Comparison

ToneDetector Lite vs ToneBoard Keyboard

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

ToneDetector Lite

Practice and master Mandarin Chinese tones with instant visual feedback. Compare your pronunciation's pitch contours to sample sounds to improve accuracy and reduce accent.

Highlights
  • Instant tone contour detection
  • Visual pitch shape comparison
  • Practice Mandarin tonal syllables
  • Covers hundreds of base and tonal syllables
  • Assess tone perception ability
  • Sample sounds for comparison
Features
Read full description

How to know if you pronounced a Mandarin tone correctly without human tutors? The 12 years old tone detector app lets you make a judgement by yourself instantly. It is very intuitive for you to practice your tones. The Chinese tones are the most difficult part for a foreign language learner to speak Chinese. How to get rid of strong non-native accent and misunderstanding caused by tone issues? Using this app, practice to be right in every Mandarin tonal syllable first! Hear sample tonal syllables, practice tonal syllables and see their pitch shapes immediately. By comparing your pitch contours with the sample pitch contours directly, you can make a judgement easily by yourself. From the visual intuitive feedback, you may improve your tones quickly. This app basically covers all the possible Mandarin Chinese syllables with lexical tones. They are 407 base syllables and 1259 tonal syllables. This app provides a sample sound for each tonal syllable for you to compare. By following the sample sounds, you can practice all the Mandarin tonal syllables and learn Chinese pronunciations. This app is essential to all Chinese learners to master Chinese tone quickly. It could be used for tone lecture demonstration purpose too. In the lite version ToneDetector: 1. detects sample tone contours. 2. covers 56 base syllables and 185 tonal syllables. 3. assesses your tone perception ability using 5 random syllables. In the full version ToneDetector: 1. detects both sample tone contours and your tone contours. 2. covers all the Mandarin Chinese syllables with lexical tones. They are 407 base syllables and 1259 tonal syllables. 3. supports to select syllables randomly, or select syllables by typing. 4. assesses your tone perception ability using 20 random syllables.

About

ToneBoard Keyboard

This app helps Mandarin Chinese learners practice tones by requiring them to input Pinyin with tones before suggesting characters. It functions like a standard QWERTY keyboard but enforces tone input for accurate recall.

Highlights
  • Mandarin tone practice
  • Pinyin input with tones
  • Character suggestion based on tones
  • Standard QWERTY layout
  • iOS compatible
Read full description

It can be very difficult for language learners to remember Mandarin Chinese tones, especially when using language learning apps and typing with standard Pinyin keyboards. These keyboards don't require you to input tones, making it very easy to type the correct characters without knowing the correct tones. These keyboards also tend to remember your frequently used words or suggest complete phrases, which is not helpful for language learners. By requiring you to enter tones along with Pinyin spellings before displaying characters, ToneBoard lets you practice recalling the correct tone for each syllable whenever you type. ToneBoard works very similarly to the standard simplified Chinese QWERTY keyboard for iOS, except that it requires tones to be input while typing before displaying word and character choices.

Screenshots

ToneDetector Lite4 screens
ToneBoard Keyboard3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: ToneBoard Keyboard at 100% against ToneDetector Lite's 0%. ToneBoard Keyboard also leads on update cadence (every 5 weeks vs every 30 months). ToneDetector Lite's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.8). On price, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

ToneDetector Lite holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 5 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 0% of ToneDetector Lite's written reviews are positive against 100% of ToneBoard Keyboard's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

ToneDetector Lite ships an update every 30 months, ToneBoard Keyboard every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
ToneDetector Lite versus ToneBoard Keyboard: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterToneDetector LiteToneBoard Keyboard
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (2 ratings) — better4.8 (5 ratings)
Positive reviews0.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings25 — better
Update frequencyEvery 30 monthsEvery 5 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS14.0 — better15.0
Further details — not scored
Size28 MB17 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJian ChengKevin Bell

Customer experience

ToneDetector Lite

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive0.0%
Neutral50.0%
Negative50.0%

ToneBoard Keyboard

All ratings5 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

ToneDetector Lite

No in-app purchases

None

ToneBoard Keyboard

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is ToneDetector Lite free?
ToneDetector Lite is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is ToneBoard Keyboard free?
ToneBoard Keyboard is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, ToneDetector Lite or ToneBoard Keyboard?
ToneDetector Lite is rated higher. ToneDetector Lite averages 5.0 out of 5 from 2 ratings, while ToneBoard Keyboard averages 4.8 from 5 ratings.
Do ToneDetector Lite or ToneBoard Keyboard have ads?
Neither ToneDetector Lite nor ToneBoard Keyboard shows ads.
Which is updated more often, ToneDetector Lite or ToneBoard Keyboard?
ToneDetector Lite ships an update every 30 months, and ToneBoard Keyboard every 5 weeks. Most recently, ToneDetector Lite was updated on September 24, 2026 and ToneBoard Keyboard on October 8, 2026.

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