Support

Something not working, or a question the app does not answer? Write to me and a person will read it.

Subscriptions

How do I cancel?

You cancel in the store you subscribed through.

• iPhone: open Settings, tap your name at the top, then Subscriptions, then Inkstone, and cancel there.
• Android: open the Google Play Store app, tap your profile picture, then Payments & subscriptions, then Subscriptions, then Inkstone, and cancel there. Or open your Google Play subscriptions directly.

Either way, you keep access until the period you have already paid for runs out.

How does the free trial work?

The annual plan opens with a 7-day free trial. Cancel any time before it ends and you are not charged. We send a reminder on day five, before the trial turns into a subscription. The monthly plan has no trial and begins billing on the day you buy it.

I already paid, but the app is asking me to subscribe

This usually means the phone is signed in to a different Apple ID or Google account than the one that bought it, or the app was reinstalled. Open the paywall and tap Restore purchases at the bottom. If that does not bring it back, email me with the date of the purchase and I will sort it out.

Refunds

Refunds go through the store that took the payment.

• App Store: Apple handles every refund. Ask at reportaproblem.apple.com.
• Google Play: within 48 hours of a purchase, you can ask Google for a refund yourself (Google's refund page). After that, write to me and I will look at it.

If something about the app caused it, write to me too, because I would rather fix the cause.

Reading

Is there audio for every story?

Yes. Every story is read aloud by a native voice, word by word, and the app lights each word as it is spoken. There are two voices, one male and one female, and you can change which one reads to you in Settings. Every individual word also has its own recording, so you can tap a word and hear it on its own.

Does it work without a connection?

Reading does, always. Every story, its pinyin, the dictionary and the translations are inside the app from the moment you install it, and so are the voices for the first stories you will read.

The other voices arrive once. Opening a book downloads its recording, a second or two on wifi, and it stays on your phone from then on. Nothing streams. If you are about to fly, open a shelf in the library and tap Keep on this phone, and every voice on that shelf will be waiting.

Can I read traditional characters?

Yes. Settings has a switch between simplified and traditional, and it changes the whole library, not just one story.

The pinyin is too much, or not enough

There are four levels, in Settings and on the Aa button while you read: every word, tone marks only, none, and a smart level that leaves guides on the words above your level and takes them off the ones you already know.

Your progress

Do I need an account?

No. There is no sign-up, and nothing you read leaves your device.

What happens to my saved words if I delete the app?

They are stored on your device, so deleting the app deletes them. Reinstalling restores your subscription but not your word book. There is no cloud copy yet; if you want one, tell me, because that is how it gets prioritised.

Can I move to a new phone?

On an iPhone, an iCloud or encrypted computer backup of your old phone carries Inkstone's data across when you restore onto the new one.

On Android, Google's backup carries it across when you set up the new phone from a backup of the old one. Backup has to be turned on, and both phones need the same Google account.

Setting the new phone up as new does not carry it across on either.

Something is wrong with a story

The texts, translations and interpretations are edited by hand, which means mistakes are possible and worth reporting. If a translation reads wrong, a pinyin is off, or a commentary attributes something to the wrong person, send me the story name and what you saw. Corrections go out in the next update.

Requests

Missing a poet, a period, or a kind of story you want to read? The library grows, and what people ask for is most of what decides the order.