American Heritage Dictionary – A Serious Amount of Knowledge
One of the iPhone’s greatest benefits to mankind is the ability to access knowledge from anywhere on the internet from anywhere with service to your phone. One of the iPhone’s greatest design flaws is the omission of a dictionary app. There are lots of dictionaries on the appstore, but the American Heritage Dictionary stands above the rest. Substantially.
AHD (American Heritage Dictionary) made by Enfour Inc. is a fantastic dictionary app. AHD comes in three flavors, Deluxe, Desk and Fourth Editions. While the Desk Edition is the cheapest it is also not nearly the full AHD experience. The standard fourth edition is the AHD in its prime. The Deluxe Edition, though, is like a knowledge nirvana cascading and swirling, crammed down into a single app on your home screen. The Deluxe Edition comes with Roget’s Thesaurus II and any English aficionado knows what kind of practicality that brings. Interesting and of note is a feature of the AHD. If you have both the AHD and Roget’s as separate apps then links from one can take you to the other. This is nifty and very convenient. If you have the Deluxe Edition this isn’t necessary because you have it in the same app.
Most of the time when I booted up my AHD Deluxe edition I was just looking for a definition but each entry comes with so much more info. Each entry has pronunciation marks but in addition to that there is an audio clip of a professional speaking the word properly, so if you so don’t know how to read the pronunciation marks, you can still learn something. Each entry comes with the etymological origins as well. This may not sound so interesting but it is quite informative and you ll find yourself able to understand roots and compounds and origin much better. Within any entry, you can tap a word and go to its page where, in turn, you can tap a word there. The design of this program seems to be from a genuine desire to help people learn.
The Dictionary also comes with fantastic appendices and essays that are part of the original books. While not a fanfare generator, anyone with any interest in the English Language, will find these fascinating. The ease of use of the app is easy to see as well. With a lot of information and feature, some apps have a tendency to get cluttered or slow down, but AHD does neither. The interface is simple and unobtrusive. The app is fast as well, as you type a word in the search box it will live match it to its entire index to find youo the right word. I have spent many hours just going from one word to another because the total experience is so pleasant.
AHD is very comprehensive. It doesnt just define words. It also has entries on abbreviations, famous people and famous places among other things. If you have the deluxe edition than it is even more comprehensive because Roget’s Thesaurus doubles the amount of info available to you. AHD allows you to browse its index in alphabetical order. You’re probably thinking “Wow, that would be a huge list.” Well, your right! the list is massive, and it is untold fun to browse to a random point and learn about whatever your finger is on. AHD also keeps a history of the words you’ve looked at as well as allow you to bookmark words, for future reference.
AHD is simple, and comprehensive. It will give you the joy of seeing your friend’s dumbfounded look when you blast them with knowledge. It has everything you need in a dictionary and almost anything you want as well. If you consider yourself interested in the English language or advancing your knowledge in a productive way, you owe it to yourself to look into getting the American Heritage Dictionary. Kudos, Enfour Inc. We need more developers like you.
