trevelyan on November 8, 2011 | reply

ZL,

Thanks for the post and yes I'm hoping we'll have a more substantial iOS app in time.

A few things are holding us back -- (1) the need to really simplify the interface of whatever app we put together, (2) the need to actually program it, and (3) the fact that it isn't a priority from the business side of things: our big challenge is less getting technical work done than figuring out how to let people know about us.

In about a month we'll be shifting to a new version of the site that I hope will be a meaningful step up in the usability department, not just in terms of making it easier to use some of what are now premium features, but also through the addition of a structured testing component to help people identify what they don't know but really should. We're also putting work into a simplified interface that should work better on smaller screens like the iPad and iPhone, and make the site more useful on small screens and tablets.

Once that is done we'll be in a better position to see how to translate things to iOS or Android devices. In the meantime, you CAN open the mp3 files on the site directly in Safari if you want if you open them from the right-hand menu in every lesson.

Best,

--david

giullina on December 15, 2011 | reply

Hello David,

how's development going on the new website? I've recently started listening to your podcasts and I love them, but I'm still trying to decide if I should buy a premium subscription. I study most of my Mandarin on iOS, so a functional website would be great news.

Ciao,

Giulia

trevelyan on December 16, 2011 | reply

@guillina,

This is actually the new website. The design is quite similar to the old version, but the usability is hopefully much better and there are some new features. If you take a look at Popup Cantonese (http://popupcantonese.com) you can see the differences more clearly.

The major changes to make the site iOS friendly? We've modified most of the premium pages to try and eliminate unnecessary complexity and make them usable on smaller screens. We've also added a new placement test that is designed for smaller touch-dominant screens. We've tried to simplify the signup process to make it easier for people to download all of our mp3 files and transcripts onto their computers and mp3 player (details: http://popupchinese.com/account/setup_itunes) and customize all of the premium files for people based on their account settings.

Areas for improvement? Because iOS doesn't support flash, the audio buttons for playing the line-by-line recordings of the dialogues are non-functional in Safari. The flash player does not work either, although there is a simple workaround to play the mp3s in Safari: if you open the link to the downloadable version of the mp3 it will play directly in the browser window. That said, we still recommend everyone just downloads all of the mp3 files and installs them on their portable device.

There is more mobile stuff under development, but for now those are the big changes.

Best,

--david

giullina on December 16, 2011 | reply

Ah! I didn't find any announcements on the new website launch, so I supposed this was still in the works :)

I'm just a registered user with a free account, so I guess I can't see the most substantial part of the website. Is there a demo lesson, free for all, to test the functionalities?

Thanks,

Giulia

trevelyan on December 17, 2011 | reply

@guillina,

Sure things. There's a sample lesson right here:

http://popupchinese.com/lessons/intermediate/unleashing-the-cougar

We're actually trying to be more open, so you might want to check out the placement test in the study center as well as look into some of the backend tools there to see if they can be useful to you.

giullina on December 18, 2011 | reply

David,

wonderful! Thanks for the heads-up. I've been playing around and almost everything works on the iPad, except for the Flash part of course - but that's easy to stream to iTunes in the background.

I seem to get a bug with the mouseover vocab, which happens in Chrome 16 and IE9 on my PC, and in Safari on the iPad: when I click on words to get the definition to stick (on the PC) or to appear (on the iPad), then I can't close the tooltip, I need to refresh the page. I hope you can reproduce this...

drummerboy on November 8, 2011 | reply

Mobile Grasshopper is definitely looking forward to the new Ipad interface :-)

zenlove on November 9, 2011 | reply

David-

Thanks for your reply. That's the kind of responsiveness that is characteristic of a good company. I guess I will just wait and hope for the app. I think that if the features free on the site were free on an app (with a smooth and easy user interface) it would get high ratings and would attract attention. And hopefully win you new customers. I understand your general restraints and priorities though. Good luck and thanks for a great site and product.