By Skylar Smith
Published: October 28, 2009

By Skylar Smith

Daily Titan Staff Writer

A new iPhone application called Studybeast made by Bread Candy, a New York City based development studio, plans to change the way students take notes and study for exams. This simple-to-use application allows students to upload their notes from a computer via the Internet to the iPhone.

The application’s unique feature is the ability to create interactive multiple choice tests that can be shared with fellow academics.

William Russell, one of the developers at Bread Candy who worked on the iPhone application, is a computer science student currently between schools on the East Coast. Because of the nature of the application, he finds himself using it a lot.

“Being a student myself, I find it helpful to do previous tests as a way to prepare for exams,” Russell said about the application’s multiple choice test feature.

“The other main purpose of the app in general is to save me and users the hassle of carrying around big textbooks,” Russell added. “This semester I have been simply loading all my reading material onto my iPhone.”

Studybeast is not the only application from Bread Candy but is one of six available on iTunes.

“Right now the focus is on the evolution of our current apps,” said Russell. This list of apps includes: ‘What’s your number’ which according to their Web site swaps numbers in “zero seconds,” ‘Traveler’s Check’ a checklist for anyone on the go, ‘Daybook’ a mobile journal that syncs with Twitter and others that can be viewed at BreadCandy.com.

There are no plans to expand the Studybeast application in the future; however, much like any good student, the people at Bread Candy are always listening. “We are learning that the best way to let the application evolve is through user feedback. It actually started out much larger, with many more features,” Russell said. “Through user feedback and our own testing, we realized the user was better off with a simplified, more specialized study tool.”

Scott Shaw, a public administration major at CSUF, is one of many students who use their iPhone daily as a tool to help with day-to-day tasks – Bready Candy’s target demographic.

Shaw said he would be interested in using the app, “If it was easy to use and it would be cost effective if two dollars is saving me time,” he said.

The other goal of the app is to help students who already own iPods create wireless study groups.

“If everybody’s using it and it’s something that’s definitely going to help you study and help you on the test, two dollars is definitely worth that,” Shaw said. “If it was something a professor was already using, I would consider it.”

Bread Candy also hopes that students will push their professors to support the application by uploading notes, tests, PowerPoint slides and anything of use to a student’s study habits, online.

“I try to get my professors to post copies of past tests online,” Russell said. “That last minute study on the bus can be priceless.” Spiros Courellis, a professor in the Department of Computer Science, is one of many educators excited about the potential of the iPhone in the classroom.

“We do use the iPhone platform in the lab here with our students,” Courellis said, who teaches a class that involves the development of medical applications for the iPhone.

“I would be interested because that’s the new way of communicating to students,” Courellis added, regarding Studybeast. “It’s portable; it’s on the go; it’s electronic and can be either connected or disconnected.”

If this application proves successful, then there is sure to be more study and education-based applications to come for the iPhone. “There are electronic aids that can assist right now in the classroom. But this specific aid would be again disconnected, offline and can be personalized, so in that respect it would be helpful,” Courellis said.