Report updated May 20, 2026
Folium
For university students seeking to track their academic progress, GPA, and graduation requirements.
Folium is a struggling entertainment app that is free with in-app purchases. With a 2.4/5 rating from 821 reviews, it struggles with user retention. Users particularly appreciate core emulation functionality provides a nostalgic way to revisit classic handheld gaming experiences, though frequent application crashes during game loading or active gameplay sessions prevent consistent usage remains a common concern.
What is Folium?
Folium is a university transcript and GPA tracking app for iOS and Android that visualizes academic progress as a laurel wreath.
Students hire Folium to gamify the administrative burden of degree tracking, replacing manual spreadsheets with a visual goal-oriented interface to maintain motivation.
Current Momentum
v1.37 · 2mo ago
Steady- Shipped Magic Import tool.
- Last major release Mar 2026.
Active Nemesis
My Study Life - School Planner
By My Study Life
Other Rivals
7-Day Rank Pulse 🇺🇸
EntertainmentRating Pulse 🇺🇸
Recent User MoodAI-powered deep analysis surfacing high-signal insights. Still in beta, accuracy improves daily. For informational purposes only.
What makes this app unique?
What Does It Look Like?
How Is The App's Momentum Right Now?
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What Are The Key Features?
Parses study plans directly from university websites via copy-paste to populate transcripts
Renders academic progress as a laurel wreath that fills with leaves based on passed exams
How much does it cost?
- Free (Android)
- $2.99 (iOS)
Monetization model splits by platform, utilizing a $2.99 upfront purchase on iOS while maintaining a free, ad-supported model on Android.
Who Built It?
Jarrod Norwell
Providing Australian commuters and power users with privacy-first utilities for navigation, security, and academic tracking.
Portfolio
5
Apps
Who is Jarrod Norwell?
Jarrod Norwell is a solo developer specializing in niche utilities that bridge the gap between complex system-level functionality and mobile accessibility. His unique positioning relies on a privacy-first, local-storage model that avoids the data-harvesting norms of the utility category. A key strategic signal is his expansion from specialized emulation ports into localized Australian utility services, though his most prominent title currently faces significant stability challenges following recent updates.
Who is Jarrod Norwell for?
- Tech-savvy individuals
- Australian commuters seeking specialized tools for security
- Navigation
- Academic management
Portfolio momentum
The publisher is actively developing, having released 8 updates across 5 apps in the last 6 months with all titles currently maintained.
What other apps does Jarrod Norwell make?
What do users think recently?
Low confidence · 55 reviews analyzed · Based on 55 reviews. Signal may be noisy.
How did the latest release land?
What is the recent mood?
Recent user voice shows a upset sentiment. Users appreciate core emulation functionality provides a nostalgic way to revisit classic handheld gaming experiences, but report frequent application crashes during game loading or active gameplay sessions prevent consistent usage.
What Users Love
What Frustrates Users
What Users Want
What is the competitive landscape for Folium?
How's The Entertainment Market?
How does it evolve in the Entertainment market?
Folium holds the #3 Paid position in the US Education category, but its #12 rank in SN and #77 in NG indicate volatile international performance. The $2.99 iOS price point creates a conversion ceiling that limits the app's ability to compete with free, institutional-grade alternatives.
| Country | Category | Chart | Rank | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇨🇦 Canada | Entertainment | iOSPaid | #6 | ▲7 |
| 🇲🇦 Morocco | Entertainment | iOSPaid | #10 | ▼1 |
The rivals identified
The Nemesis
My Study Life - School Planner
★3.2 (59.2K)My Study Life, Ltd.
⚡This is the direct market leader in the student-focused academic scheduling niche, serving the exact same user intent as Folium.
Head to Head
Folium must lean into its gamification niche to differentiate from the utility-heavy, functional dominance of My Study Life.
What sets Folium apart
Visualizes academic progress through a unique laurel wreath gamification system that increases user motivation.
Focuses on a simplified, low-friction interface that avoids the administrative overhead of traditional school planners.
What's My Study Life - School Planner's Edge
Maintains a robust, multi-year feature set that handles complex academic schedules and recurring class rotations.
Provides a mature ecosystem that supports deep integration with academic calendars and external task management workflows.
Contenders
Directly integrates with school district databases to provide real-time, verified grade and attendance reporting.
Functions as an official institutional portal rather than a personal student-managed tracking tool.
Provides deep integration with Learning Management Systems, automating the flow of grades and assignment feedback.
Focuses on the parent-student-teacher triad, shifting the value proposition from personal motivation to institutional oversight.
Peers
Offers infinite flexibility for students to build custom databases, wikis, and project trackers from scratch.
Integrates advanced AI capabilities for summarizing lecture notes and drafting academic content within the app.
Utilizes AI-driven study modes to generate practice tests and flashcards from uploaded course materials.
Leverages a massive community-contributed library of study sets that reduces the time required for exam preparation.
Uses a virtual tree-planting mechanic to discourage phone usage during dedicated study or focus sessions.
Provides detailed focus statistics that help users visualize their productivity patterns over weeks and months.
TickTick:To-Do List & Calendar
Appest Limited
⚡A high-performance task manager that competes for the student's attention regarding daily assignment execution.
Combines a powerful task manager with a built-in Pomodoro timer for structured study session management.
Supports natural language input for rapid task creation, significantly reducing the friction of daily planning.
The outtake for Folium
Strengths to defend, gaps to attack
Core Strengths
- Laurel wreath gamification loop increases user motivation
- Simplified interface avoids administrative overhead of traditional planners
Critical Frictions
- $2.99 upfront cost on iOS limits top-of-funnel conversion
- Severe stability issues (crashes) erode daily active habit
- Lack of clear setup documentation increases new-user churn
Growth Levers
- Education partnerships as B2B distribution
- Wearable integration for progress tracking
Market Threats
- My Study Life's cross-platform cloud sync dominance
- Institutional portals mandating usage of competing tools
What are the next best moves?
Stabilize the transcript engine because crashes are the #1 complaint → increase retention.
Sentiment analysis identifies frequent crashes as the primary driver of negative reviews.
Trade-off: Push the wearable companion app sprint to Q3.
Pivot iOS pricing to freemium because the $2.99 barrier limits acquisition → increase install velocity.
Android free model shows higher potential for user acquisition than the iOS paid model.
Trade-off: Pause the annual tier price-test.
A counter-intuitive read
The app's #3 chart rank is a liability, as it attracts users expecting a polished utility who churn immediately upon hitting the setup friction.
Feature Gaps vs Competitors
- Cross-platform cloud synchronization (available in My Study Life but absent here)
Key Takeaways
Folium wins on visual motivation but fails on technical reliability, so the PM must prioritize engine stability over new features to prevent total churn.
Where Is It Heading?
Declining
The academic planning market is consolidating around institutional tools, leaving Folium exposed to churn. Unless the latest release stabilizes, the current rating trajectory will force a decline in organic discovery by Q3.
Persistent crashes in the latest release erode the daily active habit, which compounds the rating drag already visible on Android.
Recent updates focused on stability, no feature expansion.