

Show HN: Sakura Quick Math iOS App including handwriting recognition - bentrengrove
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCe6aDFOrwo&feature=plcp

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lena
This looks great! Congrats on the release, I hope this does well.

Some comments:

\- In the Dutch Appstore description you mention that this is good for
children in "groep 3, 4, 5, 6". In the US appstore you say "grades 3, 4, 5,
6". They are not equivalent. In the Netherlands six year olds are in "groep
3", so it's equivalent to US grade 1.

\- The handwriting recognition worked well, but it's not perfect (of course)
and I do have to write a bit differently than usual. I suspect it will be easy
for me to get used to. I am glad there is no penalty for errors, that makes it
less frustrating. Will test it out on my child later.

\- There need to be user profiles. That's essential for a game that you market
to both school children and parents. There also should be highscore lists in
the game itself, not just in Game Center. Also: in Game Center I only see
highscores for the Advanced modes, which is a pity.

\- I would absolutely love it if there were an option to choose which time
tables to test. That would be perfect for school children who have to train
them. I have a few apps for that, but none that measure your progress so
nicely and that purely focus on speed. I understand that that's not your focus
with this app, but still, I thought I'd put the idea out there

All in all, I am very impressed (though the lack of user profiles would
normally be a deal breaker for me in an app like this).

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bentrengrove
Thanks for the feedback lena. I am happy to say user profiles will be in the
next version as we are working on them right now. Also thanks for the feedback
about the Dutch description, I will fix that.

As for extra leaderboards, we are looking into it. We didn't do it at first
because we thought having 15 leaderboards would be a bit over the top.

Thanks a lot for the feedback, I really appreciate it.

~~~
lena
That's great that you're adding user profiles, thank you! 15 leaderboards
definitely isn't over the top, especially not for an app where improving your
score is so essential. You could even add a 16th, 17th and 18th leaderboard
for total time across the modes on each difficulty (that would be great, IMO).
I own multiple games with 25 leaderboards (one for each level on speedrunners,
one for each song for music games, etc), and on gaming forums people moan that
that is the maximum number allowed on Game Center because they would prefer
more.

------
bentrengrove
The latest app developed by myself and Shiny Things. Quick Math aims to
improve your mathematics skills in a fun and challenging manner. Includes our
own handwriting recognition engine that has been in development for over a
year. Would love to hear anyones thoughts and comments.

[http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/sakura-quick-
math/id537802071...](http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/sakura-quick-
math/id537802071?ls=1&mt=8)

~~~
mikkel
Damn that animation looks fluid!

I don't have an iPhone so I can't check it out - just thought I'd offer some
encouragement

Also are you planning to make an API around the handwriting engine?

~~~
bentrengrove
Yes there are plans but nothing concrete as of yet. Thanks for the
encouragement!

