I'm considering ditching my iPhone for the new Evo (Android phone). I'm mostly wanting to switch to Sprint and not because I prefer one phone over the other. I don't see the RTK app on the Android (the new one that just came out for the iPhone). Is there something similar on Android? If not, I could probably just keep the iPhone around and just use that one app at home, but I would really want Anki and a good Japanese dictionary on Android. (I really don't want to have to constantly carry around two devices.)

Based on what I've read so far on Anki for the Android, my understanding (or assumption on some gray areas) is that since I paid $20 for Anki on the iPhone, it has better support and features than the free Android version. A few things I definitely don't want to lose is my handwritten font and audio. I'm not sure if the Android app can do that, but from what I've been reading, it seems like it can do both. Still not quite sure though and any confirmation on those two aspects would be great. I'm also wondering about the overall feel and ease of use.

As for dictionaries, I've been using the codefromtokyo Japanese app and the Midori app on the iPhone. I haven't really been completely satisfied with either, which is why I've been using them in conjunction with each other. How are the dictionaries on the Android? I've been checking out some of the apps on youtube when possible and haven't seen much of anything that I like. It'd be really helpful if someone could point me toward some of the better dictionary apps (and Japanese learning apps in general if there are any).

Thanks ahead of time!

It's my perception that iPod/iPhone generally has more love for Japanese than Android. I've got an Android phone and I'm pretty satisfied, but you seem to be a little picky...

Ankidroid is pretty well-developed and has come very far. It has media and custom font support, which is awesome as the standard fonts on most Android phones seem to use Chinese traditional style for kanji instead of the Japanese specific. That means that some characters will look slightly different than we're used to, which is a real fucker imo. You probably have to root your phone if you want to get around that, depends.
Get the development version of Ankidroid if you want the custom font support, the version on the market is behind. Yes, it's safe: https://code.google.com/p/ankidroid/downloads/list

As for dictionaries, aedict is all I want and need. https://market.android.com/details?id=sk...rch_result

Android phones don't have built-in Japanese input methods, Simeji seems to be the best one around: https://market.android.com/details?id=co...rch_result

Sorry for not hyperlinking.

TwoMoreCharacters Wrote:As for dictionaries, aedict is all I want and need. https://market.android.com/details?id=sk...rch_result

I agree, Aedict is sufficient for most scenarios I can think of.

TwoMoreCharacters Wrote:Android phones don't have built-in Japanese input methods, Simeji seems to be the best one around: https://market.android.com/details?id=co...rch_result

I'm not sure about that considering this is a top paid app, created by Japanese for Japanese market and it looks really polished on screens.

Overall I think the experience is comparable between Android and Iphone, with time it will only get better on both.

I have experience with both. The differences between Anki on the iPhone and Android are minimal. Either one does the job they need to do just fine.

I think it's worth noting that with iOS, your stuck with the keyboards that Apple gives you. Which means you get no writing input intended for Japanese. There are Writing inputs for Traditional and Simplified Chinese, but that doesn't work quite the same as a lot of kanji are simply different.

Kotoba makes for a decent edict solution. And if your willing to pay a premium, you can get some decent monolingual Japanese dictionaries.

On Android, you can install your own keyboards, so you have some options beyond what your given by default, but there is no official Japanese input to begin with on most devices, so your pretty much forced to do this.

Simeji works amazingly great for being a free keyboard. HanWriting IME gives you the ability for writing recognition, but I haven't used it too much. Like the people before me have said, Aedict does the trick when it comes to an edict resource. WWWJDIC and Kanji Recognizer have some neat features when it comes to kanji lookups, so they might be worth checking out too.

I'm sure there are other things worth talking about but I need to go to bed, hopefully what I typed makes sense.

I don't have an Android phone, but DroidWing (EPWING reader) and Vertical Text Reader (Aozora Bunko formatted text reader) look pretty good.

I love Vertical Text Reader

Droidwing and Vertical Text both rock my Android world. Add in Anki 0.7, and I'm pretty happy, with one caveat: I am having a problem with my NHK Accent dictionary getting corrupted on both of my Android devices. No idea why. For some reason, it won't play the sounds anymore. And all of my Japanese EPWING dictionaries are all gobbledygook on my Xoom. Seems like it can't handle the JP encoding.

For a good free EDICT app, I like Aedict. He put in a nice "draw the kanji and I'll look it up" mode, just like a 電子辞書. (Annoying part-- it downloads the dictionaries when you first run the program, not when you get it from the market.) But it IS free. Interface is a bit kludgey, but that's just a personal preference thing.

Also, looks like the ATOK thing is country-restricted. Yet another thing from Japan we can't have if we don't live there, it seems. *Sigh*

Keyboard-wise, I like the MultiLing keyboard for my Xoom tablet. It's not particularly great as a keyboard, it's just that it scales nicely and fills the screen properly in Japanese mode, unlike any other keyboard for the tablet. It's sort of a Jack of All Trades, Master of None keyboard, in that it's adequate for Japanese, but it will drive you nuts. (But Simeji on a tablet is an even more horrible experience.)

thurd Wrote:I'm not sure about that considering this is a top paid app, created by Japanese for Japanese market and it looks really polished on screens.

That thing looks awesome. Wish they would globalize it someday

TwoMoreCharacters Wrote:

thurd Wrote:I'm not sure about that considering this is a top paid app, created by Japanese for Japanese market and it looks really polished on screens.

That thing looks awesome. Wish they would globalize it someday

Market Enabler would probably work for it. I had to use it extensively to buy apps before Google allowed them in Poland.

I'm currently considering moving from iPhone to Android when my contract finishes in a couple months but every time I compare the app stores it seems like Android market is comparatively lacking in quality and quantity. It's a tough decision when already invested in the App store.

Does Ankidroid sync as effortlessly as the iPhone version now? So I can just hit the sync button and it will sync over the internet without needing to mess around with dropbox or anything? Also does anyone know how DroidWing on Android compares to EBPocket Pro on the iPhone? I'd be grateful for a screenshot of the epwing Kenkyusha running on DroidWing.

to synchronize online decks in ankidroid you just have to go on menu → sync when on a single deck, or hit "sync all decks" in the decks list (both in market and in beta version).

EBpocket pro for android (https://market.android.com/details?id=in...o.ebpocket) is better than droidwing in my opinion (better image handle, possibility to copy from definitions, pdic-compatible; you can see some screenshots and the differences between free and pro version in ebpocket website http://www31.ocn.ne.jp/~h_ishida/android/index.html). Never tried EBpocket for iOS though so I can't say if they have exactly the same features.

NB: it's passed some time since i have tried droidwing, so i'm not really sure about how good droidwing is now.

Thanks, I didn't know that EBPocket had been released on Android. That's good to hear.

EB Pocket is awesome. Saved my Xoom, and it leverages that big tablet screen nicely. Now that Vertical Text Viewer is also Xoom-friendly (it uses all of the screen real estate now), life in the Honeycomb hideout is good.

DroidWing hasn't been updated since July 31, 2010, which is too bad. It desperately needs some work, because it's unusable with the Xoom right now as it is, except as a web search tool. (All of the dictionary encodings are fubared. Since EB Pocket doesn't have any problems, it looks like DroidWing is the culprit.) It works fine with my Nexus 1, but we'll see what happens when Ice Cream comes out and breaks a bunch of stuff.

EDIT: I agree that the Android Market is still a bit of a mess, and app quality can vary widely (read: it's all over the place), but I've been finding more and more really good apps out there. It's a question of good programming, and being able to find the apps.

I like the new web interface for the market, but I wish Goog would take it one or two notches higher so that I can get more information about apps I want to see, and find those good apps more easily. (And push down the rampant crapware into oblivion.)

I have an Android phone and aedict is excellent.
My biggest gripe is that the handwritten kanji
recognition is awful.

I almost never get kanji that looks like anything
I've written. I have a feeling that it just counts the strokes
and doesn't do any image recognition.

On the other hand, I think Daijisen (for the iPhone and iPad) has the best handwritten
kanji recognition of any mobile dictionary. The iPhone doesn't
have built-in support for handwritten Japanese characters.
So the developers of Daijisen made their own handwriting IME.

Works beautifully.
Almost wish they could license the technology to Apple for iOS.

so I'm a bit of an android (and smartphone) newb; if I get an android phone, like say Froyo instead of gingerbread will these apps work for me as well? What's the difference between the os version and how will that affect the way that I can study Japanese on my phone?

Also, if one were to access Cyndia on the iphone what options does that bring for Japanese study?

I'm serious about these questions I'm like, totally a beginner when it comes to phones (I never use my dumb phone at all...)

The version compatibility is listed in the basic information when you view the app in the market, most apps are by tradition compatible with 1.6 and up or something.

Froyo is 2.2, Gingerbread is 2.3, so there won't be any problems.