iVocabulary 3 – Learn Words 4+

I used this app before to study for my Mandarin HSK, worked fine then but recently when I wanted to study for a new language my library just disappeared after I opened it up and it appeared on screen for a few second. I have emailed the support email address but did not receive an answer. Not a good service! Would recommend looking for alternatives!

Brilliant app for anyone looking to work on their vocabulary thoroughly and efficently. It's highly customiseable which is appropriate considering each of us learn in different ways: you can configure your tests to the smallest detail. The best feature for me is that iVocabulary remembers which words you got wrong during tests and helps you review them at increasing intervals so that they are eventually lodged permanently in your memory. User-friendly interface and a nice clean layout seal the deal. This is vocabulary learning, Apple-style!

DO NOT BUY!
Don't buy this App before the main glitches/bugs have been removed/resolved.
Sync doesn't wok at all if you have more than a few hundred words and entire Vocabulary Databases disappear and are unrecoverable. These issues have been present for quite a while and appear on all variations of devices and systems, Mac, iPhones, iPads. In the current state this app is a waste of time.

Been using this app for several years now and unfortunately most of the glitches have never been resolved. Sync is a catastrophy on icloud and dropbox and direct sync via wifi. To be honest, I have more trouble with the app than it really helps me save time. The only reason I am still trying to make it work is that the available alternatives for iOS/Mac are even worse.

I seriously can’t be bothered listing all the things that don’t work at all or don’t work reliably. Too much to wirite. And it is not that I don’t know what I’m doing. Same glitches on multiple machines and devices, both with vocabulary files/lists set up from scratch as well as re-imported from cloud. Changes don’t sync across devices, sync takes AGES (even after complete reset on all devices and deleting all cloud files from the cloud), sometimes vocabulary files/projects disappear altogether. Disabling one cloud service in sync settings occasionally requires app restart before allowing a different cloud service to be allowed to be set up. Re-enabling sync services often does not re-authenticate with the service, which is a problem more often than not.

When copy/pasting vocabulary from other sources (i. e. from the web), style information is being invisibly stored in the vocabulary tables, too. That’s a lot of fun if you decide to use the system speech feature which will then read out style information instead of the individual word. No way of editing the ‘raw’ data in the tables other than deleting the data in one cell and pasting cleaned (style-free) text back into the cell. Annoying. Also, no way of exporting vocabulary just as a csv (or similar) file format to be able to work on the word lists and then reimport or just to be able to use them in different applications.

It just feels that the 10 years this app has been on the market (without significant upgrades/new features), not much time has been dedicated to it to find and resolve bugs.That’s a pity, as this app could easily hold up or beat the available competition.

And btw, Chris, just get your main consumer app free from bugs first and then publish apps for developers!

How did all the previous negative reviews from the last years disappear from this app store page???

UPDATE:
Derveloper seems unable to check his app from a users scenario. Bugs still all there, sync is a desaster. I waste more time trying to get the sync back to work than I can use for actual studying. Colour labels disappear, new words added on one device are deleted upon sync. I have to create bnckup copies every time I add or change something. It is ANNOYING!

The quality of an app is not only determined by the features and the design it offers (both are ok, but bnot mind blowing), but also on the diligence the developer put into error handling. Anticipating user interactions that may be different from what the developer expects users to do should result in handling errors and unexpected app behaviours and lead to gradual removal of existing bugs. This app has not been thoroughly checked for bugs for years. It shiould be taken off the App Store or made free.

MORe UPDATE / 26 Aug 2020
Had another go and wasted hours in trying to make it work.

Used the opportunity to reinstall iVocabulary on my mac after a clean system reinstall. Fairly new MBP with Mojave running.

Below the bugs/errors I encountered thid time:

- keeps prompting file open dialogue when starting app
- all my colour tags have gone black (I believe after last update of iVocabulary)
- Crashes when trying to set colour tags
- Constant sync errors, no prpper error handling. Log useless.
- Font colours in training not working, always black
- Sync: no books on icloud appear. then, when adding books from other device, books appear twice after sync.
- No edit button in home screen to delete vocabulay books. edit button appears only after rotating device at least once (iPad version)
- Double tapping on solution (iPad version) can result in two states:
- a. if answer is right: app progresses to next word but offers no more solutions. they multiple choice buttons won’t appear, book has to be closed and training restarted.
- b. if answer is wrong: question word progresses, choice buttons don’t. guesswork required.

As mentioned before, it is still the best of all available study apps on the iOS store, but the constant time wasting struggles are frustrating and annoying. They could all be eliminated by thorough testing and error handling.