Back to school apps for iPhone, iPod touch

Yup, it’s the time of year again; the time when all of we students head back to school and spend countless hours inside of a classroom, followed by more time at home working on projects. It’s inevitable. You can’t escape it. However, there are some things you can do to make it easier upon yourself. And for those of you with an iPod Touch or iPhone, you can download one of various applications to help make this time of year easier and more stress-free. In this article I’ll outline four applications that can help you with your back to school needs.

FreeSaurus

This application is exactly what it sounds like—a free thesaurus application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. While it requires an internet connection, it does a great job. The interface takes a little to get used to at first, but once you get over that bump, this application is very helpful. If you’re like me, the most helpful thing for writing essays is a thesaurus so you aren’t constantly repeating the same words. That, and you can be sneaky and look up bigger words for ones you know to trick your teacher into thinking your smarter. Awesome, ‘ey?

So, if you’re looking for a great way to improve your essays and writing in general, grab this application. Also, to complement it, there are a couple of free dictionary applications you could download from the App Store. These can be helpful to make sure the word you found in the thesaurus has the right definition for which you are looking.

Download now from the App Store.

myHomework

This is an application to help students keep track of all of their homework, whether it be short term or long term. You start by simply entering some of your classes, as well as their details, such as location, class name, and teacher. You can then set up homework assignments for those classes by using descriptions and due dates. The homework assignments can be viewed in a list format, daily format, or month format, making it extremely easy to see what you have coming up. Furthermore, the application makes use of badges to show you how much work you have to do when it isn’t open.

While the functionality of the application is great, I found the interface a little slow and unresponsive at times. But it was designed very well, and the appropriate buttons are where you would expect them to be. I can see this application being very helpful for the students who enjoy keeping track of their homework digitally and are looking for an application designed for that.

Download now from the App Store.

Grafunc

Sometimes when you forget your graphing calculator at school, you find it impossible to do some calculus homework. This wouldn’t be the case with a graphing calculator on your iPhone! This free one does a nice job of covering the basics. It allows the user to scroll around the graph as well as add numerous graphs to the chart to compare. You can differentiate the lines by changing their colors, too.

While I said it does a nice job of the basics, it would be nice to see some more function support. Right now, it covers sine, cosine, square root, exponent, etc., but I would like to see some higher level functions. These can sometimes be achieved by dividing or performing various functions on sine and cosine, but it would be easier to have them as a default. Overall the application does a great job.

Download now from the App Store.

Yowza!!

Being a student—especially a college one—money can sometimes be very important to save so that you don’t end up with an enormous amount of debt once you graduate. Yowza, a mobile coupon application, can help make saving money easier than ever. You simply launch the app and let it find where you are. It then searches its database to find participating offers and coupons near you that you can use by simply showing the cashier your phone. The coupon shows up as either a barcode or number for the employee to enter.

While the application is relatively new, they say that they are adding new stores and offers everyday. I have noticed some new ones with my use of it as well. So, if you’re not the type of person to check the paper and clip coupons, get digital and use this application to make struggling to find coupons a thing of the past. It even has a feature in the application that allows you to keep track of how much money you save through it.

Download now from the App Store.

The price of a modern education? Free.

While there is a surplus of applications to get you back in the groove for school, I tried to stick to the free ones knowing that sometimes money and school don’t go well together. If you have any applications you have found to be extremely useful, feel free to let us know in the comments!