Not sure to what extent you want to be all things to all people (when are you adding the chinese shopping list on my iphone functionality?), but if you are moving away from the core of writing, I'd put tone and similar syllable discrimination drills high on my list of requests.

And, for what it's worth, I think that is more of a new user / learner feature, and I expect that's where your volume is.

Best,
David

David, not a bad idea at all; I like it. If I understand you, the idea would be to play out an audio file and pick which tone.

I think we could almost do this now by creating a list that had words (and sounds) with the pinyin, a1 a2 a3 a4, ai1 ai2 ai3 ai4, etc. and using tone practice mode. If it was crammed in non-recording mode it would work quite well (and give, as a side-benefit, exposure to some characters with those tones).

Right - I think it could be good for drilling on the tone and on some of the similar initial / final combinations, for example distinguishing j/zh, x/sh, etc.

I'd love to see this in Skritter, maybe in the form of the "dictation mode" I have suggested in the past (hear the audio, type the pinyin).

However, in the meantime you can do exactly this right now with Anki and the free "Pronounced Mandarin Chinese Pinyin" deck. It plays recordings of Chinese syllables and you have to come up with the pinyin, including the tone. Highly recommended.