[REVIEW] Flashcard apps for the Droid

[Avi15]

Great review for apps needed during exam season. I'll give my money to the first app that;

Has a test feature similar to "Flashcards Helper (Free and Pro)"
Quizlet integration similar to StudyDroid (My current favorite but lack of helpful test mode makes it not as good as some others), and Kaka Flashcards

Thanks to all the developers of these great apps and to the OP,
Avi

 

[onoelle]

@Avi: A little teaser for you:
We just added a Quizlet and Studystack import feature to "Flashcards ToGo" . It's not released yet, but we plan to release it before christmas .

Don't know whether the test mode of Flashcards ToGo suites your needs - it uses the spaced repetition technique, similar to the Leitner system. If you like the rest of the app, but require a different test mode, please request a feature at Customer Feedback & Ideas for FlashcardsToGo.

Oliver

 

[jeffthewhitegoose]

Flash Card Maker Pro for Android

I recommend Flash Card Maker Pro. This application uses multi-sensory teaching techniques to enhance memory and improve learning. I have been testing it out with my daughter and having great success!!! She loves that the application reads the flash card back to her when she can not remember the words.

Jeffrey Austin White
Founder of Flash Card Maker Pro
Android apps Developer
Flash card Enthusiast

 

[jeffthewhitegoose]

flash cards

Welcome to the future of learning! The only flash card application that is optimized for Android apps. Make flash cards on your Android phone or tablet to teach children how to read and do math, to help students study for exams, or to prepare for an upcoming presentation. Recycle your old paper flash cards and download the latest digital version today! See a demonstration of this flash card app in action by clicking flash card maker demo.

Jeffrey Austin White
Founder of Flash Card Maker Pro
Android apps Developer
Flash cards Enthusiast

 

[Nicolas Raoul]

AnkiDroid flash cards

Hello Kiwiguy!

After 8 months of intense development by 30 people and *43* beta versions, AnkiDroid 0.5.1 is finally out!
The Market ratings immediately switched from average to a consistent 5 stars

Tons of new features:
Cram mode
Undo/Redo
Card editing
Card addition
Synchronization
Interface available in 16 languages
Faster shared decks download
Gestures (swipe to navigate/answer, shake to undo)
Progress bar for downloads
Restyled widget
Less-frequent widget update
New SRS algorithm used in Anki 1.2.x
New templating used in Anki 1.2.x
Deck upgrade
Experimental support for Hebrew decks
Deck deletion
Interval shown above answer buttons
leo.org dictionary integration
Better congratulations screen
Better image display
Ability to select text
Mark cards
... and tons of fixes

In particular, the following downsides you had pointed out in your review have been fixed:
- Search among shared decks. This was really urgent since there are thousands of shared decks.
- Downloads are now much faster.
- Can add cards.
- Status is shown on the deck list, so you can know how much you still have to review, and how many new cards.

Many volunteer developers work actively on the next version (0.6), which will bring:
- Text-to-speech
- List view to browse all cards of a deck
These functionalities already work more-or-less in the alpha version, actually:
https://code.google.com/p/ankidroid/downloads/list

Cheers!
Nicolas Raoul

 

[ly422]

Article about Android flashcard apps, with reviews of 14

Dear all,

I have just written an article about Android flashcard apps, with up-to-date reviews of 14 of them - you can find it at Using an Android smartphone to learn vocabulary - Richard's computer support and training page.

Hope it helps someone to find the app they need...

Richard

 

[Nicolas Raoul]

AnkiDroid

Thanks for the research Richard!

Just a note about AnkiDroid:
1) Card edition (and addition) is now possible on any deck.
2) One can add extra info about a card such as reference, example sentence, URL, page number of a book, etc... It all depends on which card model you are using. See for instance the screenshot in this issue report to have an idea: Issue 389 - ankidroid - question and answer in one line - Anki on Android - Google Project Hosting
3) When a question has multiple correct answers, we just write "bla OR blu OR bli"
4) Indeed, it is not possible to generate backs from fronts. As it is not an operation someone would do everyday, it is done with the Desktop client software.
5) Images are now supported, try for instances the country flags shared deck.

In version 0.6 (to be released this week or early next week), deck creation is possible.

Thanks again!
Nicolas Raoul

 

[kiwiguy]

Richard's review in post #51 prompted me to finally complete a long overdue update of my ratings in the original post. (I also included a direct link to Richard's review in the OP so people can find it more easily).

I had not previously found Tiny Classroom or Wordroid so spent the weekend playing with them. I think if the developers of Tiny Classroom include some type of spaced learning in their next version then it will be a killer app (My fear is that they have not updated their program since Dec 2010 - so may have dropped their plans to improve it?)

I also went back and re-reviewed Ankidroid, and with the recent improvements, I now consider it one of the top 4.

 

[liberty]

Great job, nice review Kiwiguy.

 

[mike112]

Have you heard about Lingo Quiz? Using it for several month, it has great potential. It is not so powerful than competitors but can be included in the rating I guess.

 

[Nicolas Raoul]

AnkiDroid 0.6

Hello all!
AnkiDroid 0.6 has been released, fixing a lot of the cons:

Word lists ("decks") are created on your PC the copied to your phone's SD card

Decks can now also be created from scratch on the phone.

from dozens of decks

Hundreds actually

The downside is that this feature is awkward to use as requires 3 screen presses (Menu--> More-->Suspend)

Should be a bit less awkward now

No speech capability

TTS (Text to speech) is now available.

No option to permit you to type your answers

Done. It will compare with the real answer and show differences

No list view so can not view all of the cards in a deck.

Done. It also allows card edition

No status screen so no way to tell how much of a pack you have learnt.

Done. This is indicated with as a multi-colored bar, visible on the deck picker and in a deck's main dialog.

I don't know if it is too obvious or not, but AnkiDroid also supports sounds and images.

That would be great if you could update the description, thanks a lot!
Cheers!
Nicolas Raoul

 

[kiwiguy]

Updated the review of AnkiDroid in the first post - based on the new functionality in the latest release.

In addition, reviews were added for 2 new Flashcards apps on the market - Lingo Quiz and JetMemo - both of which are very nice programs.

Also in the process of reviewing a third new app called Mnemododo - I should have the review for that up by next week.

 

[Nicolas Raoul]

Numbers from the Android market

Hello all,

In addition to kiwiguy's quality analysis, I thought a quantity analysis could be useful to some.

Warning: I got this data from the Android Market, where only download ranges are known, for instance 100-500, in which case I put the app in the "100" paragraph. Downloads from alternative markets, and direct APK downloads, are not counted. Finally, downloads might not reflect usage as many people uninstall apps. When a single app has several versions (for instance Pro and Lite), I took the most popular into account. So, here is the data:

500k
Spanish Flashcards

50k
StudyDroid
AnyMemo
Wordroid
AnkiDroid
Kaka Flashcards
Flashcards Helper

10k
Flashcards ToGo
Flashcards (by Rutt)

5k
Tiny Classroom
Remata

1k
langleo
gFlash+
StudyBuddy
Flashcards Buddy
Flash Card Maker Pro

100
JetMemo
Lingo Quiz
CoboCards
Mnemododo

1) I find it interesting that the most popular application manages to be 10 times ahead of competition, with only 3500 words and 3.5 stars. It is probably be due to its particularity of being dedicated to a particular language, thus being easily understandable by newcomers.
2) Interesting as well is that some applications have a difficult time getting users despite being of high quality.

It would be great if someone could post the same information every 3 months, so that we can have an idea of the trends.

Cheers!
Nicolas Raoul

 

[liberty]

Hello all,

In addition to kiwiguy's quality analysis, I thought a quantity analysis could be useful to some.

Warning: I got this data from the Android Market, where only download ranges are known, for instance 100-500, in which case I put the app in the "100" paragraph. Downloads from alternative markets, and direct APK downloads, are not counted. Finally, downloads might not reflect usage as many people uninstall apps. When a single app has several versions (for instance Pro and Lite), I took the most popular into account. So, here is the data:

500k
Spanish Flashcards

50k
StudyDroid
AnyMemo
Wordroid
AnkiDroid
Kaka Flashcards
Flashcards Helper

10k
Flashcards ToGo
Flashcards (by Rutt)

5k
Tiny Classroom
Remata

1k
langleo
gFlash+
StudyBuddy
Flashcards Buddy
Flash Card Maker Pro

100
JetMemo
Lingo Quiz
CoboCards
Mnemododo

1) I find it interesting that the most popular application manages to be 10 times ahead of competition, with only 3500 words and 3.5 stars. It is probably be due to its particularity of being dedicated to a particular language, thus being easily understandable by newcomers.
2) Interesting as well is that some applications have a difficult time getting users despite being of high quality.

It would be great if someone could post the same information every 3 months, so that we can have an idea of the trends.

Cheers!
Nicolas Raoul

Hi Nicolas! Thank you very much for your detailed analysis. I would also like to point out some of my ideas.

1. I am very puzzled about how google rank the app. It seems like very related to the active installation ratio.

2. AnyMemo also have very difficult attracting user before download < 10000.
It is like this:
0-100, about 5 to 10 new users everyday
100-1000, about 10 users everyday
1000-10000 about 50 to 100 users everyday
10000-50000 about 500 users everyday
50000+ about 300 users everyday.

The time from 0 to 10000 is slighly more than from 10000 to 50000.

Maybe we can conclude some good flashcard app can rocket when they struggle to some point.

 

[Nicolas Raoul]

Dear Liberty,
Nice to see you here!

You're right, I think a good app can grow very fast.
Also, I think that the growth rate is very linked to the number of Android phones that are sold in the world, and that has been skyrocketing this year.
AnkiDroid is roughly doubling every 3 months.

Another metric: Open source vs. proprietary apps:
We can see that the open source flashcard apps (AnyMemo and AnkiDroid) are in the lead pack, while free proprietary apps are at every level. Pay apps are rather low in download numbers, probably because people think twice before paying.