iOS vs PlayStore for Japanese/Kanji Learning

Planning to get a table to practice on for my learning but I am not sure about the apps that are available on each platform.

Would I get more of my money’s worth on iOS or PlayStore?

Mainly looking into Kanji writing and then vocab/grammar

4 comments
  1. The app for Anki is free on Android, but costs $25 for iOS users. Also, some really excellent dictionary apps like Akebi and Takoboto are Android-only.

    Other than that, it probably depends which tools specifically you plan to use. I’d say figure those out first, then research each of them to see what they’re compatible with.

  2. I have a strong love for the Apple pen if you plan to write with it a lot. Otherwise it’s probably mostly down to os preference.

  3. IMHO the main advantage of iOS is that it comes with the Super Daijirin J-J dictionary and The Wisdom J-E dictionary and they can be used everywhere where text can be selected (including in images as of iOS 16).

    There’s also handwriting recognition with Apple Pencil but tbh for regular practice I prefer a pen with a soft tip because of the noise.

    A nice thing about iOS is that the language setting is per app. You can set individual apps to Japanese if they support it without having to switch the entire device.

    App wise the Dictionaries app by Monokakido is excellent for (expensive) commercial dictionaries.

    For basic stuff like cheap dictionaries that use the crowd-sourced resources, kanji learning apps, SRS, note taking, and so on I don’t think there’s much of a difference. Both platforms have lots of good options.

    As others have mentioned the Anki app costs money on iOS but not on Android. They decided to make the people with the expensive phones pay for everybody 🙂 But I guess if you don’t want to spend a lot of money then Android options are cheaper in general.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like