Benkyo Box vs Smithsonian
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Benkyo Box
Create and study custom flashcards with rich media support, including sketching and image annotations. Organize your learning with folders and track your progress with daily study schedules and trend analysis.
- Custom flashcard creation
- Image sketching and annotation
- Quick entry and CSV import
- Folder organization
- Daily study scheduling
- Progress tracking and trends
- Shortcut integration
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Benkyo Box is a flashcard app that is like your notes, but of the things that you want to commit to memory like names, fun facts, or exam material. These are the facts that you don't want to bury in a note taking app, and want to ensure you truly know them. Every flashcard you add to Benkyo Box is added to your daily studies, in which a beautiful study interface shows you the card’s question, you try to recall its answer, reveal it, then rate yourself after seeing the actual answer. Based on that rating, the card is re-surfaced in future with a notification so that you can practice again until you know it. Flexible flashcard content: Flashcards not only have the standard image/text front and back format, they also support in-app sketching and images for both the question and answer. Text supports multiple lines in both the question and answer so you can learn lists in a single flashcard. Powerful annotation cards: Looking to learn concept of an image? Like: - the components of a mechanical object - anatomical parts - different elements of a dish Benkyo Box makes this easy with Annotation Cards - simply annotate an image with arrows, rectangles and other tools, which automatically turn into flashcards. It preserves the original image as incredibly useful context. Easily create study material: - Natural Language: No need to enter questions and answers in flashcards! Enter a statement you'd like to learn, and with Apple Intelligence, we'll rewrite it as question and answer (Advanced Learner feature). - Quick Entry: Enter many cards at once by alternating questions and answers in plain text. This is specially helpful for pasting content from LLMs or adding multiple cards during a meeting. - CSV import: import a spreadsheet with flexible options on how to interpret the columns for the final flashcards - Folder import: select a folder with multiple images, creating a flashcard for each image in the question, filename on the answer. If the folder contains a CSV, the CSV can be used to customize how the images are imported (used as question, answer or both). Shortcuts for everything: Quickly do almost anything that you can do in the app within Shortcuts, like adding cards, checking your study status, importing content, and even updating app settings. Flexible organization: Organize your flashcards using folders and subfolders for all your topics, or keep them in the default unsorted folder if you prefer them that way. Your schedule and trends, at a glance: Open the app and you'll immediately see your study progress for the day and the time for your next study (also available as a widget). Navigate to the calendar to see what you have scheduled for today, the following days and how you scored the previous day. Flexible study sessions: Study a specific topic by navigating to it, or study all topics scheduled for today by studying from the Today view. Study times and flashcard frequencies can be configured in settings. Also if you are feeling like studying a topic but the cards are not available yet, you can always reset the folder and study right away. Privacy: Cards are private information and we have no access to them. If you use iCloud sync, Benkyo Box securely encrypts your content in iCloud with client-side encryption - nobody in the server can read your cards. Themes, each with a Dark Mode version: Choose a theme to match the mood of the study session. Advanced Learner Features: With Advanced Learner, a paid tier, you get features that help you streamline your studies: - Add cards using natural language - Extract cards from text and articles using on devices that support Apple Intelligence - Hidden folders that are ignored from studies until you are ready to unhide them - Deadlines that help prioritize studies before an important date Most importantly, the app is fully functional without Advanced Learner and we work hard to ensure that it’s easy to unsubscribe from it with the least disruption as possible.
Smithsonian
Explore the solar system with interactive games and animations. Learn fascinating facts about planets, moons, and the asteroid belt. Designed for curious young minds to introduce astronomy basics.
- Fascinating facts about the solar system
- Mini games like Space Winter Rush
- Interactive activities
- Educational animations
- Read to Me text
- Collect planet badges
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Join us on an exciting voyage through the solar system! Play, touch, read. and learn facts about the 8 planets in our solar system in this new app from The ©Smithsonian and PlayDate Digital. Designed for curious minds, this app features brilliantly illustrated animations which are sure to engage and entertain. Why is Mars called the Red Planet? Which is the brightest Planet? How many moons does Neptune have? What is the Asteroid Belt? Explore Planets, learn facts, and play games as you rocket through the solar system. Your space enthusiast will love learning all about the wonders of space and the universe. The mini games reinforce the learnings and interactive activities will keep kids engaged. Features: • Lots of fascinating facts about our solar system, its planets, and more! • Featuring mini games including Space Winter Rush, Comet Ceasefire, Solar System Sorting, Gas Planets and more! • Over 10 other interactive activities related to your space adventure. • Educational content and animations will entertain and engage while teaching simple astronomy basics. • ‘Read to Me’ text • Collect solar system and planet badges as you complete each level Planets and the Solar System from ©Smithsonian Kids is designed to deliver on these Learning Goals: • STEM: Introduce young learners to astronomy and science methods. • STEM: Expand young learners' curiosity and knowledge of the world around them. • Counting and Quantifying: Identify and organize groups of objects logically. • Visual Discrimination: Distinguish between different shapes, sizes, colors. • Visual Memory: Remembering and recalling visual information. • Color Recognition and Differentiation: Identifying and naming colors. • Shape Recognition and Classification: Identifying objects based on different shapes. ABOUT THE SMITHSONIAN The ©Smithsonian is the world’s largest museum and research complex, dedicated to public education, national service, and scholarship in the arts, ©Smithsonian sciences, and history. The name of the ©Smithsonian Institution and the sunburst logo are registered trademarks of the ©Smithsonian Institution. For more information, please visit www.si.edu ABOUT PLAYDATE DIGITAL PlayDate Digital Inc. is a publisher of high-quality, interactive, mobile educational software for children. PlayDate Digital's products nurture children's emerging literacy and creativity skills by turning digital screens into engaging experiences. PlayDate Digital content is built in partnership with some of the world's most trusted global brands for kids. Visit us: playdatedigital.com Like us: facebook.com/playdatedigital Follow us: @playdatedigital Watch all our app trailers: youtube.com/PlayDateDigital1 HAVE QUESTIONS? We'd love to hear from you! Your questions suggestions and comments are always welcome. Contact us 24/7 at info@playdatedigital.com
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Benkyo Box at weekly against Smithsonian's every 3 months. Smithsonian's advantage is iOS requirement (13.0 vs 18.2). On price, review sentiment, ads and in-app purchases 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. Benkyo Box sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month and Smithsonian sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Benkyo Box ships an update weekly, Smithsonian every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 8, 2026 and October 9, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Benkyo Box | Smithsonian |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (5 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 5 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 18.2 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 153 MB | 285 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | autorelease LLC | PlayDate Digital |
Customer experience
Benkyo Box
Smithsonian
In-app purchases
Benkyo Box
- Advanced Learner (Monthly)$2.991 Month
- Advanced Learner (Yearly)$19.991 Year
Smithsonian
- Remove Ads$1.99
- Buy 5 Planets$2.99









