Advanced English Dictionary and Thesaurus
I've been meaning to get a thesaurus app for a while now, so this app called out to me. I was glad to see that it could be used offline; if it could only be used online, there was no point in installing it because I could just look words up through Google or something. The dictionary part is serviceable enough. Whoever designed this app seems to have been more interested in breadth of vocabulary rather than depth, though. There are many obscure terms included, and it'll be a great vocabulary builder for me, but the definitions I read were pretty basic. There were no discussions of usage either, so if you don't already know a certain term is considered offensive, this app isn't going to warn you.
I thought this was less successful as a thesaurus app. For each word, AEDT lists hyponyms, hypernyms, and meronyms, if any. First, I had to find out what hyponyms, hypernyms, and meronyms were—gee, good thing it's a dictionary app—and I got the feeling the makers of the app were showing off their vocabulary more than making a user-friendly tool. But as someone raised on the classic Roget's Thesaurus, with its emphasis on the subtleties of meaning, I didn't find this useful. I suppose the AEDT is giving me synonyms, but a good thesaurus gives you antonyms as well, and I wasn't having much luck finding them in this app.
I should mention the games. This app plays a mean game of hangman; I may keep it around just for that feature. I have no innate skill at Word Scramble, it seems. The word of the day is "Malpighia glabra," the botanical name for the barbados cherry, which I cannot imagine using again after I finish this sentence, but it was interesting. You know, as long as I use this app for everything except what it says it was designed for, I'll be fine. But I still want a decent thesaurus app.
I thought this was less successful as a thesaurus app. For each word, AEDT lists hyponyms, hypernyms, and meronyms, if any. First, I had to find out what hyponyms, hypernyms, and meronyms were—gee, good thing it's a dictionary app—and I got the feeling the makers of the app were showing off their vocabulary more than making a user-friendly tool. But as someone raised on the classic Roget's Thesaurus, with its emphasis on the subtleties of meaning, I didn't find this useful. I suppose the AEDT is giving me synonyms, but a good thesaurus gives you antonyms as well, and I wasn't having much luck finding them in this app.
I should mention the games. This app plays a mean game of hangman; I may keep it around just for that feature. I have no innate skill at Word Scramble, it seems. The word of the day is "Malpighia glabra," the botanical name for the barbados cherry, which I cannot imagine using again after I finish this sentence, but it was interesting. You know, as long as I use this app for everything except what it says it was designed for, I'll be fine. But I still want a decent thesaurus app.
artCircles
I got a bad feeling about this app when the splash screen announced, "Take a spin through artCircles to discover and shop a world of art." Shop?
The organizational scheme for the art is based on what will sell it. I don't know all that much about paintings, but cataloging and classification are my favorite library skills, so seeing how this was put together had interest for me in its own right. For instance, it would never have occurred to me to group paintings by what will look good in the nursery, the living room, the kitchen. Or by adjectives: quirky, mysterious, understated, ethereal. (They do have a scheme based on art movements, just in case you like to look at art organized in a traditional fashion.) But whoever designed the app wants to sell paintings, not give you an art education, so there isn't much help in taking what you see in this app and applying it to a painting you might see in a friend's house or at a museum. It's a fun app for a few minutes amusement, and it may be useful if you like their stock and are interested in buying something, but it's not generally useful.
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