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Reddit discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/1phbsk4/i_tested_every_japanese_app_that_came_out_in_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Learn

Reddit discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/1phbsk4/i_tested_every_japanese_app_that_came_out_in_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/1phbsk4/i_te... (147 comments) My app: https://reader.manabi.io https://reader.manabi.io I quit my job a couple years back to work on this app full-time, as well as its companion flashcard app, Manabi Flashcards. The goal is to help you learn through immersion and eventually replace some of your flashcard reviews time with reading (once I finish auto-reviews for flashcards) What's special about it? Manabi Reader became popular as an Japanese-focused alternative to services like LingQ in that it locally tracks and analyzes all the words and kanji you read and study. It shows you which words are new and which you're currently learning via flashcards, so you can easily find content that suits your level and see what flashcards to prioritize adding. The pricing is also unique: students or low-income earners can elect to pay less, without verification. This has helped with word of mouth growth. It also passively accumulates an on-device (and in your personal iCloud) corpus of example sentences from your reading. It’s also one of few ways to mine sentences including pitch accent directly into Anki on iPhone. I had built this part-time while working over many years (starting with flashcards and then the reader app) but going full-time gave me the time to do a full rewrite: SwiftUI, native iOS + macOS, and an offline-first architecture that syncs with iCloud and my server in the background. Although it has an optional companion SRS algorithm (FSRS) flashcard app, it's also a popular choice for mining Anki cards. This works with AnkiMobile on iOS and AnkiConnect on desktop. You can use it like a web browser for the web, or subscribe to RSS feeds. It comes with a bunch of curated content by level. Recently I added EPUB support, pitch accents, and note-taking with todos. I'm now almost done adding a manga mode via Mokuro, and Netflix/streaming video support via realtime captioning of audio streams. I've fine-tuned a manga-specific MLX-based OCR model (since Apple's OCR cannot tolerate vertical text) and have it working on iPhone, so I also plan to have it work on-demand and in-browser for sites like Bookwalker where you can purchase and find free manga. In terms of growth, it's been mostly word of mouth so far - to scale this with UGC/influencer marketing I need to make it more beginner friendly. Currently it assumes you can read kana at least. But I have gotten interest from a bunch of influencers who already use the app or like it enough to recommend it generously (I'm starting with commission deals) so I am optimistic as I begin that campaign.

bachrc 10mo ago
Well I'm sad than you plan a full rewrite in Swift, it means that I'll never have the chance to use it on my Android Best of luck for your app though, it seems nice
- wahnfrieden 10mo ago
  It was already fully native Swift and I began the apps before React Native existed. But it’s not true what you say! I have begun prototyping experiments in running my Swift and SQLite in the browser via WASM, and I’m also evaluating https://skip.tools https://skip.tools for running SwiftUI on Android. I will go cross platform without ditching Swift. But to be honest I am more likely to pursue web than native Android (Skip runs Swift natively on Android and binds SwiftUI to Compose) because Google is such a nightmare on top of Apple compared to the revenue Android apps tend to bring - I’ve seen others recently port 6 digit MRR apps to Android and make less than 1/100 as much for instance. But maybe for valuable language learning apps it wouldn’t be so bad. Anyway I am thinking to prioritize web apps first that could run on mobile too and perhaps later upgrade that into an Android app (whether with Skip for native UI or as a wrapper around web UI).
  - bachrc 10mo ago
    Ah my bad then, but I didn't know that SwiftUI apps where good on Android. I would love to be wrong actually
    - wahnfrieden 10mo ago
      It's exciting times for Swift. Viability for SwiftUI on Android and Swift in WASM has only really become possible in the last year or so. There is also a project called SwiftCrossUI which provides UI across Linux, Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, tVOS, TUI from one codebase.

bachrc 10mo ago

Well I'm sad than you plan a full rewrite in Swift, it means that I'll never have the chance to use it on my Android Best of luck for your app though, it seems nice

wahnfrieden 10mo ago
It was already fully native Swift and I began the apps before React Native existed. But it’s not true what you say! I have begun prototyping experiments in running my Swift and SQLite in the browser via WASM, and I’m also evaluating https://skip.tools https://skip.tools for running SwiftUI on Android. I will go cross platform without ditching Swift. But to be honest I am more likely to pursue web than native Android (Skip runs Swift natively on Android and binds SwiftUI to Compose) because Google is such a nightmare on top of Apple compared to the revenue Android apps tend to bring - I’ve seen others recently port 6 digit MRR apps to Android and make less than 1/100 as much for instance. But maybe for valuable language learning apps it wouldn’t be so bad. Anyway I am thinking to prioritize web apps first that could run on mobile too and perhaps later upgrade that into an Android app (whether with Skip for native UI or as a wrapper around web UI).
- bachrc 10mo ago
  Ah my bad then, but I didn't know that SwiftUI apps where good on Android. I would love to be wrong actually
  - wahnfrieden 10mo ago
    It's exciting times for Swift. Viability for SwiftUI on Android and Swift in WASM has only really become possible in the last year or so. There is also a project called SwiftCrossUI which provides UI across Linux, Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, tVOS, TUI from one codebase.