MathTappers vs Inference Ace
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
MathTappers
This game helps children understand and tell time. It offers practice and game modes to learn reading and setting time on digital, analog, and number-word clocks. Special modes focus on the hour hand and spoken time representations.
- Learn digital, analog, and number-word clocks
- Practice and game modes
- Focus on hour hand and minute relationships
- Customizable clock types
- Support for understanding spoken time
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MathTappers: ClockMaster is a game designed to help children make the connection between hours and minutes and to help them become fluent in both reading and setting time on digital clocks, number-word clocks, and analog clocks. Time is a topic that many children struggle to understand. It is something that we measure but it is also something that we cannot touch or feel. Although some aspects of time may be mastered incidentally as children experience circumstances where elapsed time and time of day are used to compare or plan, this type understanding is generally incomplete. Children need explicit opportunities to work with clocks to discover how the system we use to tell and record time works. MathTappers: ClockMaster offers both a practice mode to support exploration and tutoring activities and a game mode to help players to become fluent in both reading and setting time on digital, analog, and number-word clocks. Players may choose the types of clocks that are presented on the screen and which clock will be set during the game (top or bottom). For the top clock there are two modes: The ‘Normal Analog’ version is a traditional clock face with minute and hour hands while the ‘Broken’ clock shows only the hour hand (with the minute hand broken off). When the minute hand is missing the child can focus on the relationship between the hour hand and the hours and minutes shown on the digital clock. This can be used to help children understand the nature of the hour hand, the number of minutes in an hour and the secondary nature of the minute hand (note that early clocks did not have a minute hand and sundials never will) For the bottom clock there are also two modes: The ‘Digital’ version is a traditional digital clock – a representation found on most electronic devices and computers. It may be easier for children to ‘read’ but often this ability comes without understanding. The ‘Number-Words’ version represents the words that might typically be spoken by someone who has mastered the Analog clock when describing the time. It is expected that this second mode will be most helpful after players have mastered the relationship between the Analog clock and the Digital clock. It may also be helpful for non-native English speakers to learn the clock words. Design: Tim Pelton & Leslee Francis Pelton Programming: Garrett Reimer, Joshua E. Smith, & Mike Anderson The designers of the MathTappers Apps are math educators and researchers seeking to create simple games that will help learners to make sense of mathematics one concept at a time. We have designed MathTappers apps to support students in learning mathematics by providing relevant visual models, focused content linked games and helpful suggestions for parents and educators. Please check out all of our MathTappers apps (links found at Mathtappers.com): MathTappers: MultiMatch--a matching app that challenges learners to match sets of cards placed on the table. This is our newest MathTappers app. Although it comes with a deck and you can download others from our website, it was really designed to encourage teachers and students make and share their own matching game decks to capture their understanding and challenge others. Please go to mathtappers.com and check out our instructions on the right to find out how to make your own decks MathTappers: Clock Master--learn to tell time MathTappers: Estimate Fractions--make sense of fraction sums and differences MathTappers: Find Sums--learn basic facts for addition and subtraction MathTappers: Multiples--learn basic facts for multiplication and division MathTappers: Equivalents--equivalent fractions, decimals and percents MathTappers: Numberline--find relative positions of numbers on a numberline MathTappers: Carbon Choices--help students explore their carbon footprint
Inference Ace
This app helps children in grades 2-5 improve their reading comprehension by teaching inference skills step-by-step. It uses a game-like environment with over 450 examples and a reward center to keep kids engaged. Detailed reporting is available for up to 10 students.
- Step-by-step inference skill building
- Game-like environment with reward center
- Over 450 examples designed by teachers
- Detailed reporting for multiple students
- Incremental learning with unlocked levels
- Guided learning for reduced frustration
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** Winner of prestigious Mom's Choice Award! Featured on Appolicious.com, iHeartThisApp.com ** Inference Ace helps kids who have trouble with reading comprehension. The app builds inference skills step-by-step until mastery in a fun, game-like environment. ***** 5 Stars - Nice app for practicing inference. Tons of examples. ***** 5 Stars - My son struggles with comprehension and doesn't like reading long passages. This app teaches a high level of skill in a format he enjoys. Thanks! Inference Ace is targeted to children in Grades 2-5 who can read the words (decode), but don't understand what they read. With over 450 examples, a fun and engaging reward center to increase motivation, and content designed by professional teachers and researchers, this app is bound to capture the attention of your kids. Best of all, there is detailed reporting for up to 10 students to meet the needs of teachers, therapists and parents. Key Features: - Incremental learning. New levels are unlocked only when your child is ready. - Guided learning for less frustration. Your child will always be guided to the correct answer. - Fun and engaging Reward Center to increase motivation. - Contains over 450 examples, with content designed by professional teachers and researchers. - Inferences are taught from multiple perspectives: what inferences are possible, which are not possible, multiple inferences per sentence, etc. - Our own Smart Sentence technology is used to infinitely vary the examples to prevent learning by rote. - Advanced levels include timers to ensure fluency. Research shows fluency in the foundation skills is critical to reading comprehension. Our apps are designed for and tested by typical and special needs children. Testers include children with Autism and other special needs. Our apps work for them! The free version of this app has 4 free levels for a single player. Remaining levels are unlocked by a single in-app purchase. Additional players can be purchased separately through an in-app purchase. Check out 'Inference Ace School Edition' if you prefer no in-app purchases. We are a member of the Moms with Apps program. We collect NO private information in our app, and our apps do not allow unrestricted web access. Inferencing is a key component of reading comprehension. If you can't infer fluently, you can't understand the story. Help your child now by getting started with our Inference Ace app. While you're at it, check out our other apps that target WH questions, identifying inference clues and identifying the main idea of a sentence or paragraph. We take customer service very seriously! If you ever have a problem or find that we've missed something, contact us at our website and we will do our best to fix the problem. ** Note: Inference Ace and Inference Clues intentionally use similar data sets. However, different skills are targeted. Also, when working through this app, you will encounter different variants of the same examples many times as we teach our players to derive multiple inferences from a single sentence -- just like expert readers do. This is an intentional feature, not a bug :-)
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Inference Ace at every 7 months against MathTappers's every 33 months. MathTappers's advantage is ratings volume (140 vs 21). On price, rating, review sentiment and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. MathTappers sells 2 one-off in-app purchases and Inference Ace sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 3.5 for MathTappers against 3.6 for Inference Ace. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: MathTappers has 140 ratings behind it against 21, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 85% of MathTappers's written reviews are positive against 89% of Inference Ace's.
MathTappers ships an update every 33 months, Inference Ace every 7 months. The most recent releases landed on October 7, 2026 and October 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | MathTappers | Inference Ace |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.5 (140 ratings) | 3.6 (21 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 85.0% of reviews | 88.6% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 140 — better | 21 |
| Update frequency | Every 33 months | Every 7 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 | 12.2 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 9 MB | 22 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Joshua Smith | Janine Toole |
Customer experience
MathTappers
Inference Ace
In-app purchases
MathTappers
- ClockMaster Medium Difficulty Mode$0.99
- ClockMaster Hard Difficulty Mode$0.99
Inference Ace
- Upgrade to 2 Players$1.99
- Inference Ace: Buy All Levels$2.99
- Upgrade to 10 Players$2.99
Questions
Is MathTappers free?
Is Inference Ace free?
Which has better reviews, MathTappers or Inference Ace?
Do MathTappers or Inference Ace have ads?
Which is updated more often, MathTappers or Inference Ace?
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