Comparison

ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 vs Inference Ace

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5

This educational app helps children develop foundational reading skills by teaching the alphabetic principle, phonemic awareness, and letter-sound correspondence. It uses a sequential learning approach with three levels and focuses on the most common sounds of letters to build strong reading readiness.

Highlights
  • Develops phonemic awareness
  • Teaches letter-sound correspondence
  • Sequential learning levels
  • Focuses on common letter sounds
  • Lowercase and uppercase letter recognition
  • Auditory discrimination practice
Features
Read full description

Learn The Alphabetic Principle. Develop Phonemic Awareness. Learn How Sounds Relate to Words. Learn Letter-Sound Correspondence. Learn How to APPLY Letter Sound Correspondence. Gain proficiency in the use of the sounds of the letters. Gain Proficiency with Auditory Discrimination. This app has features and components necessary to give your child strong phonemic awareness. This app has features and components necessary to give your child strong letter awareness. This app will start your child off on the path to reading success. This game is part of the ABC MAGIC PHONICS series. We recommend the other ABC MAGIC apps as a means to expand and reinforce your child’s phonemic awareness and letter awareness. This app has 3 levels of sequential learning for English learners to master. The sequence is designed to take the learner from the concrete to the abstract; from not knowing anything about letters to having good phonemic awareness. The app starts with using sounds and finishes with the letter symbols for both lowercase and uppercase letters. This has 3 lessons that each focus on a particular step of the Alphabetic Principle. Lesson 1. Sounds to Images Lesson 2. Sounds to Lowercase Letters Lesson 3. Lowercase Letters to Images This app features 4 words pictures for each letter. Each word in each of the groupings uses only the most common sound for each letter. For instance, igloo and inchworm would be used for the letter i, but not ice nor ivy as those begin with long i (the second most used sound for the letter i). It is important to start by teaching just the most commonly used sound for each letter. Sometimes unfamiliar words are used, in this app, to ensure that 4 words were used for each letter. Use this as a vocabulary building time. Even if the child does not know the word, the child can still listen for the beginning sound of that image. Another point is that this app is not a vocabulary quiz nor an object guessing game. Some pictures may seem indiscernible, but don’t worry, the objects, when touched, will ALWAYS say their name. The child NEVER has to know what the picture is ahead of time. Tapping on the image box will ALWAYS play the audio file that names the picture. Please note, that in this app, only the SOUNDS of the letters are used and NEVER the names of the letters. A child can actually read without knowing the common names of the letters, but a child only knowing the names of the letters cannot phonetically read. The ubiquitousness of the ABC song both at home and at school will surely give children the ability to name the letters. Many children, however, are not given the much-needed explicit instruction of the SOUNDS that the letters make. This app, therefore, is dedicated to helping children learn the SOUNDS that the letters make. These games are designed so that children can do them independently after being given the basic instructions of how to play the games. The app has built-in feedback mechanisms to help the child to work independently. These mechanisms allow the child to learn at their own pace and in their own way. The child does not need to be constantly supervised and told what the right answer is. This frees up the adult to be an observer of their child’s learning and to give assistance when invited. Upgrade to the Full version to get 12 words/pictures per letter. Upgrade to the Full version to get 7 more Lessons.

About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
Read full description

** 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

ABC MAGIC PHONICS 54 screens
Inference Ace4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 at 4.3 against Inference Ace's 3.5. ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 also leads on ratings volume (718 vs 22) and iOS requirement (9.0 vs 12.2). On price, review sentiment, update cadence 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Inference Ace sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 holds the better App Store score, 4.3 against 3.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 has 718 ratings behind it against 22, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 83% of ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5's written reviews are positive against 89% of Inference Ace's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 ships an update every 6 months, Inference Ace every 7 months. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 versus Inference Ace: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterABC MAGIC PHONICS 5Inference Ace
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.3 (718 ratings) — better3.5 (22 ratings)
Positive reviews83.3% of reviews88.6% of reviews — better
Number of ratings718 — better22
Update frequencyEvery 6 months — betterEvery 7 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS9.0 — better12.2
Further details — not scored
Size165 MB22 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperPRESCHOOL UNIVERSITYJanine Toole

Customer experience

ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5

All ratings716 ratings
Positive81.0%
Neutral10.3%
Negative8.7%
Written reviews6 reviews
Positive83.3%
Neutral0.0%
Negative16.7%

Inference Ace

All ratings21 ratings
Positive66.7%
Neutral4.8%
Negative28.6%
Written reviews35 reviews
Positive88.6%
Neutral5.7%
Negative5.7%

In-app purchases

1 purchases

ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5

One-time1
  • Full Version$1.99
3 purchases

Inference Ace

One-time3
  • Upgrade to 2 Players$1.99
  • Inference Ace: Buy All Levels$2.99
  • Upgrade to 10 Players$2.99

Questions

Is ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 free?
ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Inference Ace free?
Inference Ace is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 or Inference Ace?
ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 is rated higher. ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 averages 4.3 out of 5 from 718 ratings, while Inference Ace averages 3.5 from 22 ratings.
Do ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 or Inference Ace have ads?
Neither ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 nor Inference Ace shows ads.
Which is updated more often, ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 or Inference Ace?
ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 ships an update every 6 months, and Inference Ace every 7 months. Most recently, ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 was updated on November 1, 2026 and Inference Ace on November 6, 2026.

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