Comparison

LearnChess Academy vs Nana's Focus

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

Head to head
About

LearnChess Academy

Features
Read full description

Stop playing chess. Start improving at it. Whether you're learning the rules or grinding toward 2000 ELO, LearnChess meets you where you are. Use it for a 5-minute, daily practice during your commute, in-between calls, after your morning routine — or spend hours doing deep dives into new openings, endgames, or analyzing your recent games. LearnChess is the first chess learning app that combines a unique set of features to improve your game: PRACTICE ‣ Unlimited puzzles to practice tactics ‣ Drill themes (forks, mating patterns, zugzwang, ...) ‣ Learn from your mistakes on Lichess/chess.com THEORY ‣ Lessons to study 100+ openings and 20+ endgames ‣ Maintain your opening repertoire with quizzes ‣ Dedicated beginner track to learn the fundamentals ANALYSIS ‣ Upload board screenshots from anywhere ‣ Import games from Lichess/chess.com ‣ Stockfish meets AI chess coach COMMUNITY ‣ Share your own tactics to challenge others ‣ Like and comment on puzzles of others ‣ Collect "pawn points" to show up on the leaderboard Don't be a player of the game. Become a student of it. LearnChess gives you daily practice puzzles (10/day), beginner lessons, and screenshot uploads (5/day) for free. Unlock unlimited puzzles, advanced lessons, and unlimited AI coach messages with Knight ($3.99/mo) or Queen ($11.99/mo). Subscriptions auto-renew monthly unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage in your App Store account settings. Terms: https://www.learnchess.ai/terms. Privacy: https://www.learnchess.ai/privacy.

About

Nana's Focus

This app helps you study your own texts with multiple reading modes and spaced repetition flashcards. It includes guided breathing exercises and optional background noise to aid focus. Track your study progress and learn effective study techniques.

Highlights
  • Multiple reading modes (Spot, Line, Traditional)
  • Spaced repetition flashcards from highlights
  • Guided breathing exercises
  • Optional steady pink noise generator
  • Study progress tracking
  • Nine 'How to study' lessons
  • Supports various file formats (PDF, EPUB, DOCX, etc.)
Features
Read full description

Nana's Focus is a reader for studying from your own texts. It does not promise you will read three times faster, because that would not be true. It looks after something plainer. Three pages in, you should still have the first one. Three ways to read, because different things slip away from different people. Spot: words arrive one at a time, in one place on the screen. Your eyes stop wandering, because there's nowhere to wander to. Line: the whole sentence in front of you, with a pointer leading your eye underneath. Traditional reading: a plain page at your own pace. This is where you drag your finger over what you need to know. A breath before reading. In through the nose, a short sip more on top, then a long breath out through the mouth. The out-breath has to be longer than both in-breaths together, because the whole thing rests on that proportion. One minute, three or five, and you can turn it off. Noise in the background, if it happens to help you. Steady pink noise, generated as it plays, so your ear never catches a loop. Here is the honest version of where this stands: in a 2024 pooling of thirteen studies, steady noise improved performance for people with ADHD and made it worse for people without. The gain was small, and it varied a lot between individuals. Turn it on for one session and see for yourself. Highlights become cards. Drag your finger across a sentence and pick what it is: a definition, a date, a key point, or "I don't get it". The app writes questions from the first three. From the last one it writes nothing, because there's no point cramming what you don't understand. Cards come back to fit the date. Give the app your exam date and it spreads the reviews so the last round lands before the exam, not after it. The closer the date, the more often the questions come back. The Study tab works out how much you have to read each day to get through the material in time. It leaves the final days for reviews alone, because a chapter read once isn't enough. Nine lessons called "How to study". Active recall, spaced repetition, desirable difficulty, prequestions and more. Each lesson says how much evidence stands behind it, and where the evidence is thin it says so. Six ways to remember. For the things that have to come back word for word, or in order. None of them will help you understand a text, and the first screen says so before you start. At the end of every sitting, one question: what stayed with you, in one sentence, out of your own head. That is how remembering works. Read your own: PDF, EPUB, FB2, MOBI, DOCX, txt, or text you paste in. That is what this app is for. One short text is waiting on the shelf to start with, "Evening in the building", the same passage you read during the reading test, so the shelf isn't empty on the first day. No account in the app, and no sign-in. Your texts, highlights, cards and progress stay on your phone, because there's no server for them to go to. What this app doesn't do: it doesn't speed your reading up and it doesn't claim to switch off the voice in your head. The popular advice about silencing that voice isn't backed by the research, and the app says so plainly. Trial and purchase You turn on seven days of the full version whenever you like, with no card and no account. Until then, the free version works. After that it's one purchase, once and for good: 29.00 USD. No subscription. The purchase unlocks the whole app. Terms of use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy: https://nanas.pro/legal/privacy

Screenshots

LearnChess Academy4 screens
Nana's Focus4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: LearnChess Academy at 15.1 against Nana's Focus's 18.0. On price, update cadence, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. LearnChess Academy sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month and Nana's Focus sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly weekly. Both last shipped on October 13, 2026.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
LearnChess Academy versus Nana's Focus: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLearnChess AcademyNana's Focus
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—1 — better
Update frequencyWeeklyWeekly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
Monetization—Free with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.1 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size122 MB24 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperNikolas BurkAdrian Skobiej

In-app purchases

2 purchases

LearnChess Academy

Subscriptions2
  • Knight$3.991 Month
  • Queen$11.991 Month
2 purchases

Nana's Focus

Subscriptions1
  • Monthly access$3.991 Month
One-time1
  • Full access, for good$29.00

Questions

Is LearnChess Academy free?
LearnChess Academy is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Nana's Focus free?
Nana's Focus is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do LearnChess Academy or Nana's Focus have ads?
Neither LearnChess Academy nor Nana's Focus shows ads.
Which is updated more often, LearnChess Academy or Nana's Focus?
LearnChess Academy ships an update weekly, and Nana's Focus weekly. Most recently, LearnChess Academy was updated on October 13, 2026 and Nana's Focus on October 13, 2026.

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