Looking through our recent reviews, I noticed we have 15 Five Star reviews in a row!  But #16 is a one star review.  The app description said, “For Beginners Up.”  Apparently, he is an advanced student and was not thrilled the app was mostly geared for beginners.  (We are working on an advanced app!)  The description has since been changed to, “For Beginners and Upper Beginners.”

A few recent comments:

This is a stunning app and it’s easy to understand you get used to everything within 2 mins I love this app, I’d recomend this to anyone learning Japanese

I have never written a review before, but this app is so comprehensive, I felt I needed to voice my satisfaction

This is an outstanding application that gets better and better with each update…

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, please try our free version.  It isn’t nearly as good as our paid one (I need to go back and add some of the new features to it!), but it will give you an idea.

Fabulous
This is an outstanding application that gets better and better with each update. The new fast track grammar 100 is remarkably clear and organized in a way that makes learning a joy. This is successful where most books fail. There are now a lot of good Japanese learning apps but this is a run for the money. The price of some of these apps is a giveaway compared to what was available before them and are an invaluable tool. This is one of the finest examples. It now has a growing number of kanji (50 from JLP4) complete with audio for the On and Kun readings and sample words and sentance. There is so much more on this app that I can’t recommend it enough. Great one.

Here are a few reviews from the past few days in the iPhone App Sotre:

No person studying Japanese should be without this app. Very impressed with the huge amount of new content. The lessons are a very welcome addition.  10 stars for the grammar section- I haven’t seen anything like this before in any other Japanese education app – very, very useful !!

I’ve been learning Japanese for two years and have found the application very useful and one of the best on the AppStore. I love the lessons!

And from the free version (which has about 500 sound files compared to the 2,200 found in the full version):

I used this app to learn phrases while holidaying in Japan. Now that I’m actually studying Japanese, this app now provides a means of doing my revision wherever I am. The recent update was stellar in turning the app from a humble phrasebook to respectable study tool.

While this can’t take the place of a instructor led class it gives those with no Japanese language experience some useful phrases to get started with and those of us who have had some classroom experience a refresher. Kudos to the team that put this together you have made what I believe is the finest educational app to date.

We’ve received a lot of requests for enhancements and please keep them coming!  The next update (already submitted to Apple for review) will add Mass favoriting (and unfavoriting) and an option to hide the romaji.

Up until now, both new apps and newly released updates appeared in the center screen “Release Date” section.  This almost guarantees a nice boost in sales for obvious reasons.  Unfortunately, it looks like Apple is only showing truely new releases there now. 

As a consumer, you may think this is a good thing so as to not clutter up that area.  But it isn’t.  It creates an incentive for developers to spend all their time making throw away apps (because only new apps appear in the spotlight) instead of polishing and making old apps better. 

Maybe Apple is just tweaking the Release Date area and will allow updates to appear too, but if not, expect to see many more new apps with fewer updates and of less quality.

If there is no boost-in-sales incentive to update, why would developers bother?

(This being said, we have several updates almost ready to be uploaded )

–

UPDATE: Iliya Yordanov from Cramzy.com has this to say: http://cramzy.com/news.php

Interestingly, the post (or rant) suggests the number of iPhone apps will actually dramatically decrease within a year due to the fact developers will be less likely to renew their $99 contract.

I really hope Apple isn’t going in this direction.  I can’t see how this would benefit Apple, developers, or certainly the consumers.

1) First tap the Settings icon probably on your first screen:

2) Next tap “General.”

3) Next tap “International”–You could do the same thing by tapping “Keyboard” and then “International Keyboards,” but International gives you other options.

4) The “Language” setting sets the language for all menu titles; Try changing the Voice Control to Japanese and then hold down the home button for a few seconds.  But for today’s post, we want the third choice–Keyboards. 

5) Set QWERTY to ON and leave Kana off.  Using QWERTY (or romaji input) is so much easier than searching for kana.

That’s it.  Most people will find this on their own (I did).  But for those who Google before trying, here you go!

As a request from a user, I’m adding two groups of phrases and decided to add them to TJP with the audio here:

Dojo Kun and Niju Kun

The Dojo Kun are five succinct guidelines for becoming the ideal Karateka.  The Niju Kun are twenty general rules and observations about Karate devised by Gichin Funakoshi who is credited for introducing Okinawan karate to mainland Japan.

This instant gratification download has over 500 sound files and it is actually the base for our first iPhone app called Japanese Phrases and Lessons.  If you have an iPhone, you will want to get that instead of this download since we have added more than 2,200 audio files and hundreds of pages of lessons to it.  But then again, even if you have the iPhone app, you may want to pick this up to have on your computer  for a mere .99!

 This download includes a Flash program for point, click, and hear interactivity, PDFs to print out the vocabulary, and over 500 sound files in MP3 format.  It works on PCs and Macs and right after the purchase, you will be able to download the files instantly.

A few days ago, I got an email from a user of our Japanese Phrases & Lessons iPhone app.  He was very complimentary;  I had to press him for suggestions for improvements. 

His wife’s family lives in Brazil and speaks Portuguese and Japanese–no English.  So he suggested family words like mother, father, your mother’s first cousin once removed, etc.  I thought it would be nice to add it to TJP also which is why it is there!

The next mini project will be on “Expressing Feelings.”  This was his other suggestion.

Needless to say, I love getting suggestions.  Please let me know if you have any.

Or actually, they aren’t.

“Sort by Release Date” is the default view and because it is the first and biggest part of what a consumer sees, developers of iPhone apps often see an amazing doubling of sales while their app is on that front page.

There are two factors for getting one’s application in the empyrean “Sort by Release Date” area. 

1. Apple’s approval date (for new apps and updates)
2. Release Date set by the developer

The earlier of the two determines placement.  This means a developer HAS to be quick. 

When an app is approved (whether new or an update), Apple sends the developer an email saying so.  But the app isn’t automatically added to the newest releases list.  The developer must log in to iTunes Connect (the backend for iPhone developers to upload their wares to Apple) and manually set the date to that day’s date.  THEN (maybe) within a few hours, the app may appear in the new releases list.

You might ask, “Why not simply set the developer date to 2099?” 

Easy.  Setting the Release Date to some time in the future, removes the app from the App Store. You don’t want to do this.

A developer could set the Availability Date to today’s date every morning while an app is waiting for approval.  This way, the app won’t be pulled (as long as it is past midnight in California) and as soon as it is approved, it will appear in the Release Date list.

But this may not be good either.  Some people have reported that doing this delays approval–moves the app to the bottom of the queue.  I haven’t tested this systematically.  I have tried this technique, but due to innate laziness… Well, I haven’t been systematic.  I’ll try to do this with a particular app everyday just to see if it does take longer than other apps.  Will update.

Here is all Apple has to say on the subject (that I know of):

Does the “Released” date displayed for my application in the App Store have an effect on my application?
 The “Released” date is listed as part of basic app information displayed on the App Store.  The “Released” date is currently determined by the date of the app’s approval by Apple and the availability date that the developer has listed within iTunes Connect, whichever is earlier.

Other things to consider:

1. The release date is in alphabetical order
2. Names starting with numbers are positioned by the first letter (numbers don’t help ranking) — Although, interestingly, numbers do appear at top if sorted by “Name.”
3. Changing the release date past the date approved by Apple doesn’t help.  But having it before the approval date means your app will appear in the list for that date (many pages deep).
4. At least for me, notifications of approved apps tend to come in the late afternoon (I guess still morning or early afternoon California time).  This makes me feel like I lost a half day of exposure.  Maybe not, but it feels that way. 

Why did Apple do it this way?  It seems to me there ought to be a “Live / not Live” option for developers and the Release Date should be set automatically according to when it was actually released. 

Also listing by alphabetical order creates an incentive for strange naming patterns.  If I rename “Japanese Phrases & Lessons” to  “A1 Japanese Phrases & Lessons” I will be at the top of that day’s list.  Why can’t it be displayed in order of approval?  Or perhaps randomly?  That way everyone gets an even chance.

Anyone have anything else to add?

2.0.2 should be ready soon.  2.0.2 will squash a few more errors and add a whole new section to the Lessons.

Learn more here…

Or go to iTunes here!