Worldictionary iPhone App Review

If you just so happen to spot some text in a book magazine or newspaper which is in a different language to your mother tongue, then what do you do about that? Whip out your handy German speaking friend? Rush home to go to Google translate? Well the answer is simple; you use your smartphone. Accessing the internet is ridiculously easy now with thanks to tablets and smartphones and accessing services like Google Translation or Babel Fish is a breeze. Whether these websites are fully optimized for the mobile user however begs another question, so today we have an iPhone app which could be right up your street. Read on to find out whether this app is your very own portable multi-lingual friend.

App Introduction

Worldictionary promises to be an interesting app indeed. Using Google translate, the app utilizes your iPhone’s camera function to act as text recognition software. This means that you have to naturally be connected to the internet for it to work. The main selling point to this app is that you will never again have to spell out words written in a foreign tongue, but simply use your iPhone’s camera instead to tell you what some text says.

Review, using it

Okay let’s get this one out of the way; the bad reviews of this app are of users which must not be using it properly, because when it comes to accuracy, i’d say this little app has been correct on around 95% of the times I’ve used it when it comes to reading words. All that is needed from you is to use your in app camera to focus on any word, and it’ll do the rest. In tests, the app sometimes became slightly loborious to use with thanks to some words being either unreadable (not sure why) and occasionally taking around 5 seconds to register the correct word. You’ll note above I said this app works 95% of the time, however getting that 95% takes patience which for some users will be an issue.

Graphics wise the app isn’t good looking nor bad looking, and the app icon is okay too. The main use of this app isn’t for eye candy but for translation, so one can forgive it for not being too showy when in use.

I found that the accuracy of this app depends purely on the typeface it is trying to read. Pointing the camera to my keyboard shift button with the words ‘shift’ amply written on it proved a slight problem for the app however I’m unsure as to whether this was because of the matte texture the key has. The key test took a little while however after 6 seconds, the app finally registered the word shift.

My main gripe with this app is the process of translation, though, which goes like this; fire up the app, point the camera to a word, let it register the word correctly, then select the language you want it translating to, then wait for it to load. This process is pretty simple, to be fair, but it’s incredibly dull and to be quite honest it is much easier for you to just go to Google Translate and type the word in there as well as quicker. In a lot of ways, the app has quite a bit of room for improvement, and one massive improvement would be that it didn’t have to access the internet for common words in European languages.

Pricing

The app costs $5.99 on the app store, which is pretty expensive to be honest however not too extreme. Is the price really worth the frustrating process though?

Overall

Overall i’d recommend you give this app a try. Although here we’ve discussed a few downsides and i’ve recommended one room for improvement, the app does have some value; it’s easy to access, a cool way of looking up words, and perhaps in exceptional circumstances more convenient than just going straight to a translator. If you do jump ship on our behalf, be sure to leave a comment blasting / thanking us.
Rating: (6/10)