Speed Bones MD

Reviews Mark Mackay 18:30, 4 Sep 2009

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We review Speed Bones MD an application that teaches you the names of the bones that form the structure for your body

It should be said that there are no professional paleontologists, osteopaths or novice general practitioners on the Know Your Mobile team.

For this reason, we're pretty damned far from being bone experts. So we thought we'd break two bones with one stone and do a little learning about our anatomy while we wrote a review for an iPhone application.

There are over 200 bones in the adult human body and Speed Bones MD seems to know them all. It's is actually somewhere between an app and a game. It's an app in the sense that it's a great way to learn the very sensible academic persuit that is the human anatomy. It's a game in the sense that it will score you on how quickly you can identify bones or bone groups.

On the backdrop of the app is what we can only assume (being mere tech journos) is a human skeleton. At the top of the page, the app will name a bone or group of bones and you have to point to the requested part as fast and as accurately as you can. The faster and more accurately your index finger hits the iPhone's touch-screen, the more points you will get. At the end of a game, you'll get an overall score which makes it easy to keep track of your overall progress.

As you progress though a round of Speed Bones MD, things will get progressively harder. For example, in the first round you will get asked to point to bone groups such as ribs. Slightly more difficult bones are also included such as patella (which is part of your knee) and clavicle (which is another name for your collarbone).

A lot of the time there can be educated guesses made. For example if you've heard of carpel tunnel syndrome (wrist pains that can be caused by excessive repetitive movement such as typing) and Speed Bones MD asks you where your carpel is, there's a good chance that it's going to be somewhere in your wrist.

When things go into round two, they get a whole lot harder. You start to get asked to point towards bones with names that look like they're straight out of an exceedingly boring Latin text book. Despite this though, Speed Bones MD is a lot of fun and a cheap way to learn a bit about the 200 bones or more that make up your very own skeleton.