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Android App Update - v2.0

ChinesePod Apps Android
#1

Hey ChinesePod,

Today a significant update to the Android app has been moved out of beta and into production! That means everyone should be receiving an update prompt from Google Play shortly.

We wanted to create a forum post to present what’s new and changed as well as to encourage feedback, requests and thoughts from you all.

Here are some of the bigger changes :

Play Presets

Play presets is a new setting which allows for the customization of which track or set of tracks play (video / full lesson / dialogue / vocabulary review) when the main red, circular play button is pressed. For people who like to only listen to a specific track or order of tracks, this cuts down on the steps needed to get listening and learning.

For example, if you only ever listen to the full lesson, set your play preset to Full Lesson and that is what will immediately play when you click the red play circle. Alternatively, if you like to study by listening to the dialogue twice and then the full lesson, configure your play presets to Dialogue x 2 + Full Lesson and those three tracks will play, in that order, every time you hit the play button.

If you have play presets set up and want to listen to something different, long pressing the play button will give you the standard options to select which track to play manually.

Queue

Queue is an editable list of tracks which is built and queued when you start playing a lesson. The queue is initially built against your play presets, adding your corresponding track or tracks for each lesson to be played one after another. Add to, remove from and rearrange this list to keep the lessons coming.

Playback Controls

Controls for both playback speed and repeat behavior are now available. These are fairly straightforward, but great!

Interface Improvements

The lesson screen has been given a significant visual update - this includes color theming to match the lesson image, new media controls, new animations, improved dialogue text alignment, queue list support and more.

forum_prev.png4408×2561 1.8 MB


In addition to what’s been mentioned, lots of other improvements have been put into this release — both user facing and under the hood — and we're excited to hear what you all think!

As always, thanks for the support! Feedback on Google Play or here in the forum is always more than welcome. Let us know how you use the app, how you study, what you’d like to see and how you find the new update!

Hunter

3 Likes
#2

hi,

If you can bring in the exercises of the web app into the android app, that would be the game changer. Then I can do nearly everything on my phone which I always prefer because I dont like sitting in front of PC for the whole time.

Also if you bring the stats from here: https://chinesepod.com/dashboard/progress into the app it would be good.

How the app looks is not important to me. functions are more important.

Best Regards
Markus

2 Likes
#3

and a lesson pleco vocabulary pack would also be good. so that i can just download the pack and get all vocabularies of the lessons into pleco.

1 Like
#4

On the web page under the vocabulary manager there is an “export to Pleco” function. It would be great if the app(s) could somehow create Pleco cards on the same mobile device.

On the web site go to Tools / Vocabulary and select “Export Vocabulary” in the upper right of the page. The first menu choice is “export to Pleco.”

#5

@markus

The dashboard and lesson exercises are definitely features we’d like to get added in as well. Thanks for the feedback!

#6

i know that but still it would be good to have with one click the vocabulary of the lessons for pleco.

besides that on the android app there is often the bug that i click on a sentence or a vocabulary and the dropdown menu doesnt appear so that i can copy the vocabulary or text into pleco, hear the audio (which i never do anyway)…

also I saw that after a lesson is over it is going to the next lesson now. I found that it was better before without that. And i should be able to start to play the audio that i want without going to the start or end of audio. now going to the end is not even possible anymore because the next lesson is started.

the comments if the lesson could also be brought into the app but not as important as the exercises.

very important that it doesnt show me lessons in the lesson list that I have already marked as studied. Don’t know why you let users see them when they marked it as studied.

#7

Hi,

Can anybody help me to get the Chinese Pod app on my Android phone?

My Play Store only shows Chinese Pod Next )which crashes upon opening every time.) same issue when I try to download from the browser.

#8

The correct app is this one: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chinesepod.next

What device are you using? If there is a crash, please submit the crash report so that @hunter_robbert can look into it.

Thanks

#9

Hey @648613770,

I believe I just got an email about your issue. Are you on an Asus Zenphone 4? If so, it looks to be a device specific bug which I’m in the process of trying to resolve. I’m sorry I don’t have an immediate solution for you.

I’ll keep you updated on how things are going.

#10

Hi.

The new ChinesePod app is nice. Perhaps two remarks:

  • Seamless transition between online and offline.
    I download my lessons over WiFi. I do not have mobile data. I use Pleco and Skritter this way. But if there is no internet access, sometimes the Chinesepod app stops working. I’d like to be able to listen to already downloaded lessons, even if there is no internet access.

  • Not having to make the same choices over and over again.
    When I download a lesson, I notice I always choose the same checkboxes, e.g. lesson, dialogue, vocabulary.
    The choice what to download - lesson, HQ lesson, dialogue, vocabulary - could be a setting you choose once, not something you have to select each and every time you download a lesson.

Thanks.

#11

It crashes on startup for me too, on an LG G2. I have tried reinstalling it, which did not help.

I have submitted the crash report, but don’t know if it just goes to google or if you guys actually receive it.

I’m looking at the “system info” section of the crash report, I can’t figure out how to copy and paste from the stack trace so I’ll just summarise what it says… apparently it is being killed because of a “bad notification posted from package com.chinesepod.next: Couldn’t create icon: StatusBarIcon”…

#12

Hey @justin_armstrong,

Yea that’s the same crash log I’m seeing from the crash reports. What version of Android are you running?

#13

Android 4.4.2

…

#14

@justin_armstrong @648613770
So this looks to have been a compatibility issue on phones running Android 4.4.* and below. I’ve just pushed an update to Google Play (v2.0.5) which includes the fix and which should be available within 24 hours. If for some reason you all get the update and things haven’t been resolve, please let me know!

Hunter

#15

As a general update:

Revision 2.0.5 also includes the ability to turn off the auto-play functionality of the queue list (as suggested by @markus). The lesson screens repeat button now toggles to an ‘off’ position which is represented by a repeat icon with a slash through it (shown in the image below). This will set the audio to stop after it reaches the end of the currently playing track.

Screenshot_20161002-224801.png1424×512 18.3 KB

As always, let us know your thoughts. We always appreciate feedback.

Hunter

1 Like
#16

Yay, works again.
Thanks

#17

You’re welcome! Thanks for the patience.

1 Like
#18

also it would be better if the app doesn’t require internet connection. i have a good connection now but before it was bad and I couldnt use the app outside on the move.

#19

The v.2.0.5 version is working much better on my Asus Zenphone, thanks.

A small thing I’ve noticed on my downloaded lessons: some of the last sentences in the Expansion sections do not translate from characters to English.

Maybe it’s just my phone and not a problem really, I’m not sure.

E.g. Elementary podcast ‘drawing the winning ticket’

Thanks

#20

many things do not translate. thats a bug in many lessons.