List of apps etc. mentioned here:
● Jishop (very good for finding radicals or kanji by direct stylus/finger input; great resource for stroke order -- in general, overall the best kanji resource I have found so far)
● Kanji LS (Lets you take tests according to the grades for Japanese kids, or also JLPT. In general, very annoying because it shows you just how many kanji you don't know. You can input with finger/stylus.)
● Midori (Excellent all-around kanji resource. Too many great functions to list here. If you only have one, have this.)
● Brushes 3 (Not recommended.)
● Duke Pen (not specifically for kanji, but there is NO sketchpad specifically for recording kanji. Seems to have done a good job so far. I just want a record of all the kanji I know how to write and read so I can go back and review.)
Others I have but don't use so much:
● JEdict (Finger/stylus input. Cleans up your lines as you draw them. Very intuitive. I'd put this number three in the usefulness category.)
● Imiwa (Very good resource to look up kanji by grade or JLPT level. Gives you every possible reading, including Chinese and Korean. Very clean, pleasant interface. As far as I can tell, no user input, but it gives great stroke order examples.)
● KanjiQ (Pretty good, lets you input, but won't search based on your input. Good for practicing stroke order, clean interface.)
Some that are marginal:
Try to avoid gimmicky programs that group kanji into decks or flashcards. They're difficult to figure out and in the end don't teach you any faster than the hands-on ones listed above.
● Kanji Pivot (Based on flashcard-type groupings. Frustrating to figure out how to use properly. If you like flashcards, this might be for you. No input.)
● Kanji Stories (Good for listing all the kanji you don't know. Gives you a field in which to input some kind of mnemonic "story" for each kanji. Not for me, but maybe for you. No input.)
● Scribe Origins (Most unusual of the entire bunch. Very strange interface. Very game-like, has multiple-choice quizzes, flash decks etc. Could be good if you like playing games. Not very practical, at least for me.)
A lot of these apps advertise as "Free" or are very low priced, but you will quickly find that in order to do "X" you have to upgrade, or perhaps just to get rid of ads. To me, this is just deceitful. If your app is good, charge a good price for it -- don't lure people in and then charge them for "features" that are advertised in the descriptions.
(One resource that I'm mentioning here is not for kanji, but is for learning Japanese. It exists as a free online resource, but also comes as a free app for iOS. This is one of the best Japanese grammar books that I have read since I have been studying Japanese [going on 30 years]. Do the author a favor and support him by buying his book from Amazon.)
As for styluses (properly called "stylii"): There don't appear to be any huge standouts. Using a stylus is far better than using a finger, in my opinion; the most elementary reason being that you won't be writing too many kanji with your finger. As a general observation, they are all very, very bad. Ideally, they would be pressure-sensitive and have some sort of matched drawing/writing app that would use these abilities natively. At this point in the game, I have yet to come across anything that remotely fits this description. There might be dedicated separate "Artpads" (that's what they used to be called in the Dark Ages of computing -- 1995-2000) but I cannot see how one of these could interface with an iPad -- a laptop, maybe, but that is a whole different barrel of monkeys.
I found a stylus called a Trent Arcadia which is lightyears better than the almost hopeless Wacom Bamboo, which you should avoid like the plague. The Trent is slightly better -- more responsive, not like trying to write with a tampon for lab rats as is the Wacom. More like writing with a wet Q-Tip.
For our purposes, namely, some kind of brush-like stylus that maybe has a companion drawing app, where you can specify brush types and thicknesses, that is pressure-sensitive, well, that's like looking for Jesus in a topless bar. I think it's safe to say this does not yet exist, at least for iOS devices. Unless you know of one!
Oh, I almost forgot to mention: some of these apps with come in Android (Midori does, for sure) or MUST have some kind of doppelgänger for Samsung Galaxies and such like. Sorry, Windows/Android dudes and dudettes, you're on your own! Happy hunting!
If anyone has recommendations for any good hardware of software, PLEASE leave a comment -- the more input we get, the better.
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