PopMath helps you learn and practice basic math skills by adding a little challenge(making you look for the correct bubble). How far can you get before the bubbles begin to confuse you?

You’re given bubbles with answers and bubbles with the equations. You’re supposed to touch an equation and then touch the answer to it. After that you’ll see the bubbles disappear, making it easier to answer the other equations(since there are less bubbles).

You can choose between addition/subtraction, addition only, subtraction only, multiplication only, and division only. . .and you’re goal is to see how many levels you can get through. The higher levels you get to, the harder the equations become(and the more you have to solve).

This application would be great for kids just learning their basic math skills. While I think it would be actually fun early on with addition and subtraction, when they get into division and multiplication(especially the advanced levels) I don’t think it will be as fun for the kid. But it is a great way to learn(instead of having to get out the flashcards they can just play the game).

Hiragana is an interactive flash card game for the iPhone and iPod Touch that teaches you the Hiragana Japanese language(which is a ‘kana script’).

I’m not 100% sure what a kana script is, I assume it’s a style of Japanese language. Hiragana is an application that uses flash cards to teach you the letters of the language.

When you first open the application you get a ‘tip card’ that shows you the controls. You can do 3 things. . .

– Double Tap to zoom out
– Swipe left/right to move to another card
– Swipe up to reveal the answer

This isn’t like a real flashcard game where you flip the card over to see the answer, but I like the way the developers integrated the touch screen controls into the application(very clever!)

If you’re interested in learning Hiragana, and only have time to learn on-the-go or at random moments throughout the day, this sure beats carrying your own flashcards around(now it’s all in your iPhone or iPod Touch).

iBearFlags is a learning tool to help you learn about other countries, their flags, and even their capitals. It comes with 2(real) modes. . .Learn and Quiz(which they call ‘guess’), and with that you can learn about more than 200 countries.

iBearFlags puts a lot emphasis on the flag part, but it also teaches you the capitals of the countries included(206 in all). You can learn in 2 ways, by country or by flag. So you can make yourself pick if you want to see the country name(and guess the flag), or see the flag(and guess the country name).

The quiz included isn’t much of a game, it actually just tallies how many you have guessed correctly and how many incorrectly.

While this is a decent application, for the price I was really expecting a little more. Maybe a few more ‘learning modes’ or even actual quiz games. . .like maybe a high score, % ratio, or even a timed game would make it more interesting. I think the end goal is the ability to hide the fact that you’re learning, by making it into a fun game(and I think it fails in this aspect).

While this is a great learning tool, and can even be very helpful when you’re studying for a test. . .it’s not much more than a learning tool(which could be what the developers were going for).

Spacetime Converter lets you convert both time into length and length into time as well as figure out how far a future date is. This isn’t a calculator for everyday use but it does help to let you think of time and length a bit differently(outside of the box).

The developer summarizes what this application can do at the beginning of the iTunes page. . .

Ever thought how old you were, in meters?
How tall you were, in seconds?
How many miles it was, until your next birthday?

That’s way way outside of the box, even I’ve never asked those questions before. But it really makes you think about how time and space are perceived by science.

Bright and Beyond – Playtime Activities – Preschool picks up where Bright and Beyond – Playtime Activities – Age 2 left off. Go through dozens and dozens of activities to help your child learn and develop skills.

These activities included are targeted toward preschoolers between the ages of 3 and 5 years old.

Each activity comes with a full description and a colorful cartoon to help you understand exactly how to perform the activity. If you really like an activity or don’t want to have to search for one you can add it as a favorite to give you quick access. But you can also hide an activity so that you never see it again if you don’t want to.

Bright and Beyond – Playtime Activities – Age 2 picks up where Bright and Beyond – Playtime Activities – Age 1 left off and is targeted for toddlers 2 years of age. Just like in the previous apps this contains a huge list of activities to help encourage development among your children.

Each activity comes with a full description and a colorful cartoon to help you understand exactly how to perform the activity. If you really like an activity or don’t want to have to search for one you can add it as a favorite to give you quick access. But you can also hide an activity so that you never see it again if you don’t want to.

Bright and Beyond – Playtime Activities – Age 1 picks up where Bright and Beyond – Playtime Activities – Baby stopped. This set of activities is designed for children 1 year of age(the entire year) and is filled with hundreds of different things to do with your child.

Just like in the Baby application it works the same way. The only difference is the more advanced activities that are listed. You can save any number of them as favorites or even hide them so that you don’t ever see them again.

The goal is to give you activities to do with your child so that you can encourage development of various things(education, hand-eye coordination, etc).

Bright and Beyond – Playtime Activities – Baby is the perfect application for new parents. This one is targeted to parents with children 0-12 months old and is filled with hundreds of activities to help your child develop certain skills as they grow older.

For each activity you get an image and a full description to explain how to perform them. There are between 10 and 30-40 activities in each group(more in the later age groups) so that you can pick between a variety of things to teach your child.

I don’t know exaclty how many activities are in the app, there has to be over 100, but the developer doesn’t give an exact total. Maybe that’s because they plan on adding more, but in any case it would be smart for them to keep an updated total.

First Words is an educational game for your child to help them develop their vocabulary words. It’s so easy that you don’t even need to guide your child through it, they can do everything themselves.

It comes with 8 different categories for your child to choose. Pick from the Alphabet, Numbers, The Beach, Animals, Sports, Fruits, Colors and Shapes. Pick a category and it shows pictures in to touch, touching a picture will say what it is. So if you touch a cow, it tells you it’s a cow. . .Touch a number and it says what number it is.

Hanzi Flashcards is an easy-to-use Flashcard application which utilizes the big screen to aid you while learning to read and write Chinese characters and with more than 2500 characters present, all including pronunciation and English translation, this application makes it very easy for visual learners to pick up new items.

Hanzi Flashcards is subdivided into a number of different categories, ranging from conversation to verbs and within a few taps you will be in the learning interface which is stripped down to the bare essentials you need, namely a beautiful perchament wallpaper, a ‘skip’ and ‘answer’ button and a way to advance or backtrack through the various cards.

Missing from the app is a way for verbal learners to pick up new words and even though the pronunciation is listed, some audio samples would make this application even more useful.

Grafly is an interactive graphing calculator that gives you a full 3D view of your graph. Not only can you see the graph in 3D. . .but you can also interact with the graph(and multiple ways too). This isn’t an application for everyone, but if you can fully understand it you can really enjoy it.

There are multiple equations given directly from the start, but you can also edit the equation to something more specific. As I mentioned, you can also interact with the graph too. You can do this in a multiple ways. . .you can move around with your finger on your touch screen. . .you can use the accelerometer and tilt the device to view another angle(like you’re moving the camera live). . .you can add gravity to the environment to make the object fall and react to how your iPhone is turned.

This is a very complex applciation but it can be very useful if you know what you’re doing.

Last Letter – US Cities And States is an educational game where your goal is to see how many US states or cities you can recall. The trick is that you’re only must use the last letter of the city/state you just entered as the first letter of your next city/state. So if you pick ‘Georgia’ then your next choice has to begin with the letter A.

If you mess up you get a strike, and when you get 3 strikes the game is over. Once the game is over you’re asked to enter a name for the high scores list. This list is only local, but it’s still good to keep track of your progress.

Note – As you can tell in the screenshot, the database seems to be a bit off. . .entering ‘Earth’ is accepted for some reason, lol.

Read Demon is an application that helps teach you how to speed read, and actually retain the information. Customize the interface so that you’re reading white text on a black background(or black text with a white background), along with font size.

Not only can you control the font color and size, but you can also control the speed that the words scroll past the screen.

It’s hard to believe that you could actually read at 350 WPM, but after 2 minutes with this application I was surprised that I could read that fast(when forced to). It’s much different seeing one word at a time(instead of all of the words on the page). . .but after some practice Read Demon makes it easier and easier.

It comes with 18 different ‘lessons’ right now, but hopefully they will be adding more in future updates(I couldn’t find anything that confirmed this though).

iQuote is a huge database of quotes(over 10,000) with an easy to to sort through organize. Browse through categories, authors, favorites, etc. You can also add your own quote to the database to be seen by the other users of the iQuote application. You can also email specific ones quickly and easily right after you read it.

They let you rate the quotes with a slider(which is odd), and even add quotes to your Favorites tab(for later reference). You normally browse the quotes by touching the word ‘random’ at the bottom right. . .but you can also browse through via categories or authors. This is great if you like quotes from 1 person or are looking for specific genre of quotes.

Fingerspell will help you learn the American Sign Language with real visual aids. You have a real picture of a hand showing off each letter that you can reference at any time. It comes with multiple exercises to make it as easy as possible to learn.

The reference part shows every letter in the alphabet. Touching a letter brings up the full screen picture for it. It comes with an on/off switch with the reference tab that will reveal the letter for each picture.

It also comes with a Flash Card mode that everyone should be familiar with(I remember doing flash cards in elementary school). In this mode it displays the picture and then a few seconds later the letter appears for it(and then it goes to the next random picture).

Lastly there is a Word Play mode that will do all the work for you. Input a word or phrase and it will show the hand pictures for each letter. This is great if you want to talk to someone in sign language. . .but haven’t quite learned it all yet.

gFlash+ is a cool flashcard application that lets you learn all sorts of things no matter where you are. You have 3 different topics installed by default, but you can easily add more, for free, from the gWhiz Catalog.

Standard mode will show you something like this, where you would attempt to guess the answer. Then touch the screen to reveal the answer. Then you can touch either right or wrong. . .and then it keeps track of your ratio(on the right).

You can also go into Multiple Choice mode where you can get to pick which one you think it is.

They even have a trivia mode so you can test your skills and see what you’ve learned.