Summer is coming to a close, leaves are beginning to change and the buzz of back to school is in the air. Everyone has a different opinion on this special time of year, some people have been dreading it ever since the beginning of summer, some other people, usually parents, can’t wait for it to arrive. Students are gathering their supplies, pens, pencils, rulers and more, but an increasing amount of students are now reaching for their phones and tablets as important education devices. We want to celebrate this special time of year by doing a comparison of two popular school and homework managing applications, iHomework and iStudiez Pro.
Both of these applications strive to be the focal point of your school organizational needs, offering ways to organize assignments, grades, task management, course scheduling and a syncing function with their desktop versions. Both applications are not free, however iStudiez does have a free version, which limits the number of semester and lacks any syncing abilities.
The largest difference between these two applications can be found in how they present the calendar of assignments or tasks to be completed. iHomework goes for a very simple look, with a selectable bar on the right hand side to change between assignments, tasks, reminders and more. On the contrast iStudiez offers a hybrid of a calendar and notebook, which in my opinion feels a little more cluttered. The actual display of assignments to be completed are very similar, both offering the ability to change colours and specify what class, partners, due dates and any notes about the assignment.
One strong point for iStudiez is its grading ability. While both offer the ability to input grades, iStudiez allows you to customize the grading scheme. This is useful if your course is curved or graded relative to the other student’s performance.
Storing courses are both simple, with iStudiez allowing you to organize courses by semester, which is a very nice feature for university students. For general appearance and functionality I personally find iHomework to be stronger in the overall presentation of the information and keeping your screen from becoming too cluttered. However there is one more area that these apps need to be compared in, and that is in their advertised syncing abilities.
Both of these paid applications also come with a paid Mac application, which is available in the Mac App Store. While iHomework is only $.99, iStudiez for Mac is a wallet breaking $9.99. While this review is not about the computer versions, a quick summary would be that both cover the same features, but iStudiez is much cleaner, more user friendly, and overall offers more customization in the organization of assignments and courses than iHomework.
Setting up the cloud-syncing feature with iStudiez is quite simple. Just make a cloud sync account using an email and password, then decide to either sync from the device or your server. That is it. Very simply and easy to use process which is great for those who are still worried about technology when someone talks to them all about cloud syncing processes.
This is where iHomework seems to struggle the most. While it looks like a very simply process to sync the iOS application with its companion desktop application, after trying for nearly 30 minutes I could not ever get the application synced with my Mac. After numerous crashes it seemed the application just was not going to sync.
If you are looking for a great application to organize your classes, assignments and more, both of these applications will serve you great! If you are wanting a bit of a less cluttered area, without losing functionality iHomework is your app. However if you are wanting to have more control on grading schemes and like a more polished look, iStudiez Pro is the one for you. But if you want to sync your information across numerous iOS devices or with each of their companion desktop applications, iStudiez Pro is the only one for you. Its syncing process is very simple and works, which is more than I can say for iHomework at the time of testing.
iHomework for iOS can be grabbed by clicking here [iTunes Link]
iStudiez Pro for iOS can be downloaded by clicking here [iTunes Link]
If you are interested in their desktop versions iHomework can be purchased by clicking here [Mac App Store Link]
iStudiez Pro for the Mac can be boughten by clicking here [Mac App Store Link]
Have you used either of these applications before? How useful did you find them for organizing your class and workload? Share your opinions in the comment section below.
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