Seeing the success I have had with anki when I start on chinese I will probably purchase SuperMemo to try chinese with it. Again thanks for the comment.

Of course, if you aren't studying Japanese then I suppose something like smart.fm with more colorful and "fun" study options might be good. But Anki was originally written by a guy studying Japanese to study Japanese with, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that it has the best features for learning that language.

– I've found this to work better for me actually, but it's a good point.

– On the other hand it's easy to just rely on the available lists. And I think smart.fm is faster if you create your lists manually.

– That is of course a good point as well. However, by that time they will most definitely have an offline iPhone application available so you can at least finish your current decks (or at least I can^^).

– @DumbOtaku

– You can obviously review your items and they will appear at the appropriate moment, however, if you use more than one list you'll have to check them all if there's anything to review (the same goes for Anki if you use more than one though).

– I'm with DumbOtaku on this one.

– I can drill just fine with pen & paper and the iKnow app… Not sure what you mean.

– It's of course bad if the photo isn't relative, but I can live with that. You can always create your own items with photos if it annoys you that much.

And putting KeyholeTV (or anything like that) next to Anki or iKnow would just make me unfocused.

-Browser-based, so often less responsive.
Agree

-Only tests a limited number of vocabulary items at a time, so you lose time just clicking through the interface
yeah this can be a problem for sure if you are wanting to move ahead fast. As a work around i think there is a way to change it to timed incase you need to get it done by a certain time. However, that doesn't help if you want to keep the timing and move ahead.

-No way to quickly import large amounts of vocabulary.
no, not natively, but I think in the developer API there is a way, but that doesn't help normal people hehe. Maybe once I get some time i can write an app to do that for people.

-If smart.fm every folds, you lose everything.
Definitely a problem, also if they upgrade from iKnow to smart.fm they can be out for several days like I mentioned above. That is one of the big things that turned me off to Smart.fm as my primary application for SRS.

-Doesn't take show cards again once it smart.fm thinks you know them. With Anki, you will eventually review every card again at the appropriate moment, even if that's two years later.
Actually I am pretty sure it does, but once you reach 100% there is no incentive to go back to those old lists. So the point still stands to a degree

-Often uses multiple choice answers, which results in overestimating your ability.
Actually, this is the reason I like Smart.fm so much. I underestimate my knowledge a lot, but they have developed a way to better gauge actual knowledge.

-No way to properly drill writing words in kanji (unless you just want to copy the correct multiple choice question answer you see on the screen). Pen & paper are all you need to drill kanji writing with Anki.
Not exactly sure what you mean, but will answer as if I do know. Using the iKnow flash app itself it is hard to drill. However, if you look at the list on the site instead of in the flash app you can write down what is necessary. So more it is a different way to approach it.

-Pictures are taken from stock photography, so don't always match item in question.
This annoys me greatly. It is cool to get images from flickr, just please make them make sense.

The keyhole idea is interesint hadn't thought about that.

Overall I think we agree to some degree I just think calling it a joke in comparison is a bit to harsh. Heck I would use it over say supermemo and surusu any day of the week.

Only good thing about smart.fm. I think are the example sentences, but there's an Anki plug-in to do that too. And it's true that it doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles to it. If that a problem you can just resize the window and place KeyholeTV of something next to it while you're studying.

All that said. I do love how SRS is implemented in Smart.fm with the quiz type system. It makes it nicer especially since I choose hard in anki like 70% of the time it seems even when I could choose good.

There are plusses and minuses to them all and one has to win as the primary, even though I do use both.

While Anki has all the functions you need, it lacks a good studying environment. Anki is _very_ plain, it's all black and white. It's a lot harder for the brain to remember things if all it sees is a line of black text on a white surface. If you activate your brain by playing a game you'll see that things will be easier to remember. And smart.fm does exactly that, while it's not a game, it feels a bit like one and it has a colorful environment, uses audio, graphics and is far more varied in terms of how you see your deck cards.

I've tested the two with Kanji exams I had back in school and I almost got the best grade when using smart.fm, and I finished less than 25% of the deck. When I used Anki however, I spent much more time studying (probably equivalent to 50% in smart.fm) and failed.

So out of my experience with the two, I believe that smart.fm is superior. If the environment is fun and the way you study is too, you'll learn more and not get bored that easily which could potentially keep you from going on an hiatus. Of course we've all talked about using other sorts of sources for making our studies more fun, like anime, dramas, music and whatnot. But if the "real" studies are boring you'll need to be very disciplined to keep up with it.

smart.fm is also working on their iPhone app and they have a solution for Japanese mobile phones. There's also iKnow Touch! for the iPhone (or iPod Touch) which you can use for preparations when you're off the computer. You can't use it as an SRS but you can see all of your lists and items, listen to how they sound and listen and see sentences with those items.