This is definitely a useful app, but so far I'm not a happy customer. The description mentions "nearly two hundred word banks, collections of nouns to add exact detail to your writing," but where are they? How do I get to them? The regular search function doesn't bring them up. Maybe I'm missing something obvious here, but more onboard help (and functionality in general) would be good. It would also be nice to be able to access all those "wordwise mini-essays" the description touts. I've stumbled on a couple by accident, but why isn't there a feature that would allow me to browse them?

The reviews here are not fair - in my opinion. I have used a number of iPhone thesaureses and this is by far the best - by far! The interface may take some getting used to for some - but it's actually very intuitive and becomes easy to understand after a few word searches. And the essays - which are always interesting (though perhaps not always so useful) appear in connection to the words to which they apply - as they should. Even more useful - for me - are the word spectrums (I think that's what it's called) - which show how one basic meaning can be asserted with more or less emphasis across a range of words. A great app!

The essays should be easy to find, not something to stumble upon.

App does not work!!!

...that the content seems identical to that of the thesaurus in the "Dictionary" application bundled with Macs.

I reluctantly paid for the app but I too can not find the many features the app states it has. This app needs an "i" button with more information than appears in the app. I am writing a book and I could really use the help the app states it offers. To date it has only been useful as a very expensive thesaurus.

I've wasted my money and time on all the other thesaurus apps and this is the best one if you are a writer. If you are looking for a very good thesaurus, this is it. I use it almost every day. The other apps were deleted from my itouch because they were so useless.

PLEASE TAKE THE "MORE APPS" ICON OFF...PLEASE!!!! It totally gets in the way and all it makes me think is "Couldn't they find a way to add a button on that helps ME and not THEM?" For your other products, have a link to a Safari page or something - or the iTunes store. But to have it as a button makes me mad that I even purchased anything from Handmark. No, seriously.

Quite possibly--for the iPhone--but at the price, it should be as good as anything in print, and I don't find it so. The lists of synonyms are shorter and narrower in scope than they should be. The word "promiscuous," for example, leads only to words of sexual or moral significance, when it should lead to a constellation around the more neutral and larger concept, "indiscriminate." The sentences supplied to illustrate usage do not appear to be the work of exceptional writers. They are unimaginative, clichéed, and inelegant. This app is far from useless. I can describe it, indeed, as serviceable. But a writer's joy? I wish it were.

Make OS 3.0 compatible. Remove more apps button

In early July, a reviewer complained of OAWT crashes with the iPhone 3.0 system. It's August 13, 2009 now, and I cannot get OAWT to even open on my iPhone. This app cost me 24.95. Lots of money for a now useless app. The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms won't open either. C'mon Apple, Oxford...don't let your brands slide into the mud!

On August 13th I reported that the app wouldn't open in iPhone 3.0. A few days later, the app worked fine, which leads me to believe it wasn't an Oxford problem, but a glitch in 3.0. I'm speculating about that, but in any case, the app works fine.

I used to LOVE this app! Used it at LEAST once a day. But ever since I updated the OS on my iPhone to 3.0, the app refuses to start up at least 3 out of every 4 times I try!!! The startup screen comes up, and then I'm just back to my iPhone screen. Over and over and over again. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, but to no avail. At $25, I think the least I can expect is that you will update this app to be compatible with the OS. Otherwise, at this price, I would have just bought the *&#$%^ book! Sometimes paper technology is still the best...