{"id":1260,"date":"2013-09-26T11:45:32","date_gmt":"2013-09-26T01:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/?p=1260"},"modified":"2013-11-04T11:39:57","modified_gmt":"2013-11-04T01:39:57","slug":"review-quick-maths-for-ios","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/features\/review-quick-maths-for-ios\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Quick Maths+ for iOS"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"edge-to-edge-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1262\" alt=\"Quick Maths+\" src=\"https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133832\/intro-screen.jpg\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1032\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133832\/intro-screen.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133832\/intro-screen-300x258.jpg 300w, https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133832\/intro-screen-1024x881.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133832\/intro-screen-770x662.jpg 770w, https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133832\/intro-screen-380x327.jpg 380w, https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133832\/intro-screen-800x688.jpg 800w, https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133832\/intro-screen-1160x998.jpg 1160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Working in the education world, I&#8217;m always trying to find new iOS apps that can help students. I&#8217;m also pretty keen on Australian-made apps. That&#8217;s why I was happy to hear that local iOS developers <a href=\"http:\/\/www.getshinythings.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Shiny Things<\/a> were releasing a new beefed-up version of their iOS maths app, called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.getshinythings.com\/quickmathplus\" target=\"_blank\">Quick Maths+<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4bq9GBchmjg\" height=\"480\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I reviewed the first version <a href=\"http:\/\/gomake.com.au\/2013\/01\/go-make-review-sakura-quick-math\" target=\"_blank\">back in January<\/a>, and I found it to be a great little maths app for a small subset of maths operations. Well, they&#8217;ve come back and really upped the ante for this version targeted at players 8+; including memory, fractions, order-of-operations, estimation and a whole bunch more.<\/p>\n<p>The design of Shiny Things apps have always been incredibly polished &amp; distinctive, and this app is no exception. They&#8217;ve taken the friendly UI concepts that they pioneered in the original and made them even more refined. Large, friendly icons hop encouragingly on the home screen. Menus swoop in with a little understated flourish. Sound effects are there, but not overdone or gaudy. The app is portrait-only which is just perfect for how it works; writing numbers on the screen.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;ve also implemented a new rewards system, using stars to motivate students into improving their times. It&#8217;s not easy either; in response to feedback they&#8217;ve also cranked up the difficulty on the higher levels. It took me several runs through to get a 3-star rating on the Beginner-level\u00a0<em>Solve<\/em> stage.<\/p>\n<div class=\"edge-to-edge-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1263\" alt=\"The design of Quick Maths+\" src=\"https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133831\/writing.jpg\" width=\"1020\" height=\"487\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133831\/writing.jpg 1020w, https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133831\/writing-300x143.jpg 300w, https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133831\/writing-770x368.jpg 770w, https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133831\/writing-380x181.jpg 380w, https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133831\/writing-800x382.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\" \/><\/div>\n<h1 id=\"respectful-design\">Respectful Design<\/h1>\n<p>Actually, that&#8217;s really what I like most about Shiny Things aesthetic, and what compelled me to write this review. <strong>Can I lay down some real talk for a second?<\/strong> Most education apps in the App Store are incredibly &#8216;kiddy&#8217; in their design &amp; execution and I feel like they don&#8217;t treat their users with a respectful design. It really bugs me, and I see it everywhere. Clunky intro screens, over-simplified instructions, gross interfaces; if you&#8217;ve spent any time with education apps you&#8217;ll know exactly what I&#8217;m talking about. Kids put up with this stuff to get to the good parts of the apps they use, and very rarely are those apps self-aware enough to just get out of the way.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a real world analogue; you know those people who lean down and talk to kids like they&#8217;re idiots? They kind of get in a kid&#8217;s face and yell enthusiastically at them in a weird high-pitched voice? That&#8217;s how I see a lot of iOS education apps. They treat their users like dummies, because y&#8217;know, kids.<\/p>\n<p>Thing is, kids aren&#8217;t idiots. In fact, most of the time they&#8217;re more savvy with devices than their educators. Everyone deserves a chance to use well-designed apps that treat you with respect, and it&#8217;s even more important in the education space.<\/p>\n<p>I really am glad that Shiny Things goes out of the way to bring an incredibly polished design, UI and aesthetic to the education space. Much in the same way that I see <a href=\"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/2013\/09\/review-pocketcasts-4\/\" target=\"_blank\">Pocket Casts leading the charge in iOS 7 design<\/a>, I see Shiny Things taking an unapologetic stand in demanding a higher quality of experience for children in learning. There&#8217;s no dumbing-down in this app and no removing the challenging elements. It really does what it advertises; improves your maths skills.<\/p>\n<p>There are other small touches which teachers everywhere will appreciate too, and make it obvious they&#8217;ve thought about how this works in a classroom environment. There&#8217;s an internal profile system set up, so each player doesn&#8217;t mess with their other&#8217;s score and progression. There&#8217;s a very easily-accessible mute button (a godsend in the classroom).<\/p>\n<div class=\"edge-to-edge-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1264\" alt=\"profile\" src=\"https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133830\/profile.jpg\" width=\"1020\" height=\"487\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133830\/profile.jpg 1020w, https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133830\/profile-300x143.jpg 300w, https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133830\/profile-770x368.jpg 770w, https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133830\/profile-380x181.jpg 380w, https:\/\/media.reckoner.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/27133830\/profile-800x382.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\" \/><\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;ll be honest; usually education apps that try to &#8216;teach&#8217; instead of giving a teacher &#8216;tools to create&#8217; often don&#8217;t grab me. It comes a recurring crutch for teachers that substitute apps for a textbook, or send their students off to the corner for &#8216;some time with the iPad&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>I think Quick Math+ is different because it tackles a fundamental reality in maths; practice and repetition\u00a0improves your skills. It also doesn&#8217;t shy away from another reality; students need to learn how to write numbers, not just tap a number button. In both these respects it excels, while delivering a highly-polished and thoughtful experience.<\/p>\n<p>Other education app developers? Hope you are paying attention, because Shiny Things are making you look bad right now.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/au\/app\/quick-math+\/id703287370?ls=1&amp;mt=8\" target=\"_blank\">Quick Maths+ is now available on the App Store from today for AU$1.99.<\/a>\u00a0It&#8217;s a universal app for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shiny Things have brought high-level design &#038; polish to education apps, and I couldn&#8217;t be happier.\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[11],"tags":[13,94,306,115,73,337],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"reckoner_social_message":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}