Apple iPhone GMAT application for GMAT Club

Yes it does. There's a whole bunch of them published as of now, including medical, chemical, anatomy, etc. That is why I was asking about a GMAT app. It would be a great venture, considering there are approximately 200,000 test takers a year, and GMATers are from a demographic that might afford/want/own an iPhone when compared to the average population. And I am sure that an iPhone GMATer would buy a GMAT app if it were available.

iPhone 1 is easily jailbroken. There are hundreds of user-created apps available.

There are indeed GRE iphone apps and MCAT apps I have seen. No GMAT though.

Can we do something about this? Prepare the mobile app for GMATclub. This app could be accessed thru Iphone/Blackberry. I think there would be many people who would like to buy that app.

There is one app called GMAT Express for iPhone. I tried it. not bad, not good.

I do like GMAT and I do like iPhone. So, I joined them into my new hobby: I spend a bit of my free time on playing with iPhone SDK. At least, I become less nervous about application process. Now, I have even a working prototype of Timer. I hope you will see something in a 1-2 months when I'll finish all necessary procedures in AppStore.

We'll definitely support and compensate if anyone of the members would like to undertake this task. Otherwise, we can try a third party coder. Let me know if you have interest and time to create a quizzing application.

Walker?

Walker, one of our moderators and a prolific contributor to GMAT Club, offered to build an Apple iPhone/iPod Touch application for GMAT Club’s Tests. We are thrilled to have such opportunity and would like to take advantage of it. The best part is that we get to decide and pick what features it will have and how it will work.

Thus, I wanted to start a discussion in this forum and solicit feedback about
1) Need/utility of such application – would you use it or how would you use it? (please specify if you have an iPhone).
2) Features to include
If you have an opinion and a few minutes to document it, would love to hear your thoughts.

First some assumptions:
1. Taking full length GMAT tests on an iPhone or iPod is less fun than taking them on a computer, and definitely much harder due to the size of the screen, esp. when it gets to Verbal
2. Most probably the application will serve as free publicity or a vehicle to get GMAT Club’s name out there rather than a revenue generator. Though a paid version may be feasible, but there definitely has to be a free one.
3. The application features should be driven by end users, so a number of beta’s and releases will be required
4. For the sake of time-to-market and feedback generation, the application should come out of the gate with core features and then add bells and whistles based on user feedback
5. To succeed, the app should be slick (applesque) and intuitive

Proposed Core Features
- Math and Verbal questions
- Quiz mode – 10 questions are timed based on topic (e.g. Arithmetic, Word Problems, etc)
- Random Mode – shake the iPhone and get a random question
- Some kind of mistake analysis
- Maybe: a Pretty graph or chart to track progress and identify weakness areas
- Maybe: Diagnostic Test mode
- Maybe: fun feature such as sounds when answering questions right or wrong (can be turned on/off in options)
- Maybe: list of questions that were answered wrong
- Maybe: some basic tips/recommendations for improving each of the areas?

Let us know if you disagree about the features or assumptions.

OK. I don't have an iphone, but I'll go get one if there was a GMAT app You're welcome apple. Take more of my money.

I think you can use an iPod touch, which is more affordable but still Apple will be getting my money too


$220 on Amazon for 8 GB one
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001FA ... B001FA1NZK

Terrific idea!
Here are my suggestions:
1.To start with, the app needs to be as simple as possible.
2.Needs to have a well-documented and traceable source. This can be G-club tests or 1000 series. For example, if I get a SC question on the app, the most important things I'd like to know are its source (e.g. SC1000) and location (e.g. #q 937 in SC1000). Once I finished the test, I can search, say, G-club and find many attempts to explain that particular question.

I am happy to help with the project once I take my GMAT (hopefully by mid-apr)

Absolutely agree especially for the first version of the app



I think it is a good idea! It is possible to provide not only problem-explanation but also link to discussion thread. Moreover, I see necessity to have "bookmark" feature. In other words, it would be possible to bookmark problems that you are gonna review latter.

Agree with "bookmark" thing. Also, the app can be developed so that it creates a downloadable to the PC log at the end of each set of tests. The log could include whatever stats we can pull (e.g. source, location, correct/incorrect, OA, time spent per question, topic if known, etc).

Some of you remember my Application for WM5 smartphones. The application contained SC1000 and CR1000 sets and helped me a lot to get 40V as for non-English speaker. Many hours of using the application and changing it on everyday basis led to a pretty powerful and usable preparation tool. Unfortunately, GMAC banned 1000 series and the application became history. However, I have own experience what works and what doesn't for mobile device preparation tool. There are my thoughts:

1) The shortest educational cycle - 1 problem. The power of mobile applications consists in possibility of spending every free minute on preparation. If we look at our whole day, it will be difficult to find 75 minutes. Moreover, to be concentrated over whole educational cycle (whole test, verbal or quantitative parts, quizzes), we have to study in silence, don't we? But what if we have only 5 minutes, let's say in cafe, another 5 minutes waiting a friend or appointment and so on? I found the most appropriate modes of working with mobile app: A) problem -> answer -> (+ bookmarks if I think it would be useful for me to analyze the problem deeper) --> next problem. B) problem in bookmarks -> explanation -> (- bookmarks if I get it) -> next problem in bookmarks. This two ways of working with mobile application are very simple and short. Let's imagine we do 10 problem quiz. If we interrupted the quiz a few times, it would be difficult at the end of test to remember first question in detail when analyzing a wrong answer. So, my suggestion to take 1 problem as a basis for GMATClub app.

2) Error logs vs Bookmarks. They both are responsible for the same function: keeping difficult problems to which we could return latter to analyze our mistakes in detail. I'm a strong supporter of bookmarks approach for the following reasons. Sometimes we what to consider deeper problems we've answered right in order to grasp a concept; sometimes we don't want to consider problem we've answered wrong because we've made a silly and obvious mistake. Bookmarks-approach better suit for this function. Moreover, after a week of study we will have a lot of error logs and it will be difficult to manage it. At the same time, error logs help to avoid repetition of problems. It is possible to incorporate such functionality in bookmarks-approach introducing black/white of bad/good bookmarks.

I don't know but maybe it would be useful to have two different applications for math and for verbal.

So, what is my preliminary vision of the first GMATClub app? I think it is math app with 300+ problems divided by difficulty level, timing for a problem, bookmarks, random problem and links to forum threads for each problem. I think we can make such application pretty fast and continue our discussion having something in hands.

By the way, it would be great if this forum can be accessible through iPhone in usable format, at least as read-only feature. So, the iPhone user could go problem-explanation-discussion way smoothly.

Why not have a paid version and a free version.

I think all questions should be based on the challenges.

Paid:
All Challenge questions - $79 app fee. (Or can lower the price as you gauge the demand on itunes). I assume there are what over a 1000 questions? Anyone doing serious gmatprep will pay that money if the app is well-written. I know I would have if I were still studying for the GMAT. Since these questions are all in-house written you have a copyright on them. The SC1000 document is not a source but compilations from other copyrighted sources that may run into issues if you bring it into a heavily trafficked and visible forum such as ITunes.

EDIT: read walker's comments on 1000 series, but still think this should be the idea.

Lite:

Same as Paid but with let's say 50 questions and this app will be free.

I think it is a great idea. After each question you can get a confirmation whether you got it right or wrong and have a chance to review the explanation. If you are happy and still have time, there could be a continue button that will give a similar type question (Hard Arithmetic for example or Easy Geometry)

This only increases the need for a review system/bookmarking and error log.


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Why two different versions? I can understand from a developer perspective it is easier to develop, but why from a user standpoint?

By the way, can we make an app so that you could import your own questions? (for yourself only of course)

What I am thinking is enable people to import their own questions from any source for example questions that they have purchased or ones they keep making mistakes in but just can't get on the iPhone? This way we stay out of the whole copyright issue that I am not a fan of and give all the control into user's hands....

We can publish the schema or format for entering questions and let them have at it.... they can even invent their own.