2010 Back to School Guide: The Elements for iPad

Have an iPad or planning to get one before going back to school? The app we’re featuring today is The Elements for iPad, perfect for any student majoring in a science-related field or science geek. The Elements for iPad is an interactive e-book that lets you interact with and learn about the variety of chemicals and metals in the periodic table of elements. We’ve got more on this great app after the break.

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Product At-a-Glance

Pros

Immersive and interactive experience.
High resolution graphics.

Cons

Takes up a considerable amount of storage space.

Summary

The Elements for iPad is a great app for anyone who wants to show off the power of their iPad, but is also a great leap forward using new interactive technologies in our education system.

The idea of the app is simple: simply pick an element off the periodic table and you’re shown a short movie loop of that particular element. Swipe to the next page and you’re presented with more interactive elements. Touch and flick the elements left or right and they spin. You can tap any of these to get a larger version, and tap a button again to view a 3D version that works with glasses sold separately. The app comes from newly founded Touch Press with help from Theodore Gray of Wolfram Research and Mathematica fame and Nick Mann who took the majority of the photographs.

I have to say, I was completely immersed in this app when I downloaded it, it is really that amazing. You learn so much about certain elements that you would otherwise never know about. The app also integrates closely with Wolfram Alpha. For example, you can tap the Wolfram Alpha button for gold or silver and see the latest market price. I can just see schools and universities who are using iPads using this app in their science classes often, but this is only the first leap in using new technology in our education systems.

The only downside of this app we found was that it takes up a considerable amount of storage, 1.71GB to be exact. My 16GB iPad is almost full with movies, music, photos and other apps that I had to skim through my library to delete stuff I no longer used.

You can find The Elements in the App Store for $13.99. A version for the iPhone 4 is also available for $9.99.