Big improvements to Photo Lookup in Nihongo 1.29

Chris Vasselli

02 Feb 2023 • 3 min read

Nihongo 1.29 is out, and it's all about improvements to the experience of using photos, screenshots, and your camera to look up words and make flashcards. Download here.

Major Features

Bulk Photo Lookups - Select multiple photos and look up words in all of them at once.
Copy Text from Photos - Tap the share button on a photo to copy all detected text to the clipboard.
New Icons - Updated icons throughout the app for a more consistent and modern look.

Other Improvements

Added a share extension, allowing you to share screenshots and images from other apps directly to Nihongo through the share sheet.
You can now long-press on the camera button to go straight to taking a picture.
When viewing photo lookup results, you can now long-press on the dismiss button to go straight to the same photo source again (camera, photo library, files) to select more photos.
Added On-Device OCR as an option from the photo lookup settings.
When the connection to the OCR server fails, you will now be given the option to try text detection using on-device OCR instead.
Dictionary tab has been renamed to Search.
More descriptive text has been added as a placeholder in the search field.
Improved the algorithm for coloring text in blue as part of photo lookup. You should see fewer partially colored in characters now.
Expand hit box for camera search button.
10 free photo lookups now offered to new users (rolling out slowly).
Added a link from dictionary settings to the app's clipboard permissions, and an explanation of how to get rid of the prompt when pasting.
New backend for purchases will allow improved customer support.
You can now swipe to a different photo while the current photo has OCR processing in-progress.
Launch splash screen has been replaced with a simple solid black/white color.
Support for "search-only" word forms. Certain incorrect but commonly used forms of words will now be matched when you search for them, but not displayed on the word entry.
Addded a link to ko-fi to the settings screen.
Added a new prompt for new users to check out Nihongo Lessons.
Added a link to check out Nihongo Lessons in the settings screen.
Added mention of photo lookup feature to onboarding.
Added hints to help new users find and use the photo lookup feature.
Improvements to logic for determining contained words.
Change "Special Adjective" to "Attributive Adjective" and "Noun Modifier".
Stop audio immediately when toggling it off via the button on the flashcards screen.
Allow swiping from side of screen to navigate back on the end-of-deck card.
2800 new words
6800 new example sentences

Bug Fixes

Fix an issue when running in compact mode on iPad where partially swiping back from a word entry to the search screen and then releasing would cause the contents of the navigation bar to disappear.
Fix an issue where family purchases of lifetime subscriptions would sometimes not be recognized.
Fix an issue where words with too long furigana (more than about 24 characters) would appear broken in search results.
Fix issue where gray overlay on triage could be misplaced under certain circumstances.
Search icon becomes full screen when loading OCR in regular size class, reducing to compact, dismissing, then re-expanding to regular width.
When subscription has expired but we haven’t been able to confirm it yet, tapping on manage subscription leads to the purchase screen, but it still looks like the app is working, so it’s confusing.
Tapping on a word near the edge of a photo will no longer display a sideways popover, which laid out poorly.
Fix issue where purchase prompt when tapping on audio button could get cutoff.
Fix a crash when creating a clipping with only ASCII characters.
Fix 履く meaning incorrect in French.
Fix Chinese translation for 栄転.
Fix issue where you can OCR for free from photo gallery.
Fix 起こる getting 凝る as a contained word.
Fix 凝る example sentences wrong.
Fix 確かに has カニ as a contained word.
Fix missing meaning for kanji element of 謹
Fix issue where opening a link to a word entry (from Nihongo Lessons or the safari integration) while Nihongo is in photo lookup mode could cause the navigation bar to be stuck white.
Fix an issue where alternative writings of a word could appears as a contained word. (属する・嘱する)
Fix an issue where the app could crash if it found a symbol when parsing a photo that uses multiple unicode characters
Fix a crash when opening the app using a debug URL that doesn't exist.
Fix an issue where kanji flashcard would flip automatically at end of hint animation on final stroke
Fix an issue where bar button items could be come duplicated on iPhone 14 Pro.
Fix a crash when encountering a corrupted clipping.
Fix parsing of じゃありません and ではありまえん
Fix a rare crash when playing human audio.
Properly handle parsing of い adjectives conjugated into くありません.
Fix a rare crash on the search screen.