Organizing class work and keeping track of grades can be a pain. The aptly-named Grades app aims to be the ultimate tool for students in the App Store, and version 3.0 arrived today with a host of new features.
Grades 2 was good enough to receive an Apple Design Award, but updates have been so stagnant that the app is just now receiving support for the iPhone 5’s taller display. Today marks a huge leap forward for Grades, and there’s more to come with the impending launch of iOS 7.
Feature wise, you can now create to-dos for individual classes. There’s a new note taker, you can get push notifications for assignments or tests, and all upcoming due dates can be viewed in a handy planner.
The main thing you’ll notice about Grades 3 is that it still has a very texture-rich, skeuomorphic design. The decision is interesting given the upcoming release of iOS 7 next week and that tons of apps are going in the opposite direction of Grades 3 to match the new OS. Flat is the new design trend, not wood.
“We have been promising Grades users these new features for over a year now,” Grades creator and Tapity founder Jeremy Olsen told Cult of Mac. “It is such a big update, that it has taken much longer than we expected to finish it. Doing this right for iOS 7 would have delayed it another semester at least and we didn’t want to do that to our users. We are rushing to work on an update for iOS 7 that will make Grades optimized for it and then will work on a bigger redesign.”
Once iOS 7 is out, Grades will evolve with it. “This will, of course, be our last non-iOS 7 redesigned app release,” said Olsen. Tapity also makes a translation app called Languages and a time tracker called Hours.
An iPad version of Grades 3 is planned, and a Mac app is further down the road.
Grades 3 is available now in the App Store for an introductory price of $2.
Source: App Store
