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ios7 dictionary management bugs?

I like the new dictionaries in ios7. However they seem to behave unexpectedly:


- open a Japanese book in iBooks

- select a word

- choose Define

- get "No definition found"

- click Manage

- all the dictionaries have a "cloud with arrow" icon next to them, which I assume means that the dictionary data need to be downloaded from the cloud

- click the "cloud with arrow" icon next to "Japanese-English", it turns into an "x" icon

- go back

- Done (back to the book)

- select the word again

- choose Define

- now I get dictionary entries


This is good. But I'm not online, so where did the dictionary data come from? It certainly wasn't downloaded from anywhere. That's one unexpected thing.


The other thing is that dictionaries seem to randomly disappear, so I often need to keep following the steps above to re-add the "Japanese-English" dictionary (for example). It seems impossible to "permanently" add a dictionary.


Finally, I tried clicking the "cloud with arrow" icon while I was online, to see what would happen. This time a circular progress icon appeared, and it took several minutes to complete -- so it seemed to be downloading data for the Japanese-English dictionary. But the next day, the Japanese-English dictionary was gone again.


How can a dictionary be enabled permanently? And why does it seem to be unnecessary to download dictionary data?

iPod touch, iOS 7

Posted on Oct 3, 2013 8:50 AM

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Posted on Oct 3, 2013 9:29 AM

There have been other reports of disappearing dictionaries. I think all you can do is report this to Apple for them to fix:


http://www.apple.com/feedback


It may be that some dictionaries have to be downloaded and some are already present but not activated. I suppose you could test them all when you had no wifi connection to see if that is correct...

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Question marked as Best reply

Oct 3, 2013 9:29 AM in response to jasoniv

There have been other reports of disappearing dictionaries. I think all you can do is report this to Apple for them to fix:


http://www.apple.com/feedback


It may be that some dictionaries have to be downloaded and some are already present but not activated. I suppose you could test them all when you had no wifi connection to see if that is correct...

Mar 19, 2014 1:14 AM in response to jasoniv

Hello Jasoniv,


I have the same issue when I using different dictionary like Chinese- English dictionary and American English Oxford. I had called applecare and the they passed my case to a senior staff to handle. And the senior staff upgrad my case to their engineering department. During the period, they called me and ask me to submit some of my iphone's log to them. I was happy about that.


However, I got reply today. I am the first one report such issue. They will not able to confirm whether this is a bug or not. They will keep an eye on it. But there is no solution for this issue right now.


It was so frustrate that waiting few weeks for such an answer.


I think all we can to is report via feedback form. And they might ignore it forever.

Mar 29, 2014 11:53 AM in response to jasoniv

Same problem here.

Built-in dictionary setting not getting saved under iOS 7.1.

I also reported it to Apple, which is probably useless.


This problem is also listed at the end of this thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5351395


By the way, the Japanese-English dictionary is somewhat broken since the iOS 6.1.3 (at that time, it simply vanished from iOS).


Old features getting new bugs seems to become a very Apple thing!

ios7 dictionary management bugs?

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