Shorter Oxford English App Reviews

parfait, mais on attend toujours les 20 volumes "vrais" Oxford English Dictionary. svp !!! !!!

Wow! I just wasted my money on a garbage. Worst dictionary design i have ever seen. It confuses you when you try to look up or find something. What a "messed up" app!

Love this app. Indispensable. New visuals are fine. But why on Earth have you taken away the sidebar? Now, to see other options/forms for a word, I have to delete in the search box these irritating things: [1 noun]. VERY clumsy. Easy browsing is half the fun and utility of dictionaries, and youve eliminated that function. Please correct.

For some reason some of the words I earmarked as favorites redirect me to a different word when I tap on them. Could you please fix that? The other things Id like are secondary: being able to use the old search method (faster loading), sorting options for favorites. Otherwise its great

I have been waiting a long time for a decent app for the Oxford Dictionary and this is it. I have the print edition of the SOED and from what Ive seen this app is an replicates the print edition except for some of the usage guidelines. However, I would like to see a truncated popup of the IPA pronunciation key similar to the way the online OED allows you to hover over the pronunciation key and display only the pertinent symbols. Also, I think the Favorites needs enhancements: It would be nice if you could sort the favorites in various ways, say, ascending/descending order of date entered and ascending/descending alphabetically. I would like the default order to remain as it is now so that you could peruse and edit your most recent entries easily.

Wow! I cant believe Im holding the OED in the palm of my hand! Well, its only 1/3 of the full OED, but its a carefully selected 1/3, which covers all current words.

Very good, but I wish it has the (British) pronunciations of the earlier version of the reference work that was in the App Store — and like the newly re-released American Heritage Dictionary has for American pronunciations.

The SOED would be greatly improved with the addition of audio files. What should also be included is the pop-up pronunciation guide found in the Mac app. It would then be perfect. Having to leave the entry to go to the pronunciation guide is a drawback, especially for those of us who are less familiar with linguistic pronunciation symbols.

Not only is this a great dictionary but the app responds instantly. Never going back to the AHD now!

This is called the "Shorter Oxford English Dictionary", because the big OED is gigantic (I think the print books extend to over 3-4 feet on a bookshelf), and includes cool English major stuff, but is almost useless to mortals. The Oxford publishers are very understated, and while this is the "Shorter"edition, it is the full unabridged dictionary, with word origins and examples of usage in various ways. What it doesnt have is quotes of every usage of every word going back to Middle English. I have both this and the Websters Third New International (unabridged), and I like this a little better. For clarity of definitions, I think this and the M-W unabridged are both much better than the American Heritage Unabridged, which I also purchased at full price. If you have money to burn, buy all three and see what you like (Im just a compulsive English major).

It is indeed nice to have the shorter OED as an app. But it isnt well delivered. Its functionality is limited. It is also particularly annoying that on opening, it starts you out with the definition of "a." Why not open with the last word searched? Or even an empty search bar? Or favorites? Or history? Why not show the page on which the word appears in the print edition? For the price, I expected more.

This is the definitive dictionary to have. Its offline, its ludicrously comprehensive, and it provides subtle and thorough guidance on definitions and proper usage. Worth every penny.

The new version is incredibly slow to search for words.

Ugly fonts. Ugly design. Completely broken back button makes it amazingly hard to search for definitions. Even reading the introduction is painful, as its impossible to tell ehh section youre on and you have to navigate up and down to read the whole thing. OED should license the content to two companies and let them compete for the best interface, this is just ridiculous.

I love this app. I dont begrudge a penny that I spent on it, and Im rating it five stars because its simply amazing to have the Oxford Shorter in a handheld form. But that said… the latest update is terrible! It slows down searching considerably, and though the app still does eventually find the word-entry youre searching for, it is now nearly impossible to look at the word-entries that would be adjacent to it in a physical dictionary. As another reviewer noticed, it is also now very difficult to flip back to the list of search results once youve elected to see a particular word-entry. I wish the programmers would go back to the old search function, and if they feel the need to improve, they might consider adding a separate "advanced search" function that allows the user to search inside the text of definitions—that would be very useful, and it would make sense if that kind of search function were slower. In the meantime, Ive rescued the deleted previous version of this app from my Trash folder, and Ive restored it to my Ipod Touch.

This is now my go-to dictionary. The app is wonderful and the shorter OED is as much as Ill ever need. The recent update has made navigating the dictionary a breeze. I would give it six stars if I could!

I like the content. It is an excellent dictionary. The only thing I think should be improved is the implementation of a tooltip or pop-up for the abbreviations as it is very cumbersome to jump to the abbreviations section all the time.

Older version (8.0) was an excellent, 5-star product. The new 8.1 incorporates an annoying feature on the main dictionary page: a tab offering you links to more Mobile Systems apps. Why do I need to see this every time I use the app, every time I look up a word, after buying this for a premium price? The option for more Mobile Sys. apps should be tucked away in Settings, like everyone else’s, not planted on the home page. Very disappointing. Keep the old version!

Terrific dictionary. App finally is of good quality too.

Hate to new updates Mobisystems has rolled out on iOS. There are two buttons now to promote the developers other apps on the bottom of the screen. Which arent removable and on an iPhone 4s size screen, take up about 1/8th of the total screen.