I have also been working on my plans for a 3.0 version of Lexikon. I had hoped to get to this sooner, but Lexikon is more of a hobby project than a work project. It isn’t a financial failure, but it’s not exactly a success considering how much time I put into it, and the number of people who are interested in the app.

After Apple’s unveiling of iOS 5 at WWDC 2011 last Monday, I have decided that Lexikon 3.0 will require iOS 5. That means it won’t come out at least until iOS 5 is released. It will be a free update for previous users. It will be a universal app and use iCloud to sync the word cache between multiple devices. I am also going to be adding favorite words and a history list of the last looked up words. My aim is that between those two tools it may help you focus on words that you might be trying to learn now.

I’m also open to other suggestions, so please get in contact via email or on this site with your suggestions. I can’t promise that I’ll have the time or that I’ll feel that the idea ultimately fits in with the goal of Lexikon, but I would like to at least explore if you have a good idea that might make Lexikon better.

Update: Lexikon 2.5.5 was approved and is available via the App Store.

Update: I received word on Tuesday that the update has been marked as a priority review for critical updates. Hopefully it will be approved later today or tomorrow.

Update 2: The update has been approved and is being processed for the App Store. It should appear within about an hour.

Beyond iOS 4 support the biggest new feature is easier searching, the search bar is always on the screen instead of scrolling off. In addition Lexikon will now better inform you when Lexin is unavailable, some stray memory leaks have been fixed, removal of Pinch analytics, a better default screen to explain how to use Lexikon among other misc. fixes.

As to an offline app I don’t know that I will do one. I find the Folkets Lexikon data lacking, you basically get one word translation and little context, you also don’t get helpful things like the different forms of words, important for those learning the language. I also looked at Wiktionary which has some nice information, some words even have pronunciations for some words. However the overall number of words is lacking.

This site has sadly been a bit neglected as in addition to working on Lexikon, other projects and client work I’m also redoing this site to improve marketing and communication.

I’m working on a 2.1 update to Lexikon. I can’t say for certain when this update will be ready to submit to Apple. The major feature will be to have the search bar always on screen as it is the main function of the app. There is also a crash to fix when your search term is non-latin and you try searching in the Swedish dictionary.

The next item in that arena will be to bring the Folkets Lexikon to the iPhone. This dictionary would be offline and contains 50% more words than Lexin. There is still some debate as to what the best way to deliver this is. Either as a separate application or an in-app purchase in Lexikon. I don’t want to have a bunch of products, but I also want to keep each application as simple as possible. It would’ve been easy to have a version of Lexikon for each language available, but at the same time the difference is very little. Folkets Lexikon on the other hand could be quite a different beast.

I am also going to look to make the Folkets Lexikon available as a plugin for the Mac OS X Dictionary.app.

I’m not certain what my plans are for the iPad at this time for Lexikon. The screen real estate is a lot and I’m not certain I’ll be able to improve on the interface elegantly to take advantage of it. I’m holding off until I have a device in my hands so I can experience it first hand.

There are many improvements in this release. The application does a better job of remembering where you were and getting you back to that state. Term figures are now cached for later viewing in addition to the words, these are the bildtema you might see linked in a word’s definition. It’s easier to find the word you want as you will be presented with suggested corrections if the term you enter is not found. If Lexin can tell what word you meant if will automatically correct it and load the definition. The number of words in the list is now in the table footer. Lexin’s Swedish dictionary is supported now. In addition support for almost all the languages in Lexin: Albanian, Arabic, Bosnian, Croatian, Finnish, Greek, Kurmanji, Russian, Serbian (Latin & Cyrillic), Somali, Spanish and Turkish.

Next I will be tackling putting the Folkets Lexikon into an application. This app will be separate from Lexikon, only have English, have over 50% more words (Lexin has about 28,500 English words and Folkets Lexikon has over 46,000 word pairs). I have no ETA on this as there are still many things to work out, especially that it is indeed feasible to do as an application.

Update: After three days Apple has approved Lexikon 2.0 and it is available on the App Store.

Update 2: A small bug was found with selecting words from the filtered search list. An update has been built, tested and sent to Apple.

Atebits just announced that Tweetie 2 for iPhone and Mac will be coming out soon. The iPhone version cause Apple provides no upgrade path will cost $2.99 regardless if you own Tweetie 1 or not. Those that spent $19.95 (or $14.95 during the introductory pricing period) for Tweetie for Mac will be getting 2.0 as a free upgrade.

It’s amazing to me how people feel like a one time fee of $3 is enough to demand free updates for life. Apparently despite not being subscription based, Tweetie on the iPhone should include full active development and updates with new functionality. Even though people complaining say it’s not about the money, I have yet to see a logical argument that doesn’t distill down to I deserve to keep my $3 and get Tweetie 2 for the iPhone. I think Jeff LaMarche did a great job dissecting sense of entitlement some people have. The Madden analogies fall down cause Tweetie is already sold for a low amount and Tweetie 2 is a complete rewrite. In-app purchasing isn’t a way around it either, it will just make the entire program more bloated and crappy to use.

It is all sadly reminiscent of a position I once took. I started in web development at primarily a development house. We had great designers, and I worked with them a lot, but I only ever knew about the stock photography as being here is a set of CDs and this is what we have to work with. Later I worked for more of a small ad agency and photo shoots, stock photography and everything to do with that was in my radar more. I once commented on a blog post about pricing web stock imagery. I thought since we only wanted low-res versions maybe photographers could sell the images cheaper than the high-res for print versions. I got back from photographers that the resolution of the image had little impact on the cost of making the shot. This point was driven home a couple of years later when I got into photography and I realized that to get a one megapixel shot of Delicate Arch versus an eight megapixel shot would still take all the time to drive there, hike and get the shot at the perfect time of day for lighting. I also don’t think any reasonable person would expect just cause they bought one version from me that it gave them any right to a free upgrade to the higher res version next year cause I used the money from sales to buy a better camera and make the trip again.

Funny how perspectives change when it’s your time, energy and talent instead of someone else’s.

I will be focusing on getting Lexion 1.5 out the door ASAP. It has taken more time in part cause of the ambitious desire to support all the languages Lexin does. I’m trying to do it right since I know how frustrating it can be to have software that gets it so wrong it may as well have not tried.

After that I will be focusing on an offline version of Lexikon that works only with a database on the phone with word pairs from Folkets Lexikon. This will be a separate application and I’ll advertise its availability in the online version of Lexikon with an introductory price.

I’m not going to commit to dates or timeframes for either project though as the money I make and the nature of the projects make them hobby side work to my consulting work. There just isn’t a very large user base of iPhone/iPod Touch users who are learning Swedish. Throw in that Apple is appearing to take at least two weeks to approve application updates right now. Trust me though that I want the offline version of Lexikon with the bigger dictionary of Folkets Lexikon as much as anyone else and so I’ll be trying to get it off and in to the hands of Apple to approve ASAP.

One last thing I am still looking for people who speak languages other than English who can take a look at how Lexikon will handle their language. Hopefully I have a good handle on how best to support each individual language, but since I don’t understand anything beyond English and some Swedish native speakers would be appreciated. I’ve had some people look at it, but none of them are iPhone/iPod Touch users.

Probably the most important thing will be now that I have the data is figuring out the offline version of Lexikon. I’ve been hesitant to commit to anything until it was released, since there seemed to be some question if it would ever actually be released. There is a strong possibility that the Lexikon you know will continue as is. Perhaps with some modifications to switch from Lexin to Folkets Lexikon for the Swedish-English look ups. Then a second Lexikon like app would be developed with completely offline access. There are tradeoffs and advantages to both programs.

The current roadmap is to finish up update that has been in progress for Lexikon. Then to begin in earnest with figuring out what is going to happen and how best to package it up. I’m going to try and keep plans under my hat until I know for sure. Though if it is a separate application there will be a period to give current Lexikon users a chance to buy a discounted offline version before going to a normal price.

Hopefully Lexikon version 1.5 will be in Apple’s hands before the end of August and then current app approval times suggest another two weeks beyond that. Fingers crossed that Lexikon doesn’t require any additional time to be approved beyond that.

I will be implementing all the Lexin languages. However how much interest is there in using more than one language. I know from SFI sometimes someone knows their mother tongue and English so quick access to both versions might be desireable. On the other hand I imagine most users will only use one language with Lexikon. This simplifies the UI and moves the setting to its proper iPhone place the Settings app. Most likely that is how Lexikon will work in the next update with the solicitation for input if the other way is desired. If I get enough requests I’ll make it part of a future update.

Also I have a specific Twitter account for Lexikon. http://twitter.com/_lexikon. You can even see the new icon design I’ve developed for the update.

I also have an update about a Folkets Lexikon and/or offline app. So far it looks like the downloadable database did not happen before the summer holiday. It will be interestig to see what happens in the Fall. Will development continue or is it frozen? Once it looks like Folkets Lexikon is stable I will be looking into using it for the English dictionary as it has at least twice the number of words. I want Folkets Lexikon as much as anyone, but without an API or much communication we all have to wait for it.