the ikids blog

Toontastic

digitalchristopherrobin — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 03:44:50 +0000

Storytelling is a tradition as old as time. For generations, kids have loved to hear stories of adventure, magic, romance, heroism and all the rest. They’ve also always enjoyed creating their own stories, putting their own special stamp on familiar tales, and bravely inventing new ones. Toontastic, an award-winning iPad app from Launchpad Toys, has taken this simple truth about what kids enjoy, and used it as a foundation for an entire platform that enables kids to tell stories and share them in entirely new ways.

Quite simply, Toontastic is a brilliant idea brilliantly executed. The iPad app enables kids to create their own stories. How? Scene-by-scene, kids are prompted to select background graphics, characters, & music, and then kids are prompted to move their characters around the scene while speaking and recording their own story. That may sound complex, but Toontastic makes the entire experience elegantly simple and easy for kids as young as 4 to manage with minimal adult supervision.

Toontasic also lends itself well to intergenerational play. My four-year old daughter and I play this app together regularly – at her request. Often we’ll split up the characters in each scene and then improvise the story. She ends up being a princess a lot and I am typically the knight, the pirate, or the dragon. Parents beware: you may find yourself enjoying this as much as you did movies like Toy Story or Aladdin. It’s one of those rare experiences that is fun no matter how old you are – everyone can get a little something different out of it. Still, as fun as it is to live the childhood fantasy of controlling my own cartoon, it’s even more magical to watch my daughter’s imagination in action in real time.

If you’ve got an iPad and you’ve got kids, Toontastic is quite simply a must have. Seriously folks, this app is in the App Store Hall of Fame for a reason. Stop what you’re doing and get it now.

Still not persuaded that this app is a must have? Check out the content kids have already created.
You will be inspired: http://toontube.launchpadtoys.com/

Kids Maps Delivers Kid-Friendly Fun

digitalchristopherrobin — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 18:09:43 +0000

My kids are obsessed with Dora right now. Everyday banter is full of references to the characters in the show. Our little boy, much to our dismay, seems to believe that he is in fact the personification of Swiper. Our little girl, on the other hand, strongly identifies with Dora. Come on, vamanos, is her rallying cry. For those that aren’t familiar with the show, one of Dora’s favorite tactics is to turn to her friend The Map to help her find her way. In the show, The Map is a character that comes to life and always seems to know where to go and what to do.

In life, my hope is always that the kids will be able to act as their own Maps and chart their own paths. That said, I’ll still feel better if they know some geography to help them along the way. And that gets me to why I love Kids Maps, a new iPad app from Media Mechanic. It’s a puzzle-style iPad app with the United States map as a background. The app displays one state at a time and prompts you to drag it into place while using audio to share a fact about the current state. Simple, kid-friendly play that teaches geography.

It’s a polished app put out by an independent dad developer who promises more updates (I’d personally love to see a world map!). In the meantime, it’s still a great app and you can get Kids Maps from the App Store.

Free App Magic Features Build A Train

digitalchristopherrobin — Mon, 02 May 2011 17:47:31 +0000

Regular readers are familiar with Build A Train, which we first launched last November and which was met with both a bit of buzz and a bit of piracy. It’s our version of a virtual train set for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Since launching the original version of the app, we’ve been busy. We added new maps, new trains, and new bonus content.

We’ve worked hard to give fans what they’ve asked for, and the response to these enhancements has been great. We’ve also created a free lite version of the app so that folks can try it out before they buy. Build A Train Lite includes all of the train-building fun of the full version and one map to drive your train around. Response to this free version has been great – we’ve had close to one hundred thousand downloads already.

But we’re not done yet. We’re working on additional fun for another major content update to both versions of the app. Here’s a sneak peek of one of the new boards that will also include some fun bonus content.

We get very excited about all of this, and we’re always very excited to share it with others. That’s why we were so happy when the folks from Magic Solver decided to feature Build A Train today in Free App Magic. If you’re not familiar with it, Free App Magic is definitely worth checking out. Every day it highlights great paid apps that have temporarily been made available for free. It’s a great way to discover fresh content without breaking your budget.

Family fun with Pictureka

digitalchristopherrobin — Sun, 01 May 2011 05:07:21 +0000

Fun is best when it’s shared. It’s a simple lesson, but one that can be easy to lose track of in a world turbocharged with personalized digital experiences. Shared gaming experiences with family members can be a great way to balance this out and for everyone to connect and have fun together. If that sounds appealing, then Pictureka on the iPad from EA is worth checking out. Both my daughter and my wife absolutely LOVE this app. It’s simple, intuitive, and enjoyable for all ages – you just have to find objects inside of a larger pattern. Despite its wonderful simplicity, it’s still challenging enough to keep everyone interested, and the variety of game modes helps keep the whole family engaged. As a bonus, the music is also a great part of the experience – not since Tetris has a video game soundtrack for a puzzle game succeeded quite this well at conveying frantic fun.

Careful! It’s stimulating, addictive play. Here’s a video with some of the action from the iPhone version:

If it looks like something you might enjoy with your family, you can get it here in the App Store. Family game night will never be the same..

Nighty, night..

digitalchristopherrobin — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 05:45:19 +0000

We receive a lot of review requests and we look at a lot of apps. Every now and then we come across one and we just fall in love.

Nighty Night! HD is one of those apps for me. What’s so special about it, you ask? Well, our kids (iPad veterans at this point) just love it. The music is sweet, the visual production values are outstanding, and the concept is both engaging and intuitive. The app, you see, is an interactive bed time story that allows children to put a variety of animals to bed. The interface is elegant in its simplicity – just tap a room, and you see a close-up view of an animal getting ready for bed. Flick the lights off, and the animal goes to sleep. Sounds simple, but the kids adore it. Like any quality bedtime story, part of the value of Nighty Night! HD is that it actually helps my whirlwind of a two-year old realize that it’s time for bed. I’m clearly not the only parent that loves having something that helps put the kids to bed – Nighty Night! HD is currently the #1 paid iPad book app in the US Store.

Check out the video to see why Nighty Night! HD is a must-have bedtime companion for your digital wunderkids:

Then go grab Nighty Night@ HD for your iPad. You can get it in the App Store here.

Finding a needle in a haystack

digitalchristopherrobin — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 07:41:59 +0000

There’s lots of great educational app content for kids out there now.

We’ve been spending some time thinking about what makes a kids app truly special.

Wired’s Geek Dad shared a great challenge a while back. He wrote:

One thing that defines us as GeekMoms and GeekDads is our desire to see our children question and challenge the status quo, to help them grow into human beings who are capable of tackling the future and making this world a better place. If they are going to do that well, we need to begin to look at the new technology offered to us by iPads and touch tablets and start demanding that we design applications that make the most of that technology.

Where are the applications that help teach preschoolers how to build simple structures, a digital version of building blocks?

Where are the applications that teach the laws of physics to primary school children by taking the use of the three-axis gyroscope and accelerometer one step further?

Where is the application that uses computer programming concepts and ideas I haven’t thought of yet because I am not smart enough, and creates something that becomes essential to all children’s learning and development and can only exist on the iPad?

We still think these are great questions.

Which apps do you think are best rising to this challenge?

Duck Duck Moose

digitalvictor — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 02:19:05 +0000

As a developer and parent, I’m constantly monitoring how the education space is evolving in the app store. What kinds of experiences are captivating our kids? Who is creating these experiences and setting the standards of excellence? Who is pushing the boundaries of what is possible on iOS devices?

There are app creators that consistently craft successful education apps, and Duck Duck Moose is one of them. Founded in 2008 by Nicci Gabriel, Caroline Hu Flexer and Michael Flexer, the focus of Duck Duck Moose is educational apps. This talented trio has been delivering hits from the beginning – here’s how their current roster of 11 apps is being received by app users:

• 6 apps in the top 10 of their subcategories
• 4 apps in the top 25 of their subcategories
• 1 app in the top 50 of its subcategory
(data source)

It’s easy to explain their enormous success in the app store: they make highly compelling experiences for kids. From design to music to motion, their apps breathe life into learning. My kids have spent numerous hours exploring the quirky fun of Itsy Bitsy Spider, adventuring in the underwater depths of Fish School, and several more!

So here are their apps for you to consider:

Word Wagon
Join Mozzarella the mouse and his best friend, Coco the bird, as they play with letters, words, and phonics. Word Wagon includes 103 words (including 44 Dolch sight words) in 7 categories. (Ages 1-7)
available here

Wheels On The Bus
A musical adventure aboard the busy yellow bus with swishing wipers, spinning wheels, busy people, barking dogs, and more!
read a review
available here

Wheels On The Bus HD
A musical adventure aboard the busy yellow bus with swishing wipers, spinning wheels, busy people, barking dogs, and more!
available here

Park Math
Come play at the park, and learn to count, add, subtract, sort and more! Park Math introduces early math concepts to children in Preschool and Kindergarten (ages 1-6).
available here

Park Math HD
Come play at the park, and learn to count, add, subtract, sort and more! Park Math introduces early math concepts to children in Preschool and Kindergarten (ages 1-6).
available here

Old MacDonald
A musical, interactive adventure on a farm with clucking chickens, the painter Pig-casso, a philosopher cow, disco dancing sheep, and more!
available here

Itsy Bitsy Spider
A musical book based on the popular children’s song. Follow the spider through the captivating, inter-connected scenes as he goes up the water spout, comes down with the rain, and watches the sun dry up all the rain.
available here

Itsy Bitsy Spider HD
A musical book based on the popular children’s song. Follow the spider through the captivating, inter-connected scenes as he goes up the water spout, comes down with the rain, and watches the sun dry up all the rain.
available here

Fish School
8 fun educational activities. Learn with colorful schools of fish which magically transform themselves into different letters, numbers, shapes, colors and more!
available here

Fish School HD
8 fun educational activities. Learn with colorful schools of fish which magically transform themselves into different letters, numbers, shapes, colors and more!
available here

Baa Baa Black Sheep
Explore the island of Baa Baa, where you can row-row your boat, see Baa Baa and his friends, explore 3 underwater worlds, all while looking for matching puzzle pieces hidden throughout the island!
available here

Please let us know your favorite Duck Duck Moose apps!

No related posts.

App Review: The Good Shepherd

digitalchristopherrobin — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 22:41:39 +0000

There’s a lot to be said for apps that excel at delivering kids an easy-to-use experience – and Good Shepherd HD does a great job of this. It features nice graphics and is well executed, but the real magic is the simplicity of the concept. The app has instant playability – simply help sheep find their way by using your finger to drag a path for them to walk back home. My three year old immediately grasped how the app works and soon enough was regularly asking to play “the sheep game”.

Good Shepherd HD includes five different levels, with additional sheep, flowers (collect them to score points), and obstacles. In addition, there is a game mode that allows you to play against the clock — which is a great way to extend the appeal of this app to older kids. In the future, it would be great to see the concept extended on the iPad with additional levels and depth added, but Good Shepherd HD is great as is — truly a hidden gem for kids within the app store. Interested? You can get it here.

Recommended for kids age 3-6.

Arr.. There Be Pirates In These Parts..

digitalchristopherrobin — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:16:51 +0000

The recent launch of our app Build A Train has been a roller coaster ride.

Our first attempt to launch Build A Train was delayed because of the last-minute discovery of a bug in the distribution build of our app. Certainly the only thing more fun than waiting through the app store approval process is waiting through it twice – especially when the wait is your own fault.

But we recovered from this setback and have had good initial success with Build A Train. Shortly after launch it was named a New & Noteworthy app by Apple, and since then has ranked among the top 10 educational iPad games and the top 40 educational iPhone games. It has even been ranked as the #1 educational iPad game in both Slovakia and Latvia – our first #1 ranking anywhere, for any of our apps. Sales have been solid, but not spectacular. And the launch hasn’t gone without bumps – we’ve been told in iTunes reviews by one of our dear customers that our app is “a big sack of sh!t”. In addition to this feedback we’ve also received more, um, constructive requests for feature enhancements (a horn and bell for the trains) and additional depth – more tracks and more sophisticated game mechanics. We are actively listening to this feedback and happily planning how to expand the app and grow it into something with extended appeal beyond our initial intended audience of 2-5 year olds.

That said, recent events have given us pause. This is what happens to your daily new users when your app is cracked and pirated:

This is new territory for us, but upon reflection, we’ve come to a couple of conclusions from all of this –

1) If our app is good enough to be worth stealing, we’re doing something right
2) There is a demand for a free/trial version of our app (We’re working on it!)
3) There is demand for deeper game play by older users (We’re working on it!)

As far as the piracy goes, it seems like a mixed bag. It’s great to get extra exposure and new users (we hope you all like the app!) but to be honest, if we’re going to give our software away, we’d like to do that on our terms and not see links to a cracked version of our hard work dragged through every link farm scheme on the internet just so that somebody else can make some AdWords cash along the way. So we’re working on a free version. And if you, dear users, are looking for that, please just hang on – we’d love to help you out.

On the other hand, if you’re simply looking to steal our app, there is a cracked Build A Train .IPA file for your jailbroken iPhone here. But hurry! We did send a takedown notice and we’re hoping that they’ll comply in short-order. We don’t harbor any illusions that we can truly keep our software from being pirated indefinitely – but we can be clear: we’d rather give away a free version of the app ourselves on our terms, and avoid having potential customers resort to piracy. So please hang tight – there’s an official free version coming soon so you can try before you buy without jail breaking your phone..

Hope this doesn’t come off as sour grapes – we really are all about giving away free stuff. The FREE version of ABC 123 Blocks is currently among the top ten free education iPad apps. And if you haven’t seen it yet – we’re giving away FREE iTunes gift cards as part of our Santa Countdown app. So we really are happy to give our time and our skills – we believe it’s not just good business but also the right thing to do. But we are also trying to provide for our families with our code. Please keep that in mind when you run cracked versions of our apps..

As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts.

Free App Magic Features Build A Train

App Review: The Velveteen Rabbit

digitalchristopherrobin — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 03:26:16 +0000

There is nothing quite like the magic of a child’s love. Nothing. Anyone that has ever experienced it — be they human, toy or bunny — is left forever changed. No story captures this magic as elegantly as The Velveteen Rabbit. The story of the Boy who loved his Rabbit has been a classic for generations – and now has been beautifully transported into the digital era by Ruckus Media. This story has always been a favorite of mine and sharing it with my daughter on the iPad was a special treat. She was fascinated by the story, mesmerized by the illustrations and couldn’t wait to read it again. It may have earned a particular spot in her heart because she has a well-worn, well-loved, Very Real Rabbit of her own, but this story will resonate with any child. Ruckus Media has done a great job bringing the story alive, with gorgeous illustrations by David Jorgensen, and the option of watching a prerecorded telling of the story narrated by Meryl Streep. The app also allows you to record your own version of the story, which is a nice way for parents who have to travel a lot to stay connected to the bed time routine when they are on the road. (Even when Mom or Dad is away, they can still read a bedtime story…) Perhaps best of all, the app (normally priced at $3.99) will be FREE over the Thanksgiving weekend. It’s hard to imagine a better way to celebrate the holidays with your family than to enjoy this story that is all about a child’s love. I, for one, can think of nothing that I am more thankful for…