the store after awhile and for certain classes of apps this might be a fair price point (e.g. a screensaver or very simple games) but for more serious apps I think it’s clear that kind of price isn’t sustainable and customers shouldn’t expect price points significantly lower than before in the MAS.

At launch time iKana 2 will be the only ThinkMac app in the store. I did considering rushing to get all our apps on there, but I’ve decided to bring each product over one by one as I update them. This means the next app in the store will be NewsLife 2, which is nearly complete. That will be followed later on by iKanji 2 and that piece of web gallery software I dare not mention by name. Aside from NewsLife 2 being released in the next couple of weeks I can’t really given a time frame for the other two apps but the better the sales are the faster it will happen. I’m also working on iKana for the iPad too which will hopefully be out before the Spring.

In terms of pricing, iKana 2 will be available for $14.99/£8.99/€11.99. Around what it’s currently priced at. NewsLife 2 will be $9.99/£5.99/€7.99 so a little cheaper. Pricing for other apps will be announced closer to their release dates.

I thought it would be nice to share all three designs with those who read this blog and hopefully I can inspire some of you to consider making your own cards if you don’t do so already.

Most of the rest of changes are a bit less visible – the kanji database has undergone a big overhaul. It now includes all the new 2010 Jōyō kanji and has a new Jōyō kanji set to show them all off in. I’ve also stripped out all the WWWJDIC sourced example compounds as too many of them were obscure. There are now less compounds, just under 7,700, but the bonus is they’re now commonly used words. This is paving the way towards an iKana 2 style vocabulary trainer in a future version of iKanji

Some other changes to the database include some more stroke animations and a few corrections to the existing stock. My thanks go to those on the support forum who diligently check my work.

I’ve also changed the way your personalised copy of the kanji database is kept. This will make it much easier to push out updates to the database in the future. It does mean you’ll need to go through iKanji’s new ‘Import from old iKanji’ option to bring across any kanji or notes you’ve added.

As some people have pointed out the font iKanji uses to display kanji in a brush script style is in fact a Chinese font. This shouldn’t be a problem most of the time, but a small number of kanji are written differently in Chinese. I’ve added an option to iKanji’s toolbar to let you switch between a variety of fonts easily now to remedy this issue.

The problem arises in the first place because Mac OS X doesn’t ship with any Japanese fonts that show how kanji would be handwritten or painted with a calligraphy brush. Given this is the origin of kanji it’s important to be familiar with this style. The squared off print-style kanji don’t give you a proper feel for how the original characters look. It would be like learning to read English in only uppercase letters set in a serifed font for example.

If anyone knows of a nice Japanese handwriting or brush-script font that is free for commercial use I could bundle with iKanji I’d love to hear about it (please leave a comment).

With the Mac App Store that may finally change. Even if it doesn’t generate news coverage of Mac apps, it puts those apps in front of many more eyeballs. As it is, most of ThinkMac’s business comes from the iOS App Store these days. I still love writing software for the Mac, but I get far less in return for the time I put into it. With the advent of the Mac App Store I’ve got renewed faith that this trend will change. It makes really niche apps like the ones I develop a lot more viable.

Of course as with most Apple related things there are a few gotchas to watch out for. There are a number of troubling clauses in the newly published Mac App Store Review Guidelines. Specifically those related to the modification or use of non-system controls. Without clarification to state whether this means no OS theming software (e.g. ShapeShifter) or no custom controls (nearly every nicely designed Mac app) there will be a certain amount of trepidation among developers.

Developers may also be concerned about the race to the bottom/99¢ price point that has depressed prices on the iPhone. It does look like Apple plans to more tightly curate the Mac App Store though so hopefully that won’t be the case and we won’t have serious apps crowded out by junkware.