Pre-emptive disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Pleco or Apple.

It's been a long time coming, but Pleco for iPhone has finally been approved and goes on sale this Friday (Dec. 18). For those that don't know (you're seriously missing out if you're studying Chinese without Pleco), Pleco is absolutely the best dictionary software out there for Chinese. Palm and Windows Mobile versions have been out a while (the original was released for Palm in 2000).

I can't say much about it that wouldn't be better served by a video, except that it supports some really great dictionaries, including a "monodic" as Khatz puts it. That's the 现代汉语规范词典. There's also the great ABC Chinese-English dictionary with over 197,000 entries, edited by John DeFrancis, and the 21st Century English-Chinese dictionary with over 278,000 entries.

The handwriting recognition is amazing (I have the WM version) when you encounter a character or word that you don't know the pronunciation for. The flash card system is also helpful, although I know most people here are already using Anki or the like. One feature that is really amazing and helpful is the document reader, and now that they've incorporated a browser, it will be even more handy.

Here are the demo videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi4z7HkwkI4

Wow, that handwriting recognition is awesome.

Wow, that app looks incredible!

It's designed so well, I wish they'd make a Japanese dictionary, since I'm not learning Chinese at the moment. Totally cool though!

andrewlandry Wrote:Wow, that app looks incredible!

It's designed so well, I wish they'd make a Japanese dictionary, since I'm not learning Chinese at the moment. Totally cool though!

It really is an amazing program. I had Pleco 1.x for Palm, and I have Pleco 2.0 for Windows Mobile but I haven't been able to use it in probably 9 months because my touchscreen is broken and I haven't had money for a new phone until now. Some of the functions in the iPhone version aren't available yet for the other platforms, but they plan on addressing that in the next couple months.

Also, the flashcard feature isn't available yet for the iPhone version but they'll be fixing that soon.

well, i suggest that everyone leave a comment on the youtube video that you would like to see a Japanese version... I did and it looks like they are looking for a demand

Hashiriya Wrote:well, i suggest that everyone leave a comment on the youtube video that you would like to see a Japanese version... I did and it looks like they are looking for a demand

That would really be awesome! I'm sure there would be a huge market for an app like this for Japanese.

Seems awesome.

The 大辞林 mono-lingual Jap dictionary app is pretty awesome. Remember, traditional and simplified handwriting support is usable in any app, just turn it on in the keyboards menu.