Mineral Quiz for iPad

Theres a piece of common wisdom about mineral identification which is that visual identifications are almost always useless Obviously some minerals are so distinctive that a picture alone suffices but that is relatively uncommon Unfortunately this app relies solely on the user being able to select one of four options to match a picture There are no other clues no hardness no mass or specific gravity no acid reactivity no magnetism no radioactivity no streak If the user enters the wrong choice more than twice the correct chemical formula is displayed thats it The photographs are odd too Some like the sphalerite and the pyrite dont really represent characteristic habits for the mineral which makes identification far more difficult At least one the molybdenite is a photo Ive seen before elsewhere And the stibnite photo was also atypical compared to how one most commonly sees that mineral Overall the photos are pretty if on the dark side and of fairly good quality Chemical families represented are extremely limited The vast majority of the fifty here are sulfides that is minerals which are composed chemically of metal ions bonded to sulfur ions pyrite for example is an iron sulfide there are a few silicates one or two oxides and thats it as far as i recall This could be due to the fact that many sulfide minerals are visually distinctive lending themselves to this quiz format However it in no way represents the diversity of the mineral kingdom and if theres a future update it should address this As far as the app itself its pretty crude and has only limited functionality When you complete the fifty item quiz you are given the option to reset and start again or to look at other apps When you reset the order of the slides is shuffled and you start again It appears that there are only fifty slides to be identified There is unfortunately no sense that this was made by anyone who loves either programming or minerals On the plus side its cheap and will given experienced rockhounds a run for their money identifying sulfides However if youre looking for something to give a broad survey of minerals for identification look elsewhere        Could be better poorly executed

You should give the option to choose what minerals you will be tested on specifically for geology students that might need the extra help                 Great app