What about study apps like SRS. I see I'm buying a palm or a windows mobile device soon enough.

iphone anki update: http://inzania.com/2008/07/anki-for-iph … syncd.html

I actually got an iPhone in Tokyo about 2 weeks ago and am loving it. But then again, I have never owned a proper Japanese phone before so I can only compare it against my first-generation UK iPhone.

By the way, some smileys are available, you have to type かおも　or えもじ　to get a list of them.

raseru wrote:

Did you get a 2 year contract or something?
Also if this phone wont work in America, does anyone know any other Japanese phones that will? I heard about some but no idea what type they were

None will work out of the box. Some models will work with non-Japanese cell network infrastructure (I believe all of Docomo's do), but you need to get one that has enough demand outside of Japan to have sim lock hacks for it. The 3G iphone/2.0 firmware can be jailbroken, but it can't be unlocked from the provider due to updated radio firmware afaik.

Anyone know how the Japanese input is on the latest iPhone firmware, for U.S. iPhones?

I'm thinking of getting an old iPhone (not 3G, to save money on data) and using it to study Japanese, but in America.

I have a 1st gen iPhone, and when the 2.0 software was released, I jumped on the "international keyboards" option (screenshots below).

Japanese entry is a kana keypad (arranged like a 10-key phone pad: a is 1, ka is 2, sa 3, and so on, with wa, wo, n, and [dash] at 0). Touching ka (2) will pop up a four-way choice: ka in the middle, ki to the west, ku to the north, ke to the east, and ko to the south. Typing wa-ta-shi will pop up a bar with the kanji and several other choices. After converting kana to kanji, often some suggested particles will pop up. It's about like the Windows IME in responsiveness, I guess.

However, if you also install the Chinese (traditional) keyboard, you can write kanji with your fingertip. This is fun, works with about 99% of the kanji I've tried so far, and also really reinforces stroke order. With left-right kanji, you can also draw the left half, accept its guess, then draw the right half, and usually it will pop up a choice that shows them combined. This is useful for very complicated kanji, since a fingertip is not a super precise writing tool...

I've bookmarked a couple of J-E/E-J online dictionaries and when I have a spare moment, I entertain myself with trying to recall and write random kanji and then looking them up.

I really can't speak to the suitability of the iPhone to the Japanese market, but here in Austin, it's my portable study toy. :-)

Japanese keyboard

Chinese (traditional) keyboard (Notice that it has corrected my slightly misdrawn kanji)

Last edited by annabel398 (2008 August 20, 7:26 pm)

Hmm, dilandau23, could you elaborate? Are you saying that the responsiveness of the phone is sub-par, or that the method of entry is too cumbersome? I ask because, to me, the response speed seems very good. Characters pop up instantaneously as I touch. (Never having used a Japanese keitai, I have no benchmark for comparing the entry method...)

annabel398 wrote:

I have a 1st gen iPhone, and when the 2.0 software was released, I jumped on the "international keyboards" option (screenshots below).

Japanese entry is a kana keypad (arranged like a 10-key phone pad: a is 1, ka is 2, sa 3, and so on, with wa, wo, n, and [dash] at 0). Touching ka (2) will pop up a four-way choice: ka in the middle, ki to the west, ku to the north, ke to the east, and ko to the south. Typing wa-ta-shi will pop up a bar with the kanji and several other choices. After converting kana to kanji, often some suggested particles will pop up. It's about like the Windows IME in responsiveness, I guess.

However, if you also install the Chinese (traditional) keyboard, you can write kanji with your fingertip. This is fun, works with about 99% of the kanji I've tried so far, and also really reinforces stroke order. With left-right kanji, you can also draw the left half, accept its guess, then draw the right half, and usually it will pop up a choice that shows them combined. This is useful for very complicated kanji, since a fingertip is not a super precise writing tool...

I've bookmarked a couple of J-E/E-J online dictionaries and when I have a spare moment, I entertain myself with trying to recall and write random kanji and then looking them up.

I really can't speak to the suitability of the iPhone to the Japanese market, but here in Austin, it's my portable study toy. :-)

https://webspace.utexas.edu/strongkl/ww … neKana.jpg Japanese keyboard

https://webspace.utexas.edu/strongkl/ww … eKanji.jpg Chinese (traditional) keyboard (Notice that it has corrected my slightly misdrawn kanji)

Hmm thats odd.  I'm living in Japan and also have an iPhone.  I have that keitai style input method as well, but the default japanese input is just the regular romanji keyboard.  Just like on a PC you type out ka for か and it automatically changes it to kana for me.

I find the ketai style input to be too slow.

Just as a side note, desktop PCs in Japan use QWERTY for Japanese input. There is a kana input option on the keyboards, but nobody uses it.

I think I'll get an iPhone after seeing that you can draw kanji too.

One issue I read is that you have to select which conversion you want for EVERY word you type right after you type it, rather than being able to type out a whole sentence and then choose kanji conversions for the entire thing, like you do on a desktop. That's annoying.

Do those input methods work in the mail application too?

Last edited by wahnfrieden (2008 August 21, 10:07 am)

Becoming proficient at iPhone kana input is a useless skill since only iPhone uses that daft system.

How is the Anki web interface on the iphone then?

rich_f wrote:

2.) The iTunes store agreement violates the GPL, which Anki is published under.

Is that really an issue? resolve owns the code so he could just release the iPhone version under a different license (unless he uses other GPL code he doesn't own).

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2008 August 24, 4:31 pm)

So I bought a Iphone with a 1 year contract with Softbank. Apparently using the internet will cost me a little over 1000 yen a month, but if I use it more the price will jump to 5000 yen, I asked the guy how much kbps I can stay at to be safe and he didn't even know himself and didn't have the information... Does anyone happen to know that information? even if it's not exact like 1GB~ is good enough. A little ridiculous that the clerks don't even know this stuff though..