iPhone App: The Concise Oxford English Dictionary
First, let you know that I own a paper edition of Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (7th Edition). I have no doubt this is the best dictionary product I ever have. And, furthermore, I able to install it on my personal computer helping daily references need in an easy way. It’s all cost me about $25 (I paid in rupiah) to buy it. What a cheap is it?
So I want the companion on my new iPod Touch. So I went to googling trying to find some review and availability of any iPhone apps on the markert. I was looking for Oxford dictionary as my priority, but I still open my choices as long as I got a good product. I found an article written by Ben Boychuk on Macworld iPhone Central, Review: More iPhone dictionary apps. This is second series after a great another previous review.
The review is indeed very good. Clear and helpful. According to it, I wrapped my mind that I may need to buy Oxford, tough it is lesser word, because my wife was desperately need some alternative to bring full power dictionary without weighing the paper edition. And as English student, she needs Oxford. Tough I have debated over the quantity other dictionary has. Then, we agree to put the purchase later, may be after a week or so, because we wanted it damn sure that our review is quite all in all, we had not wrong spending. Before doing that, I bought the WordBook ($8) dictionary, it has a discount and now sold only $1.99. Good price. I am really satisfied with it.
Some screenshot I took on Oxford dictionary app for iPhone/iPod Touch. 1) search screen; 2) word definition screen; 3) program information screen.
So, my expectation was really high, and it is indeed came to full disaster. I finally purchased the Oxford dictionary ($24.99) on January 5. Finally, may be it is may fault to not understood clearly the meaning of the word concise in this product. It is indeed my worst spending ever for an iPhone App. A really waste of money! About the feature, you can read the complete list in the MacWorld review, but here the brief review of the features:
- It has four tabs, labeled Oxford, History, Dictionaries, and Info.
- First screen when you tap the app is Oxford (hidden), but the focus is on word search. Plain fair, tough it can be improved, may be user wants to access other feature, how to do that? Tips: you can click Done button, so the search bar will be slide up.
- Type the word, you will be listed with several matched words. From their page, they are supporting wild card search, I tried it with “p*nde” and the first word is “penumatic”. Pandemonium which I tried to look for is listed far is not found in the list below (or may be too far below and I was lazy to scroll through)
- I tried the “?” keyword with “p?nde” and the first word found was mande
- I clicked the word, it will displayed several definition of the word from noun, adjective, and verb (if any available). It also have word origin. As well as speeach button, if any sound module is created for the word. You also can view some word forms (click the left button), there you can find common case using of the word, and possessive case. You can navigate from any word you already searched in the dictionary by clicking the back and forward button (arrow left and right).
- Just found out, it actually have two type of search screens. The first is explained above, it will showed when you first opened the app. The second can be accesed by tapping the magnifier icon in the top right sceen. There you can find two type of search which can be accessed more by tapping the selection in top right of the screen. One for ordinary queries. Another for wildcard search.
- Tapping History tab will showed you any words you had been searching for in the dictionary.
- Tapping Dictionaries tab currently showed one option, English explanatory. I don’t know what this is for. If such one option is needed, why do they created in a tab? It’s better placed in app setting.
- The last tab is Info. It contains program information as you can see from the last screen capture above.
- The last two tabs indeed are very not useful if speaking on user needs. I think it is better be placed on another are, so screen estate is saved and can be utilized for another important features. (Think about Featured word like the WordBook have).
Other warnings:
- If you don’t understand the word of concise, or expected more, don’t buy it.
- Oxford doesn’t stated how much words they have on the dictionary. The words is about 64,154 as on latest version bought on early Jan 2009 (published by Paragon build 157 Core 95). They are stating it has rich vocabulary, rare, historical, and archaic term, instead I found several unique words didn’t found on the library.
- Oxford also doesn’t stated how complete is the sound module. The sound module is incomplete. Not every words has sound speech.
- It doesn’t have thesaurus.
- As a comparison: Oxford takes 34.5 MB for space, Webster takes 11 MB for space, American Heritage takes 309 MB for space.
So here is my notes. If you are intended to buy some good dictionary on iPhone/iPod Touch, avoid Oxford. Try to look another product. I read Webster ($24.99) is having more words (without sound) or American Heritage ($29.99). The later is also quite good in term of customer support. Their developer followed blog and comments and directly responding to it. Please take a note that Webster dictionary is created by the very same developer, with the same non-intuitive interface.
Last thing to note, if the Oxford apps priced around $10, I think it is quite fair. Tough if the content are still the same, that’s the word Concise means it, I much prefer for WordBook. Further review on WordBook will be posted in near time.
WordBook screen example.
Dear Oxford publisher, you better take the Advanced Learner’s version to iPhone, please. I am more than happy to buy it, and priced it fairly :) Thanks.
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— Dave · 24/01/09 01:43 PM · #
The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary is actually a lesser book than the Concise. That is, Advanced Learner’s has fewer words than the Concise. Feel free to check this on Amazon if you like :-)
Also, check the iTunes Store—the app has recently been updated.
— Arif Widianto · 24/01/09 05:24 PM · #
Hi Dave,
Perhaps not in word vs word. I don’t think the Advanced learner’s is lesser book than the Concise. After I checked on Amazon, the pages is nearly the same. Since I don’t own the paper edition of Concise, I can’t judge which dictionary is most complete in term of word definition, usage example, etc. Please to note, before I made the review, I checked several word description, and my Advanced Learner’s has some rich description, with some usage example, while the iPhone Concise edition only showed fewer.
Thanks for your comment.