Anki Flashcards

Anki is an excellent tool for flashcards, in my experience. Rather than asking for a "know/don't know" with each flashcard, it asks the user to rate his or her knowledge on a 5-point scale. The scale determines how long it will be before the flashcard re-appears. The effect is that difficult flashcards appear frequently, and easy ones fall to the back - but if you should forget an easy one when it does come around, it will start re-appearing again. For the purpose of rote memorization, this system is a good one. Anki is opensource and works on Mac, Linux, and Windows. Furthermore, it synchronizes your flashcard data on a server.

As a fan of the Anki system, building an iPhone port for the application seemed a logical step. The iPhone is the perfect platform for studying while on the go or sitting and waiting. I built the "Anki Flashcards" as a simple iPhone interface for the Anki system (built using Jiggy). Once downloaded and installed, the user is prompted to enter his Anki login/username in the settings section. This allows the program to connect to the Anki server and synchronize your flashcards.

This project was too small in scale for me to bother adding the ability to create new flashcards or anything of the sort. For now, all the application does is let you quiz yourself on flashcards from your Anki account. All progress is saved (in real time by the iPhone) and tracked on the Anki server, so if you then use Anki on your deskop or laptop, all of this data will be copied during the next sync.