Concise Oxford for iPhone

thanks mate - good to see this thread moving on. good dictionaries are something i have waited to see for a long time.

our reviews of 3 oxford dictionaries will be live and complete by tomorrow, currently, we have only mobile systems' version online. Enfour's massive and excellent version will suffer the same treatment by Friday at the latest.
 
After exploring the dictionary and Thesaurus some more, the layout is beautiful, the colors and graphics make it one of the most polished apps out there.

The Thesaurus and Dictionary do an excellent job of explaining subtle differences between words of similar meaning, such as sarcastic, sardonic, and ironic (helpful when a student asks me the difference between those words). The Thesaurus also provides excellent links to a word's antonyms.

The Thesaurus will come in handy when an advanced student tries to explain something, but the word they use isn't quite right, but the word that fits that context just isn't coming to mind.

I at one time wanted to hyperlink from a word under a phrase entry, but was disappointed to find the word wasn't hyperlinked (something Enfour could do in an update though).

I think that if one is looking for the best in a Dictionary-Thesaurus app, that this is the ultimate, and probably will remain the ultimate for a long time.

The American Heritage Deluxe (Dictionary-Thesaurus) app is a definite second, and I'm glad I have both. Occasionally Oxford doesn't have an entry or a sound file that the American Heritage does.

That's my take anyways...
 
i think you hit the nail on the head. thanks gokunauma. i hope that our review will be able to elucidate a bit more on your excellent review. now paragon is up and prelude will come later this evening. enfour's will be friday or tomorrow. thanks goku for the great reviews.
 
Gokunama, shigzeo

Thanks for the heads up. The Enfour Oxford Deluxe is a big improvement over the Mobile Systems COED I was using before: more extensive definitions (full ODE not just the Concise version), more up-to-date (2005 vs 2002), better laid out, even quicker, smoother, pretty good audio pronunciations, and a great thesaurus. It's expensive (£35) but it more than justifies the price IMO.
 
it is really worth it over the other versions: especially considering it is much cheaper than getting an unabridged version. the others have some good points (not sure about prelude though) but are too close to the price of a cheap concise and offer just a tiny bit more functionality that it is not really fair to suggest them yet.

that and the terrible terrible interfaces some of them have (paragon)
 
prelude's review is up. tomorrow will bring enfour and have comparison lists brought up in our oxford review link. i hope these are helpful to you oxford fans.
 
it is a shame that wedict went pay but it is good that they are supported for development and i hope they do well. it will be nice when more modules appear for translation use etc.

Young reviewed wedict some time ago.
 
bbplayer5 said:
weDict is good enough for me
Click to expand...

WeDICT promotes the use of pirated software. The StarDict group have been known pirates from China for ages. They have promoted pirated dictionaries that do not respect copyright or trademarks. The other product they have on the AppStore is Othello which is a Japanese brand name they are not paying for either.

They steal whatever they can and encourage others to do the same. This is disgraceful behaviour. It takes food off the table for honest developers who are trying to earn a living.

Piracy is NOT a victimless crime. It is not taking from big faceless corporations. It affects small software developers who are just trying to pay their rent and feed their kids like everybody else.
 
well, im not sure about that, but that is cool. enfour's review is coming later than i expected, sorry.
 
I am terribly sorry to keep you waiting, but with illness and a badminton injury that have both kept me out of a chair for a while, I have only finished the Enfour today.

Our entire Oxford review section is here and I hope to add more as these are indispensable resources.

We still will be looking at a few Thesauri and unique writing dictionaries and the good entries by Woodbook for instance.
 
Sorry Shigzeo, I've been busy as my son was on springbreak here, I'll be able to start those soon.

I'd like to see a review on Mobile System's Shorter Oxford Dictionary someday. I wonder how it compares to the unabridged single volume Oxford in Enfour's deluxe.
 
more homework? haha. sure - ill do my best. really, sorry for the massive delay: it was 2 week back to back illness and injury. cheers - no worries mate.
 
Since I do most of my heavy reading on my Kindle I use the enclosed New Oxford American Dictionary. I have not thought of putting a dictionary on my iphone. It would be nice to have a spell check on the iphone like on my computer. I have noticed there are several apps for this but have not tried them yet.
 
pagansoul said:
Since I do most of my heavy reading on my Kindle I use the enclosed New Oxford American Dictionary. I have not thought of putting a dictionary on my iphone. It would be nice to have a spell check on the iphone like on my computer. I have noticed there are several apps for this but have not tried them yet.
Click to expand...

that feature of kindle is very nice indeed. i have ipod touch so other apps that do that don't work unless i am on wifi. i wish there were more cooperation between functions of dictionaries and books. i am reading the three muskateers now on stanza and i am lost in much of what i read! i rather think that my vocab is really midget.

i think i have more hope for 3.0 regarding various functions but that sort of functionality may have to be built into the app itself... shame.
 
i love appvee's video reviews. easy to understand with voice over and smooth text. the usual humdrum reviews by their competitors are too full of awkware moments.

however, i have a doubt that appvee really tried other dictionaries. they tout the clickable words as a feature when it is present in every dictionary i have tried in some form or another. prelude are one of the only companies to remove that function from every word in an article. other companies allow you to literally click on every word in a definition.

at least the interface is clean but not really worthwhile when compared to slightly more expensive competitors that have designed the dictionary to work not as an upgraded paperback, but a computer application.

of course, everyone has differing ideas of what they need but prelude's was the hardest to use. the index could not even be scrolled for more than 30 entries making it far far less useful than a printed dictionary in stumbling upon words which is an art form that can be cultivated.

had i not tried the other dictionary apps, i may have thought it was worth the money though the lack of scrolling and only certain clickable words would have even so, been a turn off.
 
Thanks for all the dictionary reviews. I have £50 waiting for the full OED when (or if) it comes out on the iPhone. At the moment I'm using WordBook which is OK-ish. I'm quite tempted by Oxford Deluxe - several people have told me it's the full OED; but it clearly isn't - but I think maybe save my money for the full OED.

Come on Oxford! You already have the OED in digital form, and online, just put it on the iPhone.

They've just finished bringing out a new CD version of the full OED ($215 or £165)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-English-Dictionary-Version-Windows/dp/0199563837/

so hopefully an iPhone version will come soon.
 
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The full OED as in all nine volumes? That would be nice to have on the iPhone, hopefully it's done by an app company like Enfour or Mobile Systems.

Oxford Deluxe uses the largest single volume dictionary.

There is a Shorter Oxford dictionary that is the two volume dictionary.

I hardly know why we need concise pocket editions of dictionaries when the entire nine volumes of Oxford could now fit into your pocket easily.
 
White Park Bay have just launched a range of Oxford specialist dictionaries for students and professionals across a range of subjects including Law, Politics, Philosophy and Accounting at DictionaryApps. They've been well received.

Of the back of a recent review on Touchmyapps, I'd like to know if you think that a 'notes' feature is a must have requirement for new dictionary apps on iPhone or rather a nice idea with limited practical use?
 
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