Review: Assignments

Overview Assignments is a tool for inputting and viewing your class assignments and notes. It’s fairly one-dimensional and isn’t too impressive, but does list tasks and provide alerts for work due soon.

Functionality There aren’t many options specifically for students on the iPhone, or in the App Store, which is why Assignments might become a possibility for the many looking for a way to view and manage their course loads. What this app offers is a method for listing assignments and sorting them by class. It also lets users enter their class information, so that you can easily check what time and day your classes are on (this can be very useful at the start of a term). There is also a notes function, in case you think you’re cool enough to take notes on your flashy iPhone.

There is a range of indicators for assignments that are due soon, including a number that appears over the app’s logo on the home screen depending on how much of a procrastinator you are (the norm for task-management apps). Assignments does not always run smoothly though, and actually ended up sticking and reacting slowly when inputting information. It also does not allow users to input assignments while viewing a specific course folder. Instead, all items must be added from the “Overview” tab, which means that users need to select the course for all new items so that they can be sorted. Review This app is limiting and a little clunky. It wasn’t easy to input assignments quickly (partially because of the interface and partially because of an apparent lag in the app’s reaction time) and there weren’t that many options for viewing tasks. As a student, the most useful option for viewing my assignments was always in the form of some kind of calendar that would allow me to get a visual representation of when I needed to get things done. While a listing system can also be useful, a calendar option does not seem like too much to ask for from a paid app, especially because the app already asks for due dates and class information.

But even without a calendar, the app’s listing method is not very comprehensive. It doesn’t label each item by course, instead requiring a tap on each one to view its information. There are different ways of solving this problem, with a simple written label, or with some kind of color coordination, but Assignments doesn’t offer them. Then there’s the app’s troubling inability to add new assignments from within a course folder. This would eliminate an unnecessary step and allow you to quickly tap on a class and add an assignment that would already be sorted, but instead the class page is only for viewing assignments. Another problem is that you can’t simply check off completed assignments, instead having to delete each one with apparently no record of what you’ve finished. What happens if you realized you didn’t do all of an assigned reading and wanted to double check to see if you listed it incorrectly or what the pages were that you may have skipped over? Also, to put it simply, I like the feeling of looking over my checked off list of assignments. It gives me that pride of accomplishment. With Assignments, however, I get none of that. Just more assignments. Summary Assignments is a great idea, but there is just too much missing from this app to make it worth $4.99. It succeeds in alerting users of their work due, but it leaves out too many key components to be a good paid app.

Related articles