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Interesting tidbit: it's taken us months to get approved for the App Store b/c we were a bit stubborn in our refusal to offer an audio-only version of Sal's videos to people w/ crappy cell connections.

Since his stuff is so low-bitrate, we thought we could get all videos down to the lowest of Apple's HTTP Live Streaming requirements -- even having the crappiest of crappy video is 1000x better than audio only when trying to learn algebra.

We were able to make a <64kbps version for most of the videos, but couldn't do it for everything. Some were just over the mark. We hoped for a little app store leniency given the content.

Eventually we had to give up on some problematic videos and offer audio-only versions for crappy streaming connections. Gotta ship.




Do you guys have some sort of analytics system in place to determine how many users are actually accessing the audio-only versions? It sounds like you'll get these for free through Google Analytics on the website due to use of a UIWebView.


I'm honestly not sure how to detect which version of Apple's adaptive live streaming protocol thingamabob is being received. It's probably possible, but no, we don't have it at the moment.

Tips welcome.


Sal? Or Khan Rep? I'm just about to dive into the app but I want to know up front whether you guys have taken the online practice system and remade it for the iPad . Apple showed off stupid iBooks interactivity, like sliding to help yourself learn the stages of mitosis..., they don't get it. But if someone is leading the way, it's khan academy.


(GP is Ben Kamens, lead developer at KA.)

As of now, the app only does videos; exercises will come in a later release.


Have they actually stated that they are going to implement the exercises in iOS? The videos are great but the exercises are my favorite part. If they implement the exercises in iOS I might finally have to get myself an iPad.


They are coming to the iPad app. However they won't be implemented in native code; they'll be jQuery Mobile-based.


I seriously can't wait for the exercise side of things, do you have any idea when such an update will appear?


It's on the back burner right now because we're working on other stuff -- sorry I can't provide a timeframe.


Thanks, checked the profile right after replying, how stupid!


For the record I got really excited Sal might use hacker news, not sure why, but he's actually a true boss.




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