What better weekend news to read than iPhone app news? Honestly, is there anything that phone can't do? Just minutes ago I've finished writing about Steve D.'s Trism game for the Apple device and now I've stumbled upon news on this app called iChinese. As its name implies, its helps you learn your characters.

They say you can take a Chinese course and still forget the ideograms. Huh...! Well, if that's the case, iChinese is just what you need. It is designed as a native iPhone application, according to Matthias Huber. He told tuaw.com that iChinese helps train iPhone users writing and reading of Chinese characters. The app actually features lessons that are based on well-known training courses, such as "Practical Chinese Reader."

If you need something to compare the app's system to, check out Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! released for Nintendo's DS. It pretty much uses the same concept, only without the stylus.

A jailbroken iPhone is required for the installation procedure (no need to remind anyone that Softpedia doesn't condone hacking/jailbreaking your Apple devices) in order to be able to run 3rd party apps on it. However, those who've downloaded Nullriver's Installer and installed it on their iPhone simply need to add a new source repository and install iChinese from the "Learning" category.

Using iChinese is as simple as saying "ni hao"! You go to "Library" and download (at least) one training lesson in order to be able to start doing writing exercises.

If you're dying to get this thing up and running on your phone you have two options, one of which Softpedia reckons is safer than the other, and that is waiting for the iPhone SDK to arrive. Apple's upcoming software development kit will aid developers in creating nifty apps such as iChinese, iAno, iHalo Stats or casual games like Trism, which ultimately will have you installing them on your Apple phone without having to jailbreak it prior to installation.