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Rosetta Stone Exec Confirms Interest in iPad/iPhone

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Sep 29, 2005
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Hey everyone, just wanted to share a bit of news. As someone who is currently trying to decide which language I want to learn in addition to English, I am very interested in perhaps being able to do this either on the iPhone or my iPad. I have always thought that Apple's mobile devices would be a great platform for Rosetta Stone and it seems Rosetta Stone's CEO also sees the potential.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/13/AR2010041304503.html

Let's hope their prices are a bit more reasonable than their desktop software, which, quite frankly, are horrendously priced.
 
The article states that there will be an iPhone app released in the second half of this year. That's great!

I use RosettaStone (French) and I think that iPhone is more geared towards language learning. You have it with you at all times so you can practice throughout the day and many language apps have dictionaries/translators which allow you to use your new language in real world conditions.

As long as the app isn't $500 (yikes!) like the desktop version, I'll be getting it. I'll guess that it's $99 at most or that they'll segment it further than the desktop app so that each level is $49 to make it more accessible to begin learning.
 
I downloaded the Foreign Service Institute Spanish program, which includes a textbook in PDF and mp3s. Uploaded this to my iPad, and I am good to go . . . at a cost of $.99 for Goodreader to use the PDFs.

This is much more cost effective than Rosetta Stone, though it is admittedly a more academic method of learning.

Not knocking Rosetta, just throwing this option out there for folks who don't have $500 for a language program. FSI also has many languages besides Spanish.
 
I personally think the program is overrated and overpriced. No computer program so far has been good enough to replace real classes, no matter how much people would like that to happen. There are other, much more affordable options for people who want to learn on their own time.
 
How about the app is free and you use your current purchases to download segments onto the iphone/ipad? I already have downloaded the Audio Companion into itunes. This would make more sense, as they would be helping to promote the sale of their software, as is, without cannibalizing the current revenue stream. Or maybe a steep discount if you already have the computer software. This might keep existing customers happy and more likely to buy another package or update to an existing package...

i.e. I have the Spanish(Latin America) Set 1-3. Largest offering at the time, but would be willing to add on Set 4 and 5 for a decent price...

jm2c
 
If you notice, Rosetta Stone is nothing more than an application written in Flash or Shockwave or something to that effect. Notice that you can resize the application on your desktop, so it's quite adaptable. I'm actually surprised they haven't jumped the gun and released applications for the iPad or iPhone by now.

Of course, if they were trying to use Adobe Flash CS5 to simply port their stuff over so it could be submitted to the App Store, well... Apple isn't going to let that happen. ;)
 
Thx for sharing

Sdevante said:
I downloaded the Foreign Service Institute Spanish program, which includes a textbook in PDF and mp3s. Uploaded this to my iPad, and I am good to go . . . at a cost of $.99 for Goodreader to use the PDFs.

This is much more cost effective than Rosetta Stone, though it is admittedly a more academic method of learning.

Not knocking Rosetta, just throwing this option out there for folks who don't have $500 for a language program. FSI also has many languages besides Spanish.
Click to expand...

This is good info to know. My g/f is of Spanish heritage, and I seriously need to get on the ball and learn the language--besides the dirty words. Pops speaks minimal English but loves to talk about current MN weather and the women on Telemundo. :D
 
RS would be great on the iPad. Though I think I might prefer livemocha for its community aspect.
 
nsorrelle said:
I personally think the program is overrated and overpriced. No computer program so far has been good enough to replace real classes, no matter how much people would like that to happen. There are other, much more affordable options for people who want to learn on their own time.
Click to expand...

Speaking from experience, Rosetta Stone's method is absolutely the most effective language tool I've ever used. You don't study and memorize, you get right into learning just as you would if you were a child learning how to speak for the first time.

It may be expensive but if you're looking for results, you're better to pay a lot for something that works than less for something that doesn't work.

I hope their iPhone/iPad apps are cheaper because I don't think very many people will pay $500 for an iPhone app but I'd be willing to pay that much, just as I did for their desktop version. Of course, I'd expect users with a desktop license to get an upgrade price or something to that effect.
 
TechNutt said:
This is good info to know. My g/f is of Spanish heritage, and I seriously need to get on the ball and learn the language--besides the dirty words. Pops speaks minimal English but loves to talk about current MN weather and the women on Telemundo. :D
Click to expand...

They have got to be the hottest women on the planet :D

I've used rosetta stone desktop version, and found it not to work well with my method of learning. Everybody learns differently, and may be the perfect method though for the next guy. Would be nice to see some of these big box programs make it to the iphone/ipad as it is a good refresher for me though.
 
They DON'T have an app for that already? And they JUST started working on it?
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Let me file this in the 'Things that are completely Obvious' section
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TechNutt said:
This is good info to know. My g/f is of Spanish heritage, and I seriously need to get on the ball and learn the language--besides the dirty words. Pops speaks minimal English but loves to talk about current MN weather and the women on Telemundo. :D
Click to expand...

Yeah my fiancee is from Colombia and her parents both speak only spanish. I took 4 years in high school and 2 in college, but apparently learning spanish from white appalachians is not very effective. Lol.

On a side note - Latin Women FTW!
 
I have to say that I really enjoy Rosetta Stone. Since I'm a native spanish speaker I decided on Italian and Portuguese and it really does work great for me. I'm surprised at how much I remember. The price is a little high, but I find it cheaper and easier than going to school and spending time in a classroom, and or reading a book and trying t figure out how to pronounce a language I am completely foreign to. I highly recommend it.
 
I hope this happens and I hope it's free for us Military folks like the desktop version is now. In the Marine Corps we get access to pretty much the whole Rossetta Stone library. Unfortunetly because of Apple's dislike of flash and no way to install the common access card software I can't use it on my ipad.

This is part of the reason why I would like a windows based tablet.
 
Personally, I prefer Rosette Stone, it's intuitive and you begin memorizing conversational sentences immediately. I took 6 years of French while in school and barely learned enough to mumble some grammatically incorrect phrases without losing the accent. A few weeks with Rosseta and I'm better off than with 6 years of real classes.
 
Working on Something Similar

We are working on something similar. The app is released to the app store, but we are continuing to build more lessons every week and the next major release of the app will have speech recognition:

www.reverselobotomy.com
 
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