This week I'm taking a look at iStudiez. A new school year is upon us and as I begin the journey of own Master's degree I thought taking a look at one of the leading school and course management apps in the App Store was in order.

iStudiez is a very comprehensive course management application for the iPhone. This app literally does it all from cataloging semesters, courses and instructors to tasks and grades. So where do we begin? Let's break the app down by section. So, first lets take a look at the Today section.

At the bottom of iStudiez you have for icons. The first icon is the Today icon. From here you get a summary of information you need to get done today. You have the option of turning on events from your iOS calendar, or feel free to leave it off. It displays all day events as well as regular times events. Simply tap on the event to get more information.

Next you have the Calendar icon. This is exactly as it sounds, a calendar for your courses and assignments. There is a toggle button up at the top of the screen that switches you from Schedule to viewing just your Assignments. This approach is quite nice as it allows you to see when your assignments are due and compare it with what your doing that day, week, etc to help you manage your time more efficiently. You can also add an assignment from here directly. Tap the plus icon located in the top right corner. Add the course, assignment name and details, due date and priority as well as push notification reminder and any partners you are working with to compete the assignment. Your partner information is pulled directly from your contacts list.

The next icon is your Assignments section. This is the place to view anything about what assignments you have, grades and completed courses. This section is divided into two areas; Current and Completed. Current lists your assignments by either Due Date, Course or Priority. Simply tap the choice you want and iStudiez will display and sort the results of your choosing. The completed section shows your completed course date and and course with your grade for that class.

The last section is the Planner icon. This area allows you to configure your Semesters, Holidays and Instructors. Your semesters can be be given a date range, nothing too exciting there. Next you can add your course and give it a color to help it stand out in the crowd. You can set your class as a regular class, single class or an exam. When you do this you also have the ability to set up that specific class's schedule. You can pick the days of the week, its repeat schedule, instructor and location. You can enter the name, date and location for your exams as well. You can also enter in all of your instructor data from name, title, phone and email to office hours. You even get a comprehensive list of the classes that professor teaches based on what you have entered in your courses. Yes, tapping the phone number will launch the Phone app and email will compose and email; very convenient!

You have awesome control on how all of this data gets displayed in iStudiez. You can customize default phrases on your calendar such as "No classes today" and change that to "It's a beach day!" for example. You can determine what information your calendar can specifically show. Turn off iOS calendar events if you want. Add a course color to differentiate between classes , assignments in the calendar; you have complete control. For me, a particularly useful option that is off by default is displaying week number.

There is not much else to say other than if you have an iOS device, buy this app immediately. It's universal you can run it on an iOS device and the price is beyond reasonable at $2.99; the developer could easily charge more than that simply for the value in time savings that this app will give you.

[$2.99- iTunes Link]