News & Trends: App Watch

Application: HMH Fuse: Algebra 1 App

Produced By: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Price: $59.99

Description/Features: Designed for the K-12 education market, this iPad app provides HMH's "Holt McDougal Algebra 1" core curriculum with a host of interactive capabilities, including: step-by-step animated instruction that provides clues as students move through steps of a problem; the ability to write, record and save notes; access to more than 400 tutorial videos; quizzes, and a game option. The $59.99 cost covers content access for one iPad; content and all subsequent updates are available to be downloaded to the device for the term of six years.

Application: Sesame Street eBookstore iPad App

Produced By: Sesame Street/Impelsys

Price: Free for app access; subscription options to 
 read books

Description/Features: The app provides access to more than 150 Sesame Street e-book titles, which also are available at Sesame Street's e-bookstore, Ebooks.SesameStreet.org. Users can download the app and browse titles for free; to read any or all e-books, users are prompted to subscribe for $3.99 for one month or $39.99 for one year. Those who subscribe through the website also have access to their subscription through the app. Subscribers may preview content, view their bookshelf, and download all or select titles directly to their iPads. E-book titles are offered in three formats: e-books; audio e-books with story narration, sound effects and music; and animated e-books featuring full-color animation.

Application: Sherlock Holmes' The Adventure of 
 the Speckled Band

Produced By: Byook

Price: $1.99

Description/Features: France-based Byook gives Sherlock Holmes the movie treatment in its first app, "Sherlock Holmes' The Adventure of the Speckled Band." Available on iOS devices in English, French and Spanish, the experience of reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's text is enriched with animation, sounds and pictures—think startling screams and blood oozing onto the page.