Top 10 Best iPhone/iPad Apps for Students!
I know from my own experience that many students have iPhones and iPads which they take to university with them, and most seem to get good use out of them, using their devices to record lectures and take notes, but it seems to me that very few are really getting the most out out of them! So, I decided to compile this list of the 10 best iOS apps for students - enjoy! (in no particular order!).
1) Dropbox
Everybody who has an iPad or iPhone, should have Dropbox. In fact, everybody should have Dropbox, simple as. If you haven't heard of it, basically it's a free service that lets you store documents in the 'cloud'. So what? It's incredibly easy to use, multiplatform and integrated into a lot of apps and websites, including Facebook.
You can install dropbox on your computer so it just appears as a regular folder you can save files into, and then you can access them anywhere, from any device! Forget having to log on to your uni's undoubtedly complicated remote access service, don't worry about having forgotten or lost your pendrive or having multiple copies of the same file - Dropbox sorts it all out for you! You can even create 'shared' folders which is great if you're doing group work.
In a nutshell: Store & synchronise files online
Works with: iPhone, iPad, Mac/PC, Web
Price: Free! (premium option available)
2) Goodreader
The most obvious thing to do with your iPad is to store lecture notes and presentations on it. Right now you're probably using iBooks to open them which is fine but... what if you wanted to draw on and annotate your notes? In that case you'll want Goodreader! Has Dropbox synchronisation built in so you can keep your files all nice and tidy still!
In a nutshell: Annotate lecture notes
Works with: iPhone, iPad
Price: £2.99 / $4.99 (must buy iPhone and iPad separately unfortunately!)
3) Evernote
You may already have heard of Evernote. I mainly use it for writing notes during lectures. It has a number of advantages over 'traditional' software such as MS Word in that it lets you organise your notes into notebooks, rather than 'files' which I find makes them easier to look up.
You can paste in rich media such as images, video and recordings easily and it features cloud integration so your notes are available on any device: iPad, iPhone, computer or web! You can also use it to record audio, so you can record a lecture whilst making notes on it!
In a nutshell: Record & take notes in lectures
Works with: iPhone, iPad, Mac/PC, Web
Price: Free (premium version available)
4) Inkling
Inkling is exactly what the iPad was made for: high-quality, digital textbooks that really take advantage of the tablet format. Inkling does not simply deliver the PDF versions of textbooks, it lovingly re-creates them in the digital format, and the result is quite simply amazing!
Some of the world's most renowned textbooks are now delivered through Inkling with embedded video, audio, 'test yourself' images, Multiple Choice Questions, fill-in-the-blanks, hyperlinks and even comments from other students. The app itself is free though they charge for the books.
Book prices tend to be about the same as the print version which personally I feel is a bit steep, but you can buy them by-the-chapter and all in all it's definitely worth it.
In a nutshell: Beautiful digital textbooks
Works with: iPhone, iPad, Web
Price: Free (charge for books)
5) PDF Printer
I mentioned earlier that you can use Goodreader to annotate and highlight your lecture notes - to do that, however, they'll need to be in PDF format. This is the best PDF convertor I've found, it isn't perfect (it struggles sometimes converting PowerPoint files, in my experience) but its very good and simple to use. Simply open a file in safari, choose to open it in PDF Reader, convert it then open in Goodreader!
In a nutshell: Convert files to PDF
Works with: iPhone, iPad
Price: £3.99 / $5.99
6) Flashcards++
Personally, I don't rate flashcards that highly as a revision tool, but obviously a lot of people do and they do have their place - if you're looking for a good app for flashcards, you can't go wrong with this one!
In a nutshell: Create & download flashcards
Works with: iPhone, iPad
Price: £2.49 / $3.99
7) iThoughtsHD
I'm not gonna lie... this one is a little on the pricey side but in my opinion it's worth the price, and I'm not even a huge fan of mindmaps! It really does it well though, definitely worth checking out
In a nutshell: Easily create mindmaps
Works with: iPhone, iPad
Price: £6.99 / $9.99
8) Wunderlist
I'm a big fan of the "ToDo" list, it really helps me get things done and there's a strange satisfaction in crossing something off your list! There is absolutely no shortage of the bloody things in the app store, some good, some bad, some absolutely terrible.
Wunderlist, in my opinion is the best of them! Some try and get too complicated (Nozbe) and some are just too basic (Reminders) but Wunderlist keeps things nice and simple, whilst also adding some great features such as cloud synchronisation and group ToDo lists... and best of all its completely free!
In a nutshell: "To Do" list
Works with: iPhone, iPad, Web
Price: Free!
9) Kindle
This one is probably more useful for Humanities/Arts students rather than science students, because whilst it does have a huge library, the actual Kindle platform isn't well suited for textbooks or books that are very graphic-based such as many medical or scientific textbooks, for that I'd recommend Inkling (above) instead!
However, for mainly text-based books you can't beat Kindle on ease of use or price. A lot of people say "I'd rather read a paper book" or "I can't read off a screen" but you do get used to it, and the annotating / note taking abilities combined with the ability to carry hundreds of books in your pocket really does outweigh it all in my opinion.
In a nutshell: eBooks
Works with: iPhone, iPad, Mac/PC, Web
Price: Free! (charge for books)
10) All Stuck Up
This one won't be to everyone's taste, but I love it! Basically it is a virtual corkboard that lets you pin up different notes and move them around. It's a great way to display short notes or flashcards on your screen and refer back to them.
In a nutshell: Virtual corkboard
Works with: iPad
Price: £0.69
So there you have it - 10 of the best apps for students right now, I hope you found it useful!
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