Look & Spell

Look & Spell is a spelling app that uses a dial for spelling the words. (It’s like the date/time dial on the iPhone calendar.) You’ll have the option of spelling three letter or four letter words. Here’s how it works. At the top of the screen is a picture of what you need to spell. Underneath that is the “alphabet dial”. It will have either three or four rows of letters. Using your finger you spin the dial forward or backward until you find the first letter in the word that you are spelling. Then you’ll do the same with the remaining letters. When you’ve spelled the word correctly you’ll hear it spoken. Next you’ll need to use the arrows at the bottom of the screen to advance to the next word. There are ninety-eight words to spell, that’s an impressive number.

I thought that Look & Spell had a clever approach to spelling but there are a few features I’d like to see. First, it would be nice to have a way to reset the dial after spelling a word, maybe by shaking the iPhone.  Right now it stays where you leave it after you spell a word. So if you spell car and your next word is cat, you only have to move the r to the t. Not much of a challenge.  Secondly, if the app could move on to the next word automatically it would feel smoother. Lastly, the alphabet dial stops at Z. If you go too far you’ll need to spin it backwards to find your letter. This felt a little awkward to me and I’m wondering if there’s a way to start again with A after you get to Z. But I can also understand why you might not want to do that. If you’re just learning your ABCs and you see A after Z you might get a bit confused.

Overall, I did like Look & Spell. I’m not so sure about the price tag though, it seems a bit high to me. However, there is a free version of the app that only contains eight words.

*Nth Fusion has let me know that they plan to offer discounts on their apps a few times a year.

Price when Reviewed: $3.99 As of 1/8/10 now only $.99

Seller: Nth Fusion, LLC