It doesn’t take an esteemed leader in alternative medicine to convince people that Yoga is helpful for many things, such as weight loss, relaxation, general fitness and health. But, it’s not always easy to fit a yoga class into your schedule, and unless you have a Yoga for the People studio nearby, there’s usually a hefty fee to pay before embarking on your physical and mental wellbeing (try upwards of $13 per class in the Bay Area).  To assist you in those times when you’d like a studio session, but cannot, for one reason or another, be present in one, Authentic Yoga acts like a personalized collection of yoga videos. It can serve as both an introduction to yoga for the beginner or as a convenient tool to help the busy person enjoy something resembling a class, without actually having to attend one. Those who travel frequently will appreciate the flexibility and professionalism of this app, and I definitely consider it my go-to yoga app from now on.

Dr. Chopra is featured in several videos in the Understand Yoga section. In these, Deepak briefly mentions other types of yoga before explaining that Authentic Yoga focuses primarily on Raja yoga, a branch of yoga that focuses heavily, if not entirely, on meditation (this app is a combination of Hatha/Raja styles). Other main sections of Authentic Yoga include Learn to Practice, Yoga Routines, and Review Poses. The best part about the Learn to Practice section is not only does it teach basic yoga poses and positions, but it identifies poses for specific ailments like tight hamstrings, tight hips, or for building balance, decreasing stress, and more. Yoga Routines are divided between beginner, intermediate, and advanced and include routines for balance, flexibility, strength, body awareness, and even Deepak’s personal awareness routine. You can rate each routine on both difficulty and your personal enjoyment to keep track of which routines you use frequently and which ones you use only intermittently. You can also follow routines in their entirety or select specific poses. Each routine includes pictures and a video of Tara performing the poses to music, with Deepak offering instruction in the background, along with an explanation for the sequence. In addition, you can become a part of the Authentic Yoga community and send questions to Deepak and Tara directly from the app.

Can you believe the first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970, in a time when having an ecological mindset was correlated more with wearing birkenstocks and eating – the horror – foods not provided in a colorfully designed cardboard box? The environmentalists of this era are often dramatized as hemp-wearing hippies who tied themselves to trees, rioted against fur, and adopted a neo-Native American lifestyle of rediscovering simpler living, away from the granite confines of city interiors. Forty years later, environmentalism has changed into the yuppie mainstream, for the better: our entire lexicon is rife with words like biodegradable, ecosphere, carbon footprint, community supported agriculture and more, colleges around the country are building LEED certified buildings, the new wave of electric cars are emerging this coming year, and corporate America is taking a more sustainable approach to business (well, some, not all). Recycling has long been accessible on our curbs and eating locally grown food – or growing your own food – has become trendier, even, than the Prius, itself.

The problem with living an eco-intelligent lifestyle, however, is there’s so much to consider and remember. Thanks to green iPhone apps, all this information and much, much, much more is now available at your fingertips. Green apps are sprouting up faster than, well, sprouts. In honor of Earth Day’s big birthday, we at Appstruck combed through many different eco-friendly apps for shopping, travel, transportation, eating out and more, so you have them ready at your green thumbs.

1. Animal-Free – FREE
Animal-Free is a pocket reference guide for many common and hidden animal ingredients. Whether you’re vegan, vegetarian, part-time veg or simply trying to shop veg-friendly, this app by Symbiotic Software will help you make conscientious shopping decisions. New vegans will appreciate the list of commonly misunderstood or unfamiliar vegan ingredients that will help expand your dietary horizons.

2. Gorgeously Green Survival Guide – 99 cents
The Gorgeously Green Survival Guide is a quick reference for busy women. Developed by bestselling author Sophie Uliano, Gorgeously Green guides you through the confusion of shopping for eco-friendly choices. One of the best features is the ability to create convenient and helpful shopping lists for everything from lip sticks to light bulbs.

3. Greenpeace Tissue Guide – FREE
The Greenpeace Tissue Guide allows you to make informed decision when shopping for recycled tissue and toilet paper. Experts have rated more than 100 brands as “recommended,” “could do better” and “avoid!”

4. Harvest – Select the Best Produce – $1.99
Harvest helps you skip packaged and processed foods with information on selecting the freshest, ripest, healthiest and best-tasting produce. Now you can knock on watermelons, smell pineapples and squeeze avocados with knowledgeable élan. (read review here)

5. Locavore – $2.99
Eat foods grown and raised locally without spending hours Googling data for tonight’s meal. Locavore provides government and NGO data by state. Click on the food item for Wikipedia info and Epicurious recipes. There’s no market-finder feature for in-season foods, but it sure beats printing lengthy lists of locally grown foods. (read review here)

6. TheGoodGuide – FREE
GoodGuide helps you find safe, healthy and sustainable products while you shop. Simply scan the product’s barcode to view detailed ratings for the health, environment and social responsibility of more than 65,000 products and companies.

7. CarCare – $4.99
CarCare automatically calculates your gas mileage at the pump and reminds you when it’s time to change the oil, rotate tires, get a wax or any other service you desire.

8. Green Gas Saver – FREE
Green Gas Saver tells you when you’re accelerating or taking a turn too fast, which can hinder your gas mileage. The idea behind the app is to keep the ball in the center of the screen. When you accelerate too quickly, the diameter of the ball increases and an alarm will sound, indicating you’re accelerating too quickly. Green Gas also keeps a running score so you can see how well you’re driving in real time. A few weeks with this app and driving efficiently will become ingrained.

9. Greenmeter – $5.99
Greenmeter by Cleantechnica tracks your car’s carbon footprint and fuel efficiency while calculating weather conditions, cost of fuel and vehicle weight. You also can measure drag coefficient, vehicle pitch and rolling resistance with estimates available at CleanTechnica.com.

10. Twavel – $1.99
Twavel isn’t just for wascally wabbits. It calculates the CO2 emissions associated with your travel choices and allows friends to compare their travel footprints.

11. Green Sushi Selector – 99 cents
Green Sushi Selector allows you to research whether the sushi fish you’re about to buy comes from threatened species or has been caught or farmed in ways harmful to the environment. Fish are listed both by their Japanese and common-market names. Additional features include health alerts for mercury and PCBs, as well as dietary recommendations.

12. VegOut – $2.99
Vegetarian offerings in many restaurants are often limited and boring. VegOut makes life a bit easier with the world’s largest international listing of vegan, vegetarian and vegetarian-friendly restaurants. Search listings by your exact location or a customized location when on the road.

13. Geocaching Toolkit – FREE
Geocaching, the green outdoors game of hiding and seeking treasures, has caught on throughout the world. Geocaching Toolkit guides players between locations with clues involving puzzles, calculations and projecting a new waypoint using distances and bearings. Sometimes the calculations are easy, but this toolkit can help when calculations become tedious .

14. Lonely Planet Travel Guides – Prices begin at 99 cents
Lonely Planet Travel Guides are the guide of choice for many frugal and green travelers. Various apps provide paperless guides for both U.S. and international destinations. Some of the guides are buggy and need work, but Lonely Planet is working on updated versions. Tip: Read the reviews before buying.

15. BraveNewFilms – FREE
Find and access the latest, hard-hitting videos on social and economic issues. From exposing abusive health insurance companies to combating unregulated Wall Street greed, the videos on BraveNewFilms inform, challenge and recommend opportunities to take action.

16. Get Green – 99 cents
Get Green, from Candied Apple, provides you with daily ammunition in the battle against climate change.You’ll receive daily updates about how you can make a difference. Tips cover everything from green workplaces to green Halloween celebrations. It even has tips on how to reduce the carbon footprint of your wedding.

17. Green Charging – 99 cents
Green Changing reduces your energy consumption when you charge your phone. Launch the app when you start charging and it’ll notify you with sound and vibration when your battery is fully charged. Some of the best things are so simple.

18. Green Wars – $1.99
Based on the classic Drug Wars game, Green Wars requires players purchase environmental products for cheap and resell them for a profit. Manage your inventory to make the biggest profit on buying and selling recycled paper, LED light bulbs, reusable shopping bags, recycled paper and fixed-gear bicycles. Once you’ve earned some street cred by making deals, you can buy and sell high-end goods like solar items, geothermal pumps, carbon credits and hybrid cars.

19. iGreen – 99 cents
Stay current on the latest solar, hybrid, green and green tech news. Aggregated new sites on iGreen include About My Planet, Azo CleanTech, VentureBeat, Green Biz, Green Computing, Hybrid Car Blog and more.

20. MeterRead – $2.99
Read your meter with ease using your iPhone. Check it again later and MeterRead provides you with data to better control your power bill. This app from Zerogate displays the total kilowatt hours used since the last reading and calculates your total usage for the next 30 days.

French Women Don’t Get Fat, The Okinawa Diet, The China Study, Dr. Atkin’s New Diet Revolution, and The Best Life Diet are but a few of the the most notable diet books from the last decade, each one acclaimed in its own right, each one later lambasted, and each heavily featured on various bestseller lists. Anyone can argue that one such diet will make you lose weight rapidly, but that another is better for your heart, that this other diet will give you the clearest complexion, but no one can truly say that one diet is better, overall, than another – or, at least, not any one of the modernized diets we see lining our bookshelves today. Many physicians today agree that some generalized form of a Mediterranean diet is the healthiest one to subsist on, if we define healthy in terms of a localized population with a low incidence of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and a host of other modern conditions. The principal aspects of this diet include a high consumption of olive oil, legumes, grains, fruits, and vegetables; a moderate consumption of dairy products (mostly as cheese and yogurt), wine and fish; and a low consumption of meat and meat products. Of course, dietary jargon like moderate consumption often fall on deaf ears – how do we define moderate? Everything, after all, both diet and people, is relative to one’s own health and experience. Dietary factors, really, are only part of the reason for the health benefits enjoyed by these cultures – genetics, lifestyle (notably heavy physical labor), and environment are also involved. The putative benefits of the Mediterranean diet for cardiovascular health are primarily correlative in nature: while they reflect a very real disparity in the geographic incidence of heart disease, identifying the causal determinant of this disparity has proven difficult. Here is where my dad would pump a fist in the air and exclaim, with all the enthusiasm of a closet theorist, the correlation between cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, and Vitamin D.

One diet book bestseller that has been captivating people around the country doesn’t so much advocate a diet, in the traditional sense, as it advocates a simple substitution method when eating out. Their motto? Eat This, Not That! Rather than require readers to plow through literature on why certain foods are better than others, or vaguely telling readers to eat only moderate amounts of something, Eat This Not That instead takes a visual approach, inundating readers with pictures of food commonly eaten at fast food establishments, or during holidays, common snacks, breakfasts and more. The idea of the book, and its recently released app by Men’s Health Magazine, is to familiarize people with the concept of which foods are healthier – mind you, on a modest scale – than others of seemingly equal caloric value. If anything, the idea is pared down to the simple, but everlastingly true dogma of “calories in, calories out” – if you eat less, you will weigh less. Obviously, this isn’t a diet book that focuses on health, per se; if it were, then it wouldn’t advocate eating at fast food establishments. The meal substitution principle is a good one, though, because many people do dine at these establishment on a frequent basis, and if you can’t deter them from eating there, you may as well steer them toward the better choices.

The Eat This Not That app takes the visual principle a step further by plugging it into a game – a transportable one, at that. I’ve often lamented at how little people read, but the fact of the matter is people are highly visual creatures – when it comes to diet books, or recognizing portions and alternate food options, images are key. There won’t always be nutritional information available for everything you eat, and even with the caloric information now required by law for many places, there’s still no solid verification that people will always be interested, or patient enough to read this information and make better choices. With the Eat This Not That game, users will slowly become adept at recognizing which foods offer them the best bang for their health; they’ll learn, along the way, that mashed potatoes, while heavy in their own right with cream and butter, still make a more well-rounded choice than a slice of sweet potato pie. A shortbread cookie, while smaller in size, and seemingly innocuous and unassuming, has nearly three times the saturated fat of a chocolate raspberry brownie, which clocks in a modest 5 grams with 370 calories. The game presents you with two images, and you must decide, based on appearances alone, which is the better choice based on potential levels of saturated fat, sodium, and calories. As the clock ticks down, nutritional info starts popping up, to help you make a more informed choice, but you’re only docked points if you play in the speed round.

Yikes, the calories.

Many of the foods contained within this game are establishment-specific, like a Wendy’s Frosty or a Double Whopper with Cheese and Fries from Burger King. The game is particularly exceptional in this regard, for sorting out the caloric, sodium, and saturated fat values for these foods because I, personally, find it very difficult to weigh my options at these places. A burger is a burger, to me, so how do I know which one actually has four times the amount of already catastrophic sodium… and why? It never ceases to amaze me the disparity in calories and fat between two, seemingly identical entrees. Other foods featured in the game, however, are a bit more vague in origin, labeled simply as “slice of pumpkin pie” or a “blueberry cheesecake.” A blueberry cheesecake from Lindy’s in New York may very well be a heart attack on a plate, but not all cheesecakes are made in the same ilk. Portion sizes, too, remain vague in the slice arena. A quarter of a pie slice of pumpkin pie could very well rival a small slice of cheesecake; of course, this is making the argument against standard pie slice sizes, which frankly, I’m sure most people are unaware. Some choices make me scratch my head, it being completely obvious to anyone which is the healthier choice, but then I have to remember the general state of the nation: we’re obese, on a cattle scale, and most people probably will choose that deep-fried crab cake with 19 grams of fat and 300 calories over the 12 shrimp cocktail with sauce, averaging around 165 calories and zero fat. Sometimes, you just want that turducken.

Regardless of personal choices, Eat This Not That is a host of information on things we really don’t want to know about. The true success of this game, and book, lies in the scare tactic when users realize, with horror, that a salad from Wendy’s, with all its innocent iceburg lettuce, can range up to 700 calories, making a burger the unforeseen better choice. It may not be a revolutionary diet plan, and it may not be the most accurate in its representation, but it does fascinate you (albeit in a somewhat horrific and masochistic way) into making wiser decisions… and for a nation that scares itself silly over trite, inconsequential things, that isn’t a bad thing at all.

Thankfully, there’s not much to say about the app. Trust me, this is a good thing. History is too vast, even, to define – have you ever noticed how the most complex things are often the most simply defined, as if we know a whole subject matter cannot be easily winnowed down to scalable proportions, and so a scant, almost trite selection of words are paired up to give meaning, a “study of past events” representing the whole, overwhelming mass that is history? There is no way to contain the entirety of history within a definition, let alone an iPhone app, and so On This Day wisely pares down the information contained within to Births, Deaths, and the vague category of “Events” that generally covers only the most highlighted, or most obscure of factoids, for the purpose of entertaining frivolity.  The again, plenty of the history given in this app is amazingly random, which prompts me think, how did they choose what to cover? For today, April 07, one fact given in that in the year 529 the first draft of the Corups Juris Civilis (a fundamental work in jurisprudence, i.e. the theory of law) was issued by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I. Well, that’s plenty interesting, but what am I going to do with this little tidbit of information? It’s been a few years since Western Civ in college. Thankfully, On This Day is a step ahead: for each historical listing in the app, there are several highlighted bits that link you to Wikipedia articles should you wish to know more. This is assuming, of course, that you already have Articles – The Wikipedia app – a recent release – but in case you don’t, the app offers you the option to add it.

So, what else happened today, on April 07? In 1860, Will Keith Kellogg, that famous American entrepreneur who created Corn Flakes and other favorite Supermarket cereal brands, was born. El Greco, one of my favorite, undefinable artists, also died on this day in 1614. In 1788, American Pioneers to the Northwest Territory arrived at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers, establishing Marietta, Ohio as the first permanent American settlement of the new United States in the Northwest Territory, and thereby opening westward expansion of the new country. In 1906, Mount Vesuvius erupted, devastating Naples. For every day in this app, it seems as if there are at least 50 entries each for Births, Deaths, and Events, so there’s plenty of reading to be done, should you be of the factoid kind. All of this reading is made easier from the app’s excellent navigation – simple, with the option to rifle through the calender and dates, or just tapping through arrows, day by day -  and handsome design, which bears an homage to antiquity with its weathered, yellowed pages, and notepad interface.

It’s not be the most exciting app, or even, arguably, the most productive – I’m sure plenty of people will be miffed about how it needs internet to work, though I think that’s a minor quibble. In all honestly, I probably won’t use it very much, if I use it at all. I’m not sure what I was expecting with this app, but after checking it out, it’s probably the very best it could be. It’s just a collection of facts, in a well-designed package, and if that’s what you’re seeking, then this is the app for you. It won’t win any awards, and likely has a shelf life as dated as the facts contained within, but hey, at least it’s not a thinly veiled attempt at recycling an existing app under the guise of an original one. I actually kind of like it.

Foodictionary isn’t quite what I thought it would be, or at least, what my holier-than-thou, presumptuous nature concocted from the sugar-crusted ravages of my foodie mind. I should have taken a cue from the developer, who describes the app as, “a translation software for food and beverage terminology.” Wow, I don’t believe I’ve ever read something so… what’s the word? Hermetic. Exacting. Cold and calculating, but not of the cold meat variety. It’s definitely not of the jargon I would expect from most foodies, which is the demographic this app is most likely to cater to (ba dum crash). In essence, foodictionary is simply that: a compound word merging food and dictionary. It should be taken at face value: it’s just a dictionary of foods, translated into several different languages of your choice. This isn’t all bad – to the frequent traveler, it’s good to be able to translate what you see on the menu with a handy app. Many of us aren’t fluent in our destination’s tongue, and even if we are, sometimes we don’t know all the specific words and spices and unique fish, flavors, etc that can often be exhibited in a menu. Just in case you feel like trying the Testa in Florence, it’s wise to either consult someone proficient in the language, or this app. Both will tell you, with all the ease of a straight answer, that Testa is pork head. Hey, I’d try it, but that doesn’t mean you’d want to.

In terms of consulting, Foodictionary, at least, really delivers. My first impression, actually, was “Holy Sh**” because the thoroughness of all the lists and the categories, is just so overwhelming. It’s a massive compendium of many different kinds of food, covering more than 12,500 terms per language. It supports 7 languages – English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Greek – with more than 87,500 translated terms in total. I’m still reeling a bit over those numbers – who had the time to do all this? I suppose that’s beside the point, but another pressing question I have is why is Greek included, but no dialect of Chinese? I’m sure more languages will be included in future updates.

The main thing that impressed me wasn’t merely the sheer volume of items, but the attention to specifications. Under the Italian listings, there were several phrases for anchovy, regarding plain, regular anchovies, anchovies of the north Atlantic, anchovies in lemon and olive oil, anchovies with tomato, and anchovies with straight up olive oil. It’s interesting noting these specifications not just for the range of options, but it reflects on the food culture of that language, itself – the Italians must eat a good deal of anchovies for there to be such specific ways of eating them. The Inuit, because their environment was snow, had over 300 words for snow, alone. In a way, this app is an interesting, pseudo-ethnographic study on how language reflects cultural ideas.

Two button tabs at the bottom of the screen let you switch the languages and the order of translation, so you may have items listed in English and translated into Spanish, or listed in Spanish and translated into English, or the same thing using the app’s given languages at your disposal. It’s all very interesting, and quaint – despite all enormity – to have this comprehensive collection of food items in one app. It’s not terribly easy to sort through, and it’s rather dull to look at, which makes me wonder if anyone would use this app, at all? I admit it’s very impressive (my reaction above still stands), but for apps to survive for longer than a week in the App Store, they better be nice to look at, or so well-designed that navigating them is a breeze. But, even if Foodictionary possessed those two things, I’m still not sure it’d last long enough for people to appreciate what it has to offer.

Promotion Codes:

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*When using the promotion code to download for free, it’s on a first-come, first-served basis. Out of courtesy, please leave a comment below mentioning you’ve used the promotion code.

I grew up with a strong fascination for books, largely because my parents truly encouraged and insisted on fostering a love for reading. Well, that, and we were a disciplined bunch, with many rules and restrictions, and when such things tide over a young person’s rambunctious mind, I quickly learned the best outlet is through a book. Almost a year ago I reviewed a stellar app by the name of The Little Red Hen, one that I absolutely raved about and upheld as an example for all kids apps to follow. Back then, The Little Red Hen and its brand, Kidztory (a brand of Stepworks), where unheard of, just a diamond in the rock waiting to be discovered. Appstruck was just starting up then, so, needless to say, my adoration and rave review was largely unheard until more people discovered the app, and came to the same conclusion as me. I was surprised, actually, to find that if you type in The Little Red Hen app, our site is the second link shown. Fancy that. Since the inception of The Little Red Hen, Stepworks has been on an app-making spree with other classic tale releases like The Boy Who Cried Wolf, The Tortoise and the Hare, The Three Little Pigs, The Lion and the Mouse, and now, their most recent, Duck in the Truck, made in collaboration with HarperCollins Children’s Books.

The beautiful thing about this most recent collaboration is it takes the brand Kidztory and merges it with contemporary children’s literature, preserving all the original artwork from the books, themselves. I truly enjoy the digital artwork seen in the other Kidzstory conceptions, but it’s good to see modern tales upheld in their original light – and now, with the aid of the iPhone, they are given a voice and a bit of interactivity. HarperCollins truly picked a perfect brand with the now well-regarded Kidzstory brand, and after releasing Duck in the Truck, they plan on releasing more books by Jez Alborough, including Captain Duck and Fix-It Duck. Not too long ago I reviewed a storybook app called The Boy Giant by author Allan Penderleith, which I found emotional and entertaining – but, he doesn’t have quite the household name that Jez Alborough has. With Alborough’s  iPhone storybook app releases, I hope more people will become aware of, and embrace, the storybook idea for the iPhone.

As a book, Duck in the Truck is, without further explanation, an excellent read for the young mind. The characters are well-sketched, with individual quirks and looks, and this book, in particular, exhibits the moral of being a good Samaritan.The artwork is vivid and lush, with an almost old world look to it – old world in the sense of having that highly detailed drawing style usually not seen in more modern children’s books, which I feel mostly favor the scant and pared down look, a minimalist world. On the iPhone, Duck in the Truck bears that same fecundity, with bright colors jumping out at you from the screen, and slow animations that let you explore the world one mindful blink at a time. It’s amazing what designers can do with static images, taking a truck and just doing a simple clip clip on the computer, and then pasting that image onto the background, so it appears that when Duck’s truck gets stuck, it bucks back and then forth. To make the story even better for the young listener, who but Harry Enfield, comedian extraordinaire, should be the in-app narrator. The app is mechanized like the other intuitive storybook apps from Kidzstory, utilizing the flipping mechanism that mimes actual page flipping, with the page animation to boot. It’s overall, just a joy to behold, a joy to read, and a joy to listen to. If I were a child, who wanted to foster his own interest in reading, Duck in the Truck, and other apps by Kidzstory, are the best ways to develop that reading autonomy, in the guise of a modern, digital toy.

After playing it, I’ve decided Numbl is definitely my choice in math games, for improving basic speed skills in mental math. No one wants to play a game of decoding differential equations and higher end calculus, except for those few and far between math majors, but nearly anyone can partake in a game of speedy arithmetic – and that’s essentially what Numbl is, coupled with the strategy of using the least moves possible to clear the entire board.

The game is shockingly good-looking. Good sound effects of the right pitch and digital cheeriness bring to mind a retro computer system, only it’s paired with a contemporary blue sheen that reminds me of the Chase credit card company. The setup reminds me of a calculator, with numbered buttons in a 5×4 area, an arrangement I suppose, is a good likeness to have when the game revolves around calculating a sum. The object of the game is to clear the board with the least moves as possible; in other words, it’s best to use the most numbers possible per turn, to faster eliminate numbers from the board. The number 11, for example, when shown at the top to be solved, could simply be solved by the addition of the two numbers 9 and 2. But, since 11 isn’t a terribly high number – as opposed to, say, 17 – then it’d be wiser to use an allotment of small numbers, like 3+2+2+4 – given of course, that you have these numbers available. Should you worry that you may receive a number that you cannot create with the remaining numbers at hand, fret not: Numbl takes into account such limitations and allows you to use a single number of equal value to the number at the top (e.g. use a 6 for a 6). Obviously, for the purposes of clearing the board, I recommend not to tap a number 9 to solve for 9 when you could instead use 2+2+5. Besides, when a pesky 17 shows up, you’ll want to have that 9 on hand.

Easy to pick up and easy to learn, Numbl also offers a nice split-screen mode for two-player. Also, both the one-player and two-player modes are timed, making speed a crucial element to the game. I prefer one-player, myself, because I enjoy improving my own mental acuity at my own pace (faster, Jackie, faster!), but to each his own. I hope in later versions Numbl will offer a similar version of play with subtraction, multiplication and division. You may as well cover all the preliminary bases, right? In any case, whoever is lucky enough to nab the sole promo code won’t regret downloading this game.

Promotion Codes:

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*When using the promotion code to download for free, it’s on a first-come, first-served basis. Out of courtesy, please leave a comment below mentioning you’ve used the promotion code.

iTouchiLearn Words consists of three parts: two word games and a series of animations based on the same pool of words to reinforce learning. Simply touch, play, learn and enjoy. Unlike static flash cards, iTouchiLearn Words provides a fun, interactive way to learn, while keeping the sessions short to keep the child’s mind engaged and attentive. The app is simply, but effectively designed – some of the illustrations and animations aren’t the greatest, but I’m sure most young children won’t mind, so long as the adult can get past whatever preconceived biases they may have against less fastidious-looking artwork.

The main menu shows three tabs in the form of torn out sheets of notepad paper, one with ABC, one with a magnifying glass, and one with a film slide showing a baby crawling. The first tab, ABC, is a word game where a picture is shown, along with four possible word choices. The narrator, for example, says, “Touch the dog,” and your child has to figure out which word represents dog. When a wrong word is selected – let’s

Positive reinforcement in action

say cat – the narrator reads the word aloud, but then a buzzer noise is heard, and the narrator repeats the command, “Touch the dog.” This process of elimination continues until your child selects the right word, dog, and applause is heard, a WOOHOO! and a ringing bell. The game is all about positive reinforcement, indicated all the more by the smiling, happy star that appears when a right answer is selected. Over time, the idea is that your child will begin to associate the visual imagery with the word, itself.

The next game, indicated by the magnifying glass, is nearly the opposite of the aforementioned game: this time around, a word is given – i.e. balloon – and three possible images are shown. The process is the same as the last game – your child gradually eliminates choices until the correct one is chosen, with negative and positive reinforcement along the way. The last game, though, is where iTouchiLearn Words truly shines. The last game takes the cognitive skills up a notch by introducing animation in tandem with words, so your child may recognize different words that may be used with the same image, depending on the situation at hand. I really like the egg animation, in particular. First, an egg is shown, with the word “egg” spoken aloud. Next, the egg breaks open and lands in a skillet, where the phrase “fried egg” is heard, along with a sizzling sound. A chicken is then shown, it lays an egg, then egg hatches open and reveals a chick, with the narrator using words the entire time. The chick then goes through a quick growth metamorphisis back into a chicken. It’s actually quite brilliant, and I’m sure, fascinating for a child to behold.

A few of the animations may be a bit difficult to conceive – the animation where the boy is playing catch with a small, rubber ball comes to mind – but given the expansive, cognitive abilities of a growing child, I’m sure everything contained within this app is completely fathomable, and able to be deciphered, tucked away into knowledge. Sure, the illustrations aren’t the greatest, but the app performs well, the narrator is loud and clear, and the app definitely has more potential than other, more static flashcard type apps in the App Store.

Promotion Codes:

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*When using the promotion code to download for free, it’s on a first-come, first-served basis. Out of courtesy, please leave a comment below mentioning you’ve used the promotion code.

The app is presented in the most basic of aesthetics. A teal blue background is beset with three, white tiles at the top, each with its own letter in black boldface that, when combined, form a word; a yellow square centered below, bearing a definition for the word presented above; and two tabs at the bottom indicating Next and Random. Prior to this screen, the developer includes a short blurb on how to use Short Word Maker, mentioning that aside from the Next and Random tabs, you may tap any one of the three letter tiles above to change that letter to another. This mechanism is what truly makes the app. The Random button, obviously, finds a random word and defines it for you – the three letter tiles jumble, a flurry of letters whizzing around the tiles’ borders, until three letters are chosen to form a word. The Next button works under purely alphabetical principles – if the word mud is showing, tapping the Next button will produce mug, then mum, then nab, and so on, covering only the basic and ordinary words children of a young age could become familiar with. Working alphabetically is great for burgeoning readers who want to go through a list of vocabulary words. but if children want to take more initiative in forming words, then they may tap any one of the letter tiles to change that letter into the next letter that could form a coherent word in tandem with the two, remaining letters. Touching the B in nab, for example, would change the B to G, resulting in nag. There is no nac, nad, nae, or naf in the English language – at least, not for the purposes of a young reader – so nag is presented as the next viable option for a static na- and a malleable ending letter of -b. I was actually curious what would happen if I tapped the middle letter A, in nag, because I couldn’t think of the next likely word that would pop up – or, at least, one recognizable to a degree by youngsters. As it turns out, I was right – the app presented me with an error message, saying No new word found, try a different letter or selecting Random. I suppose this limitation was a given, but I couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. After all, a young reader’s mind is so vast, so exponential, that learning all different kinds of words is possible – if a child learns what arrhythmia means, who is to dispute that such a word is too advanced?

The word creation ability, though, is still a useful tool for kids expanding their vocabulary, and any imposed word limitations are minor and of little consequence. The one aspect of Short Word Maker that I found to be inexcusable, though, was the choice in definitions. The way some of them are worded is misleading, and some even, bear an unnecessary bias. Rat is defined as “similar to a large ugly mouse.” It’s true, a mouse bears some physiological resemblance to a rat, and for the purposes of a young reader, this may be enough preliminary introduction to what a rat is. The use of the definer “ugly,” though, bears no contextual significance; a rat may be seen as ugly to some people, but it is not universally ugly – nor is any animal. Ugly is a purely arbitrary concept that doesn’t belong in a definition for rat, and certainly doesn’t belong in a definition meant for kids, who may learn to view rats with such a slanted perspective. Some words are defined in really simple terms, such as sap, defined as “sticky stuff that comes from trees,” whereas others, like hah, are defined with more complex words: an interjection indicating surprise. Some words aren’t defined at all, but are given a context: for means “a homonym of four.” If the developer is going to use the word homonym – a grammar concept, let’s face it, hardly anyone in this country understands – then why not just use the word preposition, as well? Why not just define the word as “in regarding to” or something just as vague to a young reader. Or, here’s my favorite: lew, defined as “short for Lewis.” Wait, what? Why even put that word in, if you could consider it a word. I wasn’t under the impression that names were the same as words, and I hardly believe lew is actually short for Lewis. Stick with Bob and Rob, heck, even the random Gus inserted in there.

Short Word Maker does have its flaws, but it has good intentions. The quibbles I have with the app are easily overcome with proper editing and better definitions – with a few changes here and there I’m sure more mothers would consider Short Word Maker to be an appropriate word-learning tool for their kids. As of now, though, it remains a little biased, a little vague, to properly point kids in the right direction.

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*When using the promotion code to download for free, it’s on a first-come, first-served basis. Out of courtesy, please leave a comment below mentioning you’ve used the promotion code.

The app contains all the elements within the first game – alphabet flashcards with image and pronunciation tabs – but in addition, the developers tacked on two more game-oriented abilities that add a great deal more dimension that allows children to interact more. The See It, Say It section is a game where the user matches one of the three letters on top to the image pictured below. If a kite is shown, for example, and the letters K, J, Q, appear above, it’s up to the kid to figure out which letter works with the image, and then drag that letter onto the image. The letters are all drawn in a toy cube fashion, and

L for lion!

differentiate from each other with the use of different colors. The user may tap each block to hear the letter pronounced, and then tap the image to hear kite read aloud. The objective is for the user to logically reason which sounds mostly closely mirror each other, and therefore, which letter belongs to that word. Otherwise, if the user chooses incorrectly, the letter will simply disappear. Then it becomes a process of elimination – there are now only two letters left to choose, so obviously, it must be one of them, right? Eventually, your child will get the solution, right, and in the process, understand that J and Q have nothing to do with kite.When the correct letter is dragged onto the image, the image animates for a few seconds, as a reward for the user’s efforts.

The other new play option is Hear It, Hit It. In this section, an image appears below, as is customary, and three dots appear above, in the colors of blue, yellow and red. Each dot, when tapped, gives an audio clip of someone pronouncing a letter, such as “wuh” for W or “juh” for J. Once again, the user has to figure out which sound is appropriate for the image, and then drag that corresponding dot onto the image. If the selection is correct, the user is rewarded with a brief animation, sometimes children cheering and clapping. This section could definitely prove to be challenging for the young mind, and is definitely effective at encourage a memorization of sounds and their corresponding letters, and objects/animals that begin with that particular letter.

ABC Shakedown is what kids apps are meant to be – fun, interactive, and most of all, educational. For any child still learning his A,B,Cs and general language skills, this app is excellent for nurturing that beginning ability, and has a long shelf life due to the time it takes to acquire this ability. The animations could be livelier (how about a lion roaring instead of licking his lips?) to further engage the user, and some of the pronunciations are a little hard to interpret – the “f” sounds more like “shhh” and could just be a technical obstacles given microphones and recording equipment. Also, despite being very interactive, the app lacks any intuitiveness. You must read the directions to figure out how to use it – an older child or adult could obviously figure it out after some tinkering, but a young child definitely needs some direction. After initial instructions – a rubric how to use – it’s easy for a child to navigate. But, these are but a few flaws in an otherwise spectacular app.

fffff for fish!