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So much this. I use Anki for more than a decade, and every single time there is a touch of frustration that Anki UX stuck in mid-2000. Another super annoying
by divan 6y ago
So much this.
I use Anki for more than a decade, and every single time there is a touch of frustration that Anki UX stuck in mid-2000.
Another super annoying feature is that historically Anki is free except iOS – somehow mentality of "iOS users are rich" sneaked in – and Anki for iOS costs ~25$. This makes it prohibitively hard to recommend Anki to non-Android users, especially to younger generation which virtually don't use desktops, type much faster on mobile rather then PC keyboard, etc.
- hpfr 6y agoAs a desktop and iOS user (and a member of a younger generation), this doesn’t bother me too much, to be honest. Free software projects might as well take advantage of closed distribution platforms as a revenue source when they’re the only option for distribution, in my opinion. That said, $25 is on the high side, but is that really prohibitive, even for students, or has the history of ingrained low price expectations in the mobile app ecosystem made us more shocked than we should be at a $25 one-time fee? People certainly frequently pay more for subscriptions now. Regardless of the reason behind it, you’re right, it is admittedly hard to convince a large portion of iOS users that $25 for an app is worth it, which is unfortunate for Anki. But I don’t know if a free version would be worth the trade-offs.
- kixiQu 6y agoIt costs money to publish an iOS app in a way that it does not for Android. In addition, the Android app was able to leverage the fact that Anki's desktop app is written in Java. It has nothing to do with an idea that "iOS users are rich". It is easy to recommend Ankiweb instead since it works well enough for mobile. (I also question whether there are really a significant number of people who type -- at least Latin characters -- faster on mobile than a PC keyboard, but that's a digression)
- ImprobableTruth 6y ago>somehow mentality of "iOS users are rich" sneaked in This is just not true. The android app is an open source project by the community, whereas the iOS app is made by the original developer of anki.
- systemvoltage 6y agoPlease don't equate UX to a particular era. UX is how a thing works. That is a timeless quality. Anki UX just sucks. I agree. Even if it were year 2000, its UX is not great.
- vinay427 6y agoI think they may have meant UI, at least more than UX. The visuals of the interface feel like they're from about a decade ago, and while I don't really mind this on my minimal Linux desktop environment because it's at least clearly laid out, it's a little aesthetically out-of-place on some other systems.
- wyclif 6y agoTrue. It looks really out of place and out of date on macOS.
- dmerks 6y agoHow could it easily be better?
- armatav 6y agoIt's a one-time $25 cost. It is also entirely worth it. iOS users spend an order of magnitude more money than Android users, so that was the creator's logic - use them as the "whales". It's 100% fine and honestly he should be charging a subscription for such a great app, on every platform.
- digianarchist 6y agoI've bought it twice because Apple wouldn't allow me to migrate my purchases when I moved countries.
- Smithalicious 6y agoThe android app is a FOSS community effort, while the iOS app is first-party. There is no double standard here, if anything Android users are the ones which are disadvantaged by the Anki developers.
- divan 6y agoI was comparing iOS app vs desktop app. Back then when I was using Nokia N900, I made PyQT version of Anki for Maemo platform, but I reused some of the python code of Anki, instead of reimplementing it from scratch. I'm still thinking about creating open standard/ecosystem for flash card and space-repeititon software, but it'll take ton of focus and person-time to do right.