I've just begun my japanese studies in Japan and everyone is buying these awful electronic dictionaries for learning. Basically they are like small computers that translate words and often have hand-writing recognition to input the kanji, the chinese characters. The thing is, it seems like there are a couple of very powerful and competent applications for the iPhone/iPod Touch that can pretty much do the same things, but in a neater package. (after all, it's Apple y'know!)

Does anyone have any experience of the applications such as KanjiFlip, Japanese, ShinKanji and the other amazing-looking apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch? Can they be as useful, or even more useful, as an electronic dictionary?

The thing is, I kind of dislike most electronic dictionaries. They look and feel very clumsy and do not seem very smart at all.