Dictionary.com’s new iPhone app, released in late March, includes a dictionary, a thesaurus, and a word-of-the-day (WOTD) feature.

And it’s free. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary for iPhone costs 25 dollars. That’s got to hurt.

What’s good

• Fast.
• No connection needed to use the dictionary and thesaurus.
• Spoken audio pronunciations
• Suggests words as you type

What needs improvement

• Should remember you were in the Thesaurus when you last quit the app, and return you there after launch.
• Needs to display a Cancel button when the keyboard is shown. Right now, once you summon the keyboard, the only way to
  dismiss it other than by searching is to tap the little X icon in the search field twice.

• Encourages you to “Get our FREE Word of the Day email”, even though you’re already using that feature on iPhone.
• Suggested words need slighly larger targets. Right now, it’s too easy to accidentally tap the wrong one. Making matters worse, the definition page lacks a back button to let you see the suggested words list again.
• WOTD doesn’t let you see previous entries.
• WOTD doesn’t offer audio pronunciation.

What needs serious rethought

• Recent displays words you’ve viewed in the dictionary, thesaurus, and WOTD. It’s handy, but the design is odd:
  • WOTD should not be included. It needs its own history.

    Including the dictionary and thesaurus makes sense; including WOTD does not. Looking up a word in the dictionary or thesaurus and checking out the WOTD are different activities. If you already have a decent vocabulary, many of the words in WOTD may not interest you, yet they’ll still occupy space in Recent.

  • The buttons for viewing that word in the dictionary, thesaurus, or WOTD are too small and too close together.

    They’re unnecessary, in fact. The tab controller at the bottom of the screen already lets you move easily between dictionary, thesaurus, and WOTD, so if the app simply remembered which you had last used to view that word, tapping the word could default to where you last viewed it.

  • The color-coding used to distinguish the dictionary and thesaurus buttons is confusing. The colors would be a bit more effective if Recent included a legend, but it doesn’t. But again, the buttons are unnecessary.
  • Dear developers,

    About that Edit button…I understand your dilemma: you couldn’t put the Edit button on the bottom because you already had the tab controller there, and you couldn’t put it on the top because you’ve reserved the titlebar for branding. But real estate is too limited on the iPhone and convention too strong to usurp the titlebar for branding alone. Please move the Edit button to the titlebar.

    Thank you,
    A user

Thursday, April 9th, 2009, 11:58 am    You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.