Android Beta feedback (3)

Skritter Apps
1

Since the non-beta android seems to have become unusable (half of items not loaded in app, only on website), I gave the beta another (third) try.

The only critical issue I have is that Offline Mode is off by default and I have not managed to enable it:

  • The setting is called “Offline enabled” with an on-off rocker. The wording is confusing - why not call it Offline Mode?
  • Trying to enable it brings you to a black screen (“enabling offline mode”) with a spinner, that spins, and spins, and spins. No progress indicator to tell the user anything is happening. After a few minutes I restarted the app, turned off VPN (this had caused problems before) and tried again. With the exact same result. Skritter Team: what am I doing wrong?
    Absence of Offline Mode was the main reason for reverting to the non-beta twice. Now that non-beta is unusable I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Canvas area still unclear, as mentioned by other users too. A slightly different shade for the buttons area might already fix this.

Back button in a strange place and invisible when you need it, as mentioned by other users too.

App slows down tremendously sometimes:

  • after going to dashboard and back to study
  • after adding new items
  • in the middle of a study session
    Not sure how consistent this behavior is. Closing the app and restarting gets responsiveness back to normal.

Counter is not updated during study sessions. I.e.: you get your queue down to 0, go back to dashboard and see that the queue is not 0.

When manually adding 5 items, the non-beta used to prompt all 5 items for writing, then all 5 items for reading, then all 5 items for tone, then all 5 items for definition. That seemed more effective than what I encountered now: WritingWord1, ReadingWord1, ToneWord1, DefinitionWord1, WritingWord2, ReadingWord2 etc.
(edit: and they stay clustered on second round of reviews)

Settings are not all properly transferred to the beta; for example goal mode setting goes back to its default ON.

And then this one came along:

Screenshot_20180520-122054
Screenshot_20180520-122054.jpg1600×2560 235 KB

I cannot progress beyond the tone part, and the only solution was to ban the item entirely.

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  • if you wait long enough the offline mode will be enabled. But I’m not sure if it works properly: I get asked the same items over and over, and the due counter keeps going up instead of down.
  • all round responsiveness is noticeably slower than non-beta.
  • after manually adding new words I exited the app (because it becomes very extremely sluggish after adding words) and restarted it. The newly added words were gone. They did show up on the website though.

Looking for help.

2 Likes
3

Thanks for the follow up! The next update focuses on the SRS and should eliminate the item looping issue. It’s also MUCH faster than the build you’re using. It feels faster than the original iOS app! The UI has been greatly updated as well.

We’re working to get the next update out soon and we hope it addresses everything you’ve been running into.

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The slowness is a resource leak of some description. It gets worse every time you leave the study page and return. The workaround is to kill the app before you go back to the study screen each time.

5

sorry for the long post…

trying for a couple days the beta. running Android 8.0 on a Samsung S8+.
i ran the normal android app a few days before.

for me the program is mostly unusable at the moment.
just starting. pickup skritter 101 list.
i got the same characters over and over. even when flagging them too easy.
after around 9 characters/words the yi (one) character shows up and when i answered and then click the next arrow the program/study freeze, with the holding loop animation on the top right corner.
Only solution outside of restarting application is to click back on dashboard, then study.
Did that at least ten times. some news characters/words appears, but never twice. only the same basic ones, very well known, and after some times a new word added. And then yi appears and i need to relaunch study …
(I banned yi… yi still appeared after 2chars (?) but didn’t bugged… then after a few more chars app froze on ren (people) … ) hopeless :confused:
After app uninstall and reinstall (initially willing to install “normal” app) this behavior disappeared, then got a bunch of new words like it should…

Otherwise the features on the mobile app are really cool.

  • I’m a little puzzled on the mnemonic part. I like the idea, but the reference to Teddy? without explanation… ? is that for tone purpose like zizzle does with dragon/turtle/etc ?
  • One thing i would appreciate adding would be the list of radical that compose a specific character, would help understand better how it is constructed.
  • Also wondering if the drawing area would not benefit as an option of a more detailed gridline (not sure i’m clear. we have an empty cavas with 4 dashed lines (horizontal/vertical and diagonals). To better position some strokes, having 3 or 6 horizontal lines would help get the position right, at least at the beginning)
  • Finally i found nice to hide pinyin and definition and just rely on sound to guess/draw character. I would appreciate an auto-play option so that the sound is played automatically when the character shows up. (right now need to click manually each time on the speaker/play button)

Despite all those critics and suggestions, (but that what a beta program expect i guess?) i found u did a great job overall feature wise. And the the info panel / pleco integration and various options are very nice too.

Outside of the beta, the normal version seemed pretty unstable with looping/repetition characters too … or so it felt

As a customer or future customer, I must say i feel VERY disappointed.
i definitely see the value on skritter and i love it, but i don’t intend to use it on the website only the mobile one… and i feel both mobile apps are unfinished despite showing big potential.

my trial 7 days will end, and i would feel outrageous to pay for the current mobile version.
As long as i don’t use the web one, which i believe stable, i don’t feel right to pay for this.
Also if my trial expires, i would appreciate a form of alert system /mail to warn users when the app is good to use (and i mean really …) and/or notifications when new applications versions are launched.
i love skritter for what i saw, but i’m not going to run the app until fixed, and i would appreciate email notifications of app updates to check new versions.
i would go with a 6 month or 1 year subscription asap if stable.
Right now this is not right and the subscription is poorly adjusted to that

Thanks for your feedback

edit : i saw the reply you (jeremy) made yesterday regarding repetion on 2.35
the stuck issue is different, but i share the concern on repetion.
i will switch back to normal and give it another try.
but the alert part on version and maybe an sticky forum message with your intended roadmap would help (i understand u can’t commit on next version ETA, but a rough idea to know if we’re talking about waiting days or weeks/month before next release )
Also would going to non beta be fine enough or would you recommend trying the old version ?
per jake post : https://files.skritter.com/android/ (version 2.12 i imagine)
… opt out option for beta not displayed on 2.3.5… hard to leave. (reinstalled 2.1.2 from previous link to get to the google page and opt out …) should bring back the beta link on the account page in 2.3.5

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Thanks for taking the time to let us know how things have been going on your end. (And for your follow up!)
It looks like you’ve spotted the info about the next update focusing on scheduling / repetition, however apologies in the meantime for any inconveniences you’re still running into. The next update is planned sometime for mid June!