Review: iStudiez Pro
by Erik Wallace
December 19, 2009
Overview
iStudiez Pro is a task manager that caters to the needs of busy students. With the intent of replacing the traditional student planner, iStudiez Pro offers an array of features that work to streamline managing classes, exams and assignments. What makes iStudiez Pro stand out amongst the crowd of task management apps in the App Store? The price certainly has a lot to do with it.
Features
iStudiez pro covers all the basic functions of the student planner, yet integrates with the iPhone user interface seamlessly. When you first start the app it gives you the option of using sample data if you are unfamiliar with how the app works. But I just dove right in and found the app to be quite intuitive and easy to use. After creating your semester you can add your courses. After creating a course you can add the class information including the meeting days, times, location, type of class, and instructor contact info. Classes can be reoccurring or you can add single classes. When adding the class type you can select an icon to help you reference your classes visually. You get to choose from cool icons like beakers for science labs and podiums for lectures. Instructor information is displayed much like your contacts with some extra entry fields such as title, department, and affiliation. You can also import information from your contacts list when adding an instructor.
Adding assignments is just as easy as adding courses. Assignments can be entered under the assignments tab or within the calendar view. The assignment entry fields include: the course, name of assignment, assignment description, due date, priority ranking for sorting, due date notifications and partner contact info. When adding a partner you can select someone from your device's contacts or you can add a new contact. Both assignments and clasess use the push notification system to notify you.
The today tab is the first screen you see when you open the app and it displays all of your upcoming classes for the day. At the end of the day or durring holidays it will show you that you have no more classes. The today tab also has messages like, "You've worked hard, take a break! "or "You may have some assignments due. Check it out!" This simple feature is quite handy for keeping you motivated and focused; and it makes using the app enjoyable.
The Breakdown:
The Good:
iStudiez Pro is easy to use and really helps you organize your school life. After adding all of your courses, classes, instructors, exams and assignments you want to ensure that your data isn't lost. This app gives you an easy and free way to do so. The app allows you to email yourself a file with all of your data in it. If restoring or changing devices is necessary all you have to do is open the link in the email(on your device of course), and the app will open on your device syncing all your saved data. I guess you can't really use the excuse your dog ate your iPhone.
One of the reasons this app is so easy to use is that the UI is solid and intuitive. Under the setting menu you can customize the app to streamline your processes even more. The badge icon is customizable to show all tasks, over due tasks, or upcoming tasks. You can add or take away visual icons from the calendar view to help you see what you have to do or which week of school you are in. The notification settings as well as standard class length times and standard intervals between classes can be set in the settings menu. The aforementioned UI settings along with the beautifully polished UI, add to a user experience that will drive you to use the app frequently.
The Bad:
After going on about how great the UI is makes it almost silly to mention this, but there was one kink in the UI that did not make sense to me at all. When adding an instructor you get the option of importing data from your devices contacts list or adding new data to a blank form. This works the same way when adding partners to assignments, except when adding new partner information the new contact is saved to your devices contact list, and when adding a new instructor it is not. There is no way to export instructor contact information to the contacts list so if you need to contact an instructor you must open the app.
After adding new partners to assignments they can be easily accessed from your devices contacts list. Also, In the rare case that this would ever be needed you can't add multiple instructors to one class. Call me tedious if you will, but inconsistency can break an app.
