Hi Paul,
I agree with Enjie that the Dictionary.com app is a very good choice
for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad users who use VoiceOver. It's free,
has nearly 1,000,000 words and 90,000 synonyms, a thesaurus, and will
pronounce words if you double tap on the link image that follows each
word. Furthermore, all these functions work (excerpt for the
pronunciation of the word) whether or not you have an internet
connection. There's a nice history function, and also a "Word of the
Day", and it's all accessible.
To answer your question, the WordBook Dictionary is accessible, also
has a thesaurus, is modestly priced ($1.99 for iPhone or iPod Touch;
$2.99 for the iPad) and has some nice functions like allowing you to
choose the voice used for pronunciation. It also has some nice links
to other web dictionaries. bookmarking features, word of the day,
etc. But what makes this app rather annoying for the VoiceOver user
is the fact that the basic definition portion of the dictionary has
linked nearly all the words in each definition. Although you can
double tap any one of these definitions to go to the linked entry, the
definition gets read out by VoiceOver with "link" following nearly
every word. You might want to explore this yourself to see whether
the added features outweigh the annoyances. I think that the voice
selection gets turned on when you do a search and then you are given
options for the voice to choose for the pronunciation under the audio
button.
The other dictionary app that I've used is the Advanced English
Dictionary & Thesaurus ($0.99 or £0.59) by jDictionary Mobile, the
same people who produce The World Factbook 2010 ($0.99). The Advanced
English Dictionary is more of interest (to me) for its thesaurus use
and links to related terms that come up in general contexts. These
could be, for instance, cooking terms, popular science words, economic
terms, etc. (Linked terms are kept under a separate entry, so
definitions are read out fine.) Here's a link to a review of
jDicitionary Mobile's Advanced English Dictionary & Thesaurus app that
outlines some of the strengths in the way this app links to related
words:
<http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/09/19/review_iphone_app_advanced_english_dictionary/print.html
>
Their quick summary: "AED cleverly fits words into a structure of
meaning rather than a simple alphabetical list. One for explorers of
language rather than crossword buffs."
I'd suggest that most list users will want to check out the free
Dictionary.com app first, and leave these other apps for additional
exploration.
Here are links to the apps mentioned in this post. All should be
available internationally, All apps for the iPhone work on iPhone,
iPod Touch, and iPad (according to the store listings). However, the
WordBook and Dictionary.com apps have separate versions optimized to
use the larger screen of the iPad. Please note that the Dictionary.com
apps in particular can take a while to load -- they're over 42 MB and
best downloaded over a WiFi connection. Remember that all these apps
work independent of a network connection, so the database must be held
on the device.
• Dictionary.com - Dictionary & Thesaurus (free) by Dictionary.com
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dictionary-com-dictionary/id308750436?mt=8
• Dictionary.com - Dictionary & Thesaurus - For iPad (free) by
Dictionary.com
http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/dictionary-com/id308750439
• WordBook English Dictionary & Thesaurus ($1.99) by Trancreative
Software
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wordbook-english-dictionary/id289694924?mt=8
• WordBook XL - English Dictionary & Thesaurus for the iPad ($2.99) by
Trancreative Software
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wordbook-xl-english-dictionary/id364030280?mt=8
• The Advanced English Dictionary & Thesaurus ($0.99) by jDictionary
Mobile
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/advanced-english-dictionary/id293150206?mt=8
• The World Factbook 2010 ($0.99) by jDicitionary Mobile
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-world-factbook-2010/id310064645?mt=8
HTH
Cheers,
Esther
Enjie Hall wrote:
I am using the Dictionary.com app, which is both free and accessible
with VO.
Enjie
----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Henrichsen" <[email protected]
>
To: "Iphone UsersGroup" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 1:19 PM
Subject: Looking for a dictionary
Hi, guys. Does anyone know if the wordbook dictionary is accessible?
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