Wow, super fascinating topic Esther! Who doesn't like talking about flashcard programs? Crazy people, that's who.
Seriously though, I'm not a picky person in general. When it comes to music and food, I can listen to/eat almost anything and enjoy it. But for some things, such as flashcard programs, I feel like I'm constantly searching for the holy grail. I found a NEARLY perfect one called "Flashcards Deluxe" ($3.99) which I'm using right now and quite happy with. I also really love Anki - I used it all throughout Korean 200 - but it doesn't have an iPad version yet, just iPhone/iPod touch. I don't like working with a teensy mini-screen on my iPad :(
The "ideal" flashcard app totally depends on what you need it for. I use mine for memorizing vocabulary and short phrases in Korean, but someone preparing for the SATs or learning their times tables will likely want something different. Here's my (incomplete) requirement list:
- Universal, so I can use it on an android phone, iPad, and PC.
- Bonus: Some means of keeping all devices synced together, via some sort of account/sky drive/cloud-based service
- Variety of study modes:
- -->Study mode option that shows your problem cards frequently and your "dude I know this" cards rarely. Because there's no point in seeing the words for "house" and "eat" over and over again.
- -->Able to introduce new cards slowly and add on more as you go, rather than throw the whole deck at you at once.
- -->Ideally, a test/review mode for after you've learned all the cards in a deck. Great for the night before the test.
- Able to import from common flashcard file databases e.g. Quizlet. Why spend hours typing out your vocabulary words when someone else has already done it? Especially if you have to switch back and forth between 한글 and English. Just make sure you go through all the cards *before* studying so you don't accidentally memorize someone else's spelling mistakes...
- Preferably free, or at least cheap.
- Able to edit flashcards and decks within the program on each individual device. I assumed this would be a given but it's not!
- Able to randomize card order
- Able to alternate between showing back first/front first. This is especially important for language learning, since you need to be able to translate both ways quickly. If the option doesn't exist, you can sometimes get around it by saving your deck, then switching the fields, and importing the switched version as a second deck/add-on to original deck.
- Obviously, I need it to support Korean script. Many also allow you to add pictures, sound files, and even more than 2 sides per flashcard, but I don't have time to set all these up. I can see how >2 sides could be useful for language learning, if you want to add a field for part of speech, or honorific level, or tense/conjugations, and sound would be fantastic if you had the patience to record each word.
- Bonus: Ability to import from spreadsheets posted to google docs etc, because often the built-in card editors are a bit clumsy to work with.
- Works offline. I feel silly writing this, but I honestly found an app that got almost everything right *except* it required a working internet connection. Wtf? Flashcard files are tiny, just save em to the hard drive please & thanks.
I could go on, but I won't, because (a) I'm sleepy and (b) I'm pretty sure I already gave more detail than anyone needed to know. Seriously though, I've spent hours researching flashcard apps and there's always at least one or two things lacking T_T I should have become a programmer...