We conducted a two-part competitive analysis which focused on both mobile applications by other online universities and existing educational mobile applications targeted at the general consumer. Analyzing mobile applications implemented by competing online universities provided insights into what ultimately made them effective or ineffective. It also provided insights into how the students of the given university perceived the application’s usefulness. In a similar vein, we wanted to see how existing third-party educational mobile applications effectively leveraged the use of learning science principles. This was used to gain design and implementation ideas constrained within a mobile device, while also helping to direct our literature review.