Pros:
-Picture with every Spice or Herb
-Alternative names listed with each herb/spice
-Full description and uses of herb/spice.

Cons:
-List text can sometimes be hard to read due to background image.
-No search
-No start-from-top (explained above)

Herbs and spices is a simple database application. The application explains a multitude of spices – what they are, their history, a picture and other international names. I find this app versatile for anyone that cooks or is wandering what the heck Borage is.

Interface:
The interface is relatively simple. The names of the spices are listed next to mini pictures of those correlating spices. By tapping on one of them you will see an enlarged picture of the spice and all it’s information

While the database contains several herbs/spices, I quickly found that it wasn’t as complex as I previously perceived. It has a mixture of 66 spice & herbs and within each item, it has other correlating names it may go by. I realized that some of the spices that I was looking for were found in the “other names” information paragraph under one of the ingredients. It would be nice to include these in the list as well or add a search to the app that would search this field.

Issues:
The only problems I had with this application had to do with the interface. The initial screen that lists the spices/herbs – while the background picture might add to the user’s experience, here it is a little distracting and it is sometimes hard to read the names in contrast with the background.

The second thing is – if you scroll down the page in the details screen, then exit back to the list, and again go to a different spice/herb, you will find that the details screen is in the same place as you left it before. Meaning it does not automatically begin at the top of the screen (view video to see this).

Overall:
I think this is a good initial start for this application, however, there are still a few things that need to be ironed out – background image needs to lightened or different; automatic scroll-to-top needs to be done and a search-able names database would be very nice to have. I hope to see more spices & herbs added to the database.

FATN stands for Free App To Note

iPlant is a really neat application, it is a reference for you to view the medical and culinary information about a number of plants.

Pros:

-Large database
-Large amount of info, including
– scientific name, medical, culinary & other popular uses
-Simple interface
-Free

Cons:

-No pictures

4.6/5

On the main screen, it is a simple list of the plants and by tapping on the name you’ll see numerous details about the plant.

On the first details screen, you have a summary – the scientific name & summary.

On the food tab, you can view the food purposes of the plant.

On the Medicine Tab, you can view the plant medical uses and other popular uses.

On the Warning Tab, you can view any warnings or dangers about the plant.

On the final tab – Wiki – the application pulls up Wiki information.

This application is so simple yet very complex and very informational. I am not sure I would change much in this app, maybe the
addition of some pictures, but personally I’d rather have all of them with pictures or none at all. The application does exactly what is says it does and it does it well.