Just have them use it on their computer or the web?

It improved my grades so much in college that I spent the 25 bucks as a broke student so I could have it on my second hand iPad. This was before AnkiDroid even existed so it's amazing the price is still the same.

That works for people who already convinced that they want to use it. I'm talking about people who've heard it for the first time and they're not going to spend 25$ for some new app just to try. 25$ is unusually high price for an AppStore app and it's just doesn't work unless you're really determined to use it. I don't understand why people are downvoting this.

They can just use the computer version then, and buy it when they know it's useful for them?

Some people would need to buy computer first. Again, it's very hard to recommend mobile app to people if you need to add these kind of "workarounds". Especially for the main target audience - young students – many of whom live in their mobile phones and not used to spend 25$ for apps.

Every university student in the Western world has access to a Computer, and those who are poor usually have an Android Phone (with free AnkiDroid) and not a very expensive iPhone. If they can afford an iPhone they can afford the App

I think this "problem" is somewhat made up

Well, I don't want to sound patronizing, but the world is so much bigger than your notion of "Western world" where every student with iPhone has computer.

You are patronizing. Every student with an iPhone has access to a computer even if it isn't their own. If they are so poor that none of their facilities have one then they have a cheap Android.

This fictional person you describe also has access to the web and Anki on there.

Anki is not a very useful tool if you are not making or editing your own decks or a teacher is for you. This is an incredibly painful experience on mobile.

Well I have a friend who manages his entire self written 10.000 Card collection entirely on an Samsung Tab with AnkiDroid.

I would agree with you, but he doesn't seem to mind

> Every student with an iPhone has access to a computer even if it isn't their own

This is simply not true.

They can try it on desktop and web for free if they are that skeptical.

Can you imagine, a lot of young people don't have desktop/laptop, only mobile.

I would argue that it's almost impossible to start first with the mobile version so this situation should never happen. The computer version is essential for setting up and getting decks. The web version remains free as well.

Why would it be the case?

Anki app has an interface for adding/editing cards, and can absolutely be used without AnkiWeb or syncing. In fact, this is how I used it myself for years. I would argue that using AnkiWeb and syncing is an advanced feature for people who got the taste of having own decks and don't want to loose it.

The web client works just fine!

"Hey, there is an amazing app for learning, but it costs 25$ for your iPhone, so just use web version instead".

Very appealing, makes people try app immediately. :)

I think you essentially have to use the desktop version no matter what—so the real dichotomy is whether you want to use a free program with free online hosting with the bundled (free) web application... or if you want to buy a $25 app.

It seems a lot like saying nobody should use GMail unless they agree to pay for premium Google Services.

I don't have this problem. I bought iOS Anki app for myself many years ago. What I found hard is to recommend it to others, who never heard about spaced repetition yet, especially to young students, who arguably is the main target audience for this kind of tools. They just not jumping into buying 25$ app to try it. As soon as you start mentioning switching to laptop, using web/desktop - they're not jumping into it either. I don't know maybe you all have different experience, but that's what I experienced over the years and it always felt sad, because this price is a prohibitively high for many people.