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Show HN: Spaced Repetition System for iOS

cleverdeck.com

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Re: Show HN: Spaced Repetition System for iOS

#81

Post by huhtenberg »

jmcannon wrote: post #74
scentedmeat wrote: post #66

I really dislike the 'per month' monetization. I would rather be able to buy the decks that I'm interested in.

What do you think is a fair price for one of our 3000 word language decks? In the previous iteration of the app, people showed themselves willing to pay $15. Repeat revenue makes it easier for me to make a living as an indie dev, so I wanted to give this model a try while charging what I think is a fair price. I'll keep an open mind about it and adjust if enough people want it. Appreciate the feedback!

> Repeat revenue makes it easier for me to make a living as an indie dev

Of course it does! "And a pony."

You have to realize that most people are exceptionally leery of subscriptions as they are open-ended long-term commercial relationships with some random entity. There gotta be rock-solid clear benefits for a subscription to be justified. There are none in your case. What you have is a product, not a service. A subscription makes no sense whatsoever.

With regards to the fixed pricing - 3000 word pack is not the best option. What's more useful from the language learners perspective are packs that cover specific domain area - foods, kitchen utensils, car parts, body parts, weather elements, household tools, etc.

"3000 words" = "Unclear what you are getting"

"100 words, Garage" = "I may be able talk to the mechanic"

If you have smaller packs, you can sell them at few bucks a piece. You can try and experiment with discounted bundles of packs. And you can also try an all-you-can-eat option with a monthly access (yes, subscription), but as one of the options, not the only one.

PS. Have an option of switching off photos on cards.

Re: Show HN: Spaced Repetition System for iOS

#82

Post by afarrell »

jmcannon wrote: post #6
sbmassey wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the advantages over Anki?

Two things, I think. First, I was a long time power user of Anki and don't mean to disparage it, but I think CleverDeck has a much better user experience and design. Second, we've spent a tremendous amount of time putting together high quality frequency lists (mostly for languages right now) that incorporate professional imagery, native-speaker audio, transliterations (where relevant), and example sentences. Usually,…

> we've spent a tremendous amount of time putting together high quality frequency lists

I've recently started using Anki, but have only found it useful for taking a mental model that I sat down one weekend and learned, and re-enforcing it. How valuable are these frequency lists for learning something entirely new? If I wanted to use them to say, memorise the api exposed by ActiveRecord, would they be useful, or would they ask me a series of questions that I couldn't yet really put in context?

Re: Show HN: Spaced Repetition System for iOS

#83

Post by adrianN »

rimliu wrote: post #80
jmcannon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things, I think. First, I was a long time power user of Anki and don't mean to disparage it, but I think CleverDeck has a much better user experience and design. Second, we've spent a tremendous amount of time putting together high quality frequency lists (mostly for languages right now) that incorporate professional imagery, native-speaker audio, transliterations (where relevant), and example sentences. Usually,…

Is that algorithm public?

Anki is AGPL. https://github.com/dae/anki

Re: Show HN: Spaced Repetition System for iOS

#84

Post by adrianN »

huhtenberg wrote: post #81
jmcannon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think is a fair price for one of our 3000 word language decks? In the previous iteration of the app, people showed themselves willing to pay $15. Repeat revenue makes it easier for me to make a living as an indie dev, so I wanted to give this model a try while charging what I think is a fair price. I'll keep an open mind about it and adjust if enough people want it. Appreciate the feedback!

> Repeat revenue makes it easier for me to make a living as an indie dev Of course it does! "And a pony." You have to realize that most people are exceptionally leery of subscriptions as they are open-ended long-term commercial relationships with some random entity. There gotta be rock-solid clear benefits for a subscription to be justified. There are none in your case. What you have is a product, not a service. A su…

I don't think domain specific packs are very useful for language learners. You need a rather large vocabulary just to follow a normal everyday conversation. Basic conversation and reading skill are the foundation upon which you can build. You need to consume and produce a large amount of material in your target language if you want to master it.

Buying the language a few hundred words at a time won't get you to fluency as quickly as learning words by frequency until you have covered the most frequent ~80%. Only then does it make sense to focus on specific domains that are most interesting to you.

Re: Show HN: Spaced Repetition System for iOS

#85

Post by mdevere »

jmcannon wrote: post #52
mdevere wrote: post #49

Hi. I actually had it in mind to create something like this myself -- a mobile-first, nicer-designed version of Anki. But it looks like you already started on this, 2.5 years ago. Always the way.. It definitely looks nicer than Anki. It's also better for creating simple cards, something which I haven't really been able to do on the Anki app. The workflow for adding a new card is a great experience. I do think that cr…

Thanks a ton for the feedback - very useful. And thank you for the bug report - I'll check that out (my initial guess is that you don't have the CARD DISPLAY set to play audio on that side right now - which is itself a problem for being confusing). Re: monetization. It's freemium right now - 100 cards to try out the app, then three bucks per month for access to all the decks we've made. Completely free to create your…

Ah, just found the deck settings and corrected this. Thanks. I've played around a bit more and have some further feedback.

Something that is really key for me: When I create cards, sometimes I want the audio to play on the front, sometimes on the back (and perhaps sometimes both). But there is just one audio value and I need to decide whether I want it to play on the front or the back across the entire deck.

For example, card 1: FRONT: Text says "écureuil", audio reads out "écureuil" BACK: Text says "écureuil", audio reads out "écureuil", and there's a picture of a squirrel

That's good for vocab comprehension, but what if I want the converse exercise?

Card 2: FRONT: Picture of a squirrel BACK: Text says "écureuil", audio reads out "écureuil", and there's a picture of a squirrel

At the moment there's no way for me to create both cards at once. I would need two separate decks because it's one template to a deck. And I would need to make the card twice.

I realise this is jumping ahead to 'power user' territory but it's definitely a feature I would use.

Re: Show HN: Spaced Repetition System for iOS

#86

Post by mdevere »

mdevere wrote: post #85
jmcannon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks a ton for the feedback - very useful. And thank you for the bug report - I'll check that out (my initial guess is that you don't have the CARD DISPLAY set to play audio on that side right now - which is itself a problem for being confusing). Re: monetization. It's freemium right now - 100 cards to try out the app, then three bucks per month for access to all the decks we've made. Completely free to create your…

Ah, just found the deck settings and corrected this. Thanks. I've played around a bit more and have some further feedback. Something that is really key for me: When I create cards, sometimes I want the audio to play on the front, sometimes on the back (and perhaps sometimes both). But there is just one audio value and I need to decide whether I want it to play on the front or the back across the entire deck. For exam…

btw i would def pay for a pro feature such as that

Re: Show HN: Spaced Repetition System for iOS

#87

Post by bravura »

adrianN wrote: post #84
huhtenberg wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Repeat revenue makes it easier for me to make a living as an indie dev Of course it does! "And a pony." You have to realize that most people are exceptionally leery of subscriptions as they are open-ended long-term commercial relationships with some random entity. There gotta be rock-solid clear benefits for a subscription to be justified. There are none in your case. What you have is a product, not a service. A su…

I don't think domain specific packs are very useful for language learners. You need a rather large vocabulary just to follow a normal everyday conversation. Basic conversation and reading skill are the foundation upon which you can build. You need to consume and produce a large amount of material in your target language if you want to master it. Buying the language a few hundred words at a time won't get you to fluen…

Actually, it does make sense to have packs that are structured in a particular way.

For example, I am learning German. I would rather have a pack with the 25 most frequent nouns, 25 most frequent verbs, and maybe 25 most frequent adjectives. Then I have a foundation of vocabulary to learn the dativ and akkusativ. I don't need the adverbs yet.

Also, if I'm learning the modal verbs, I'd like a pack of those.

Re: Show HN: Spaced Repetition System for iOS

#88

Post by archie_peach »

mdevere wrote: post #49

Hi. I actually had it in mind to create something like this myself -- a mobile-first, nicer-designed version of Anki. But it looks like you already started on this, 2.5 years ago. Always the way.. It definitely looks nicer than Anki. It's also better for creating simple cards, something which I haven't really been able to do on the Anki app. The workflow for adding a new card is a great experience. I do think that cr…

Seems this is a fairly popular idea :) I've also been working on something similar for the past year.

https://vocabifyapp.com/

Currently only a web app with a React/Redux/Node/Firebase stack. Anyway, hope it goes well and good luck with your project!

Re: Show HN: Spaced Repetition System for iOS

#89

Post by cabaalis »

huhtenberg wrote: post #81
jmcannon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think is a fair price for one of our 3000 word language decks? In the previous iteration of the app, people showed themselves willing to pay $15. Repeat revenue makes it easier for me to make a living as an indie dev, so I wanted to give this model a try while charging what I think is a fair price. I'll keep an open mind about it and adjust if enough people want it. Appreciate the feedback!

> Repeat revenue makes it easier for me to make a living as an indie dev Of course it does! "And a pony." You have to realize that most people are exceptionally leery of subscriptions as they are open-ended long-term commercial relationships with some random entity. There gotta be rock-solid clear benefits for a subscription to be justified. There are none in your case. What you have is a product, not a service. A su…

So I googled "And a Pony" and it looks like one of the first uses of it is from a coding horror page in 2006 where the guy is asking all websites to scale down properly for a phone and then scale up properly for a desktop. He's then ridiculed because asking such a thing from websites would be obviously impossible. (Remember: 2006.) It is now of course expected everywhere.

I just think that's interesting in the context of your use here.

https://blog.codinghorror.com/and-a-pony/

Re: Show HN: Spaced Repetition System for iOS

#90

Post by huhtenberg »

cabaalis wrote: post #89
huhtenberg wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Repeat revenue makes it easier for me to make a living as an indie dev Of course it does! "And a pony." You have to realize that most people are exceptionally leery of subscriptions as they are open-ended long-term commercial relationships with some random entity. There gotta be rock-solid clear benefits for a subscription to be justified. There are none in your case. What you have is a product, not a service. A su…

So I googled "And a Pony" and it looks like one of the first uses of it is from a coding horror page in 2006 where the guy is asking all websites to scale down properly for a phone and then scale up properly for a desktop. He's then ridiculed because asking such a thing from websites would be obviously impossible. (Remember: 2006.) It is now of course expected everywhere. I just think that's interesting in the contex…

That's just a general expression. It's certainly older than 2006 and its context is not related to the IT at all, e.g. see https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/70640/meaning-of...
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