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App Review: Bebot

digitalchristopherrobin — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:56:04 +0000

Mozart As A Child

Mozart wrote his first symphony in 1764 at the age of just eight years old. This, of course, was preceded by an early childhood that consisted of studying the violin and playing concerts for European nobility. Had he been born but 250 years later, my guess is that his daily violin practice would have been balanced by some time spent with the iPhone app Bebot, and that his father would have been pushing him to perform on YouTube rather than just for the nobles.

I’m also willing to venture that someday very soon a latter day musical wunderkid will create breathtakingly fresh iPhone-powered music that we will all treasure. Experimentation has already begun, as evidenced by The Mentalist’s cover of MGMT’s song “Kids”. This video, which was first released earlier this year, is worth taking a look at as an example of some of the musical creation that the iPhone is enabling:

It may be tempting to dismiss something like this as a PR stunt — which it surely was — but that would be to miss the greater possibilities that a performance like this demonstrates. Put simply, the iPhone has not only enabled us to carry around the tools of an entire orchestra in our pocket, but it has facilitated the creation of completely new ways of musical expression. It is here where Bebot succeeds.

The app’s interface is simple — you’re presented with a robot butler character that you can make “sing” in different ways depending upon where you touch on the screen.

Bebot - Robot Synth

The simplicity of Bebot’s interface should not be confused with a lack of possibility. Within the settings sections of the app, you can assign and customize various synthesized voices and effects. You can change the scale, make different notes available, and allow loop creation. Truly the possibilities are limited only by your imagination. Obviously some of the younger kids may need help customizing the app, but even the littlest ones will be able to explore the soundscapes this app can create simply by touching and dragging their fingers across the screen.

Words always fail me a bit when attempting to describe music, which makes it hard to discuss some of the sonic possibilities that Bebot brings alive. The magic of this app is definitely best experienced first-hand — if you’re interested in seeing what your child can create with a new tool like this, you can get Bebot here. Highly recommended.

App Review: FirstWords: At Home

digitalchristopherrobin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 07:32:18 +0000

There are some kids apps that you just love. In response to the recent launch of our favorites lists, @NuggetIsland declared “we are totally a shapebuilder family!”

Shapebuilder earns this endorsement because it does a great job of reinventing a classic – the children’s puzzle. It’s easy, intuitive, and uses touch technology to teach a core concept – shapes.

FirstWords: At Home succeeds in a similar way. The app introduces spelling one letter at a time by allowing kids to drag the letters of a word into place, aided throughout by helpful audio prompts.

FirstWords: At Home

You simply touch the letters to hear them spoken and then drag them close to the appropriate spot where they helpfully snap into place. When you complete a word, you are rewarded with an animation that highlights the letters of the word one at at time. And then it’s on to the next word.

For kids that are exploring letters for the first time, this is ideal. The app helps reinforce the connections between letters and sounds, while also introducing the idea that letters can be combined to make words.

FIrstWords: At Home also offers the option to adjust the difficulty level of the app – for example, you can hide the letter hints and let your child try to spell the word on their own.

For parents with kids that have recently mastered their ABCs, this app is a perfect next step in their development. Interested? You can get it here.

Have other apps you’d like to see featured?

Let us know about your favorite kids iPhone apps!

App Review: Peakaboo Barn

digitalchristopherrobin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:46:51 +0000

Peakaboo Barn is an easy app to love. The user interface is simple, the animations are cute — and it’s among my toddler’s favorite apps. She keeps coming back to this one, which is part of what pushed it to the top of the ever-growing list of apps to review.

The app itself is simple — upon start-up a barn animates in on a country landscape while “Old McDonald” plays.

The barn then hops on the screen and makes animal noises until you touch it — the doors then open, and you get to see the animal inside the barn.

Peekaboo Barn

The name of the animal is displayed until you touch the screen at which point your view zooms out to the barn again. From there, the app repeats in a loop of 10 or so animals. There are pigs, horse, donkeys and more. There is a bit of a twist when the scene turns to night – but I’ll let that be a surprise for those of you that end up getting this app.

One aspect of this app that really helps my daughter connect with it is the fact that the audio is actually kids saying the names of the animals. It makes her feel comfortable to hear voices that sound like hers, and she usually repeats the animal names as she goes through the app.

In my mind, however, the biggest reason this app succeeds is because of the simplicity of the interface. It’s great to see how naturally a child can flow through this learning experience simply by continuing to tap the screen. The simplicity of it all definitely delivers a sense of being in control of the experience – and what toddler isn’t excited about that?

If this sounds like the perfect iPhone app for the kid in your life, you can get it here.

Top 20 Kids iPhone Apps

digitalchristopherrobin — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:15:01 +0000

It’s easy to love the App Store, but I do have one frustration – it lumps in kids learning apps with all educational apps, including those aimed at goals such as teaching Korean to businessmen and logic to prospective lawyers. In my mind, this makes it harder for developers to share their kid-specific content, and harder for parents to find quality apps. Someday, we hope, Apple will find a way to display kids educational apps in their own category within the app store. Until then, we’ll keep you updated on great options when looking for learning apps just for the kids.

Top Kids iPhone Apps in the App Store

Wheels On Bus

1. Wheels On The Bus
Price: $0.99
Description: Created by parents, Wheels on the Bus is a fun, interactive musical book, based on the popular children’s song. Come aboard the bus to spin the wheels, open and close the doors, swish the wipers, pop some bubbles, make a dog bark, and much more!
Read a Review
Get It From The Store

Cute Math

2. Cute Math
Price: $1.99
Description: Your little one can count baby penguins, pick the right amount of apples to put in a basket, move some happy birds around to solve addition problems, and drop apples off a tree to solve subtraction problems.
Review Coming Soon
Get It From The Store

Toddler Flashcards

3. Toddler Flashcards
Price: $0.99
Description: Toddler Flashcards has cards to teach children the names of animals, foods, things – as well as advanced stuff like the alphabet or numbers. Over 200 images, text in English, French and Spanish.
Review Coming Soon
Get It From The Store

Voice Toddler Cards

4. Voice Toddler Cards
Price: $0.99
Description: A collection of talking flashcards. Cards speak in English and Spanish. You can also add your own voice to any flashcard.
Review Coming Soon
Get It From The Store

Preschool Adventure

5. Preschool Adventure
Price: $0.99
Description: Contains simple activities parents can do with their toddlers: ocean colors, space shapes, monkey body, farm sounds, animal matching, dot-to-to numbers.
Review Coming Soon
Get It From The Store

Word Magic

6. Word Magic
Price: $0.99
Description: A picture is shown and and kids select the missing letter for the word shown in the picture.
Review Coming Soon
Get It From The Store

Five Little Monkeys

7. Five Little Monkeys
Price: $0.99
Description: Little Monkeys jump on the bed to music — kids can build counting and math skills by taking the monkeys on and off the bed. Interactive objects teach concepts like on/off, open/close and more.
Read a Review
Get It From The Store

ShapeBuilder

8. Shapebuilder
Price: $0.99
Description: Shape Builder educates & entertains your little one with easy to move shapes that snap into place on top of silhouette puzzles. Real images are revealed when the puzzle is complete.
Read a Review
Get It From The Store

Letter Tracer

9. Letter Tracer
Price: $0.99
Description: LetterTracer is an educational tool that helps preschoolers and other pre-reading children trace and paint letters and number shapes. The exposure to letters and numbers helps prepare children for reading and writing.
Review Coming Soon
Get It From The Store

Pick A Letter

10. Teach Me Toddler
Editor’s Choice
Price: $0.99
Description: Teach Me Toddler helps toddlers learn letter names, letter phonics, numbers, shapes and colors.
Read A Review
Get It From The Store

Suzy Dress Up

11. Suzy Dress Up
Price: $0.99
Description:Create and customize Suzy’s wardrobe and accessories with options including: hat, shoes, jewelry, purses, pets, glasses, hairstyle, eyes, mouth, skin color, wings, costumers and more.
Read A Review
Get It From The Store

PopMath Basic Math

12. PopMath Basic Math
Price: $0.99
Description: Pairs of bubbles float on the screen and your goal is to pop each pair. For example, if one bubble says “7″ and another says “3+4″ simply touch one bubble, and then the other to pop them both.
Review Coming Soon
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Animal Memory Match

13. Animal Memory Match
Price: $0.99
Description: Animal Memory Match is a fun filled memory match game for kids of all ages. Improve/test your children’s memory skills by matching pairs of cute and friendly animals.
Read A Review
Get It From The Store

Best of Eye Spy

14. Best of I Spy
Price: $0.99
Description: A collection of children’s game and puzzles. Each puzzle consists of a picture with hidden objects. The challenge is to find the hidden objects within each puzzle.
Review Coming Soon
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Flash for Kids

15. Flash 4 Kids
Price: $0.99
Description: A collection of children’s game and puzzles. Each puzzle consists of a picture with hidden objects. The challenge is to find the hidden objects within each puzzle.
Review Coming Soon
Get It From The Store

Letters A to Z

16. Letters A to Z True Learning
Price: $0.99
Description: Letters A to Z is a captivating set of animated flashcards designed to help toddlers learn the letters of the English alphabet in a fun and engaging way.
Read A Review
Get It From The Store

Coloring Book

17. Coloring Book
Price: $0.99
Description: An outline of a picture is displayed, and then you simply touch the appropriate color and paint in the picture with your fingertips.
Review Coming Soon
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abc PocketPhonics

18. abc PocketPhonics
Price: $0.99
Description: PocketPhonics teaches the letter sounds for all the letters in the alphabet. It also visually demonstrates how to write each letter.
Review Coming Soon
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Math Flash Cards

19. Math Flash Cards
Price: $0.99
Description: Math Flash Cards is a fun to use math drill application that looks just like paper flash cards.
Review Coming Soon
Get It From The Store

Lady Bug Tree

20. Ladybug Tree
Price: $0.99
Description: A simple game: tap on a ladybug in the tree and drag it into the jar. Helps with fine motor skills, counting and number recognition.
Review Coming Soon
Get It From The Store

This list is based on iTunes App Store data as of early July ’09. We agree with a lot of the titles on this list – many of these are truly great iPhone apps for kids — but we’re not completely convinced these are truly the best of the best. The nature of the app store makes it easy for some high-quality titles to slip through the cracks and hard for them to ever get rediscovered. On that note – are your kids using any great apps that you love that you don’t see on this list?

Let us know — we’ll be putting together a few other Top 20 lists in the coming weeks, but next time not based on sales.

Do share your favorites.

[Editor's Note: Descriptions listed in this article are adapted from the info provided by developers on iTunes. Our take on the apps can be found in the relevant reviews -- linked from above as available]

APP REVIEW: Chinese4Kids

digitalchristopherrobin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:58:21 +0000

Having studied Mandarin for over 10 years and having lived in Beijing for a few months, I have a special place in my heart reserved for an app that might help my daughter learn Chinese. That said, I am still blown away by the quality and the value of the new Chinese 4 Kids- Animal Kingdom app.

Chinese 4 Kids

The app has two different modes – learning and games. In the learning mode, you begin by selecting from among 26 animals.

Select An Animal To Learn The Chinese

Having selected an animal, you then get a screen that features an image of the animal, the Chinese character, the English word, and the Pinyin transliteration. All of these options offer interaction — selecting the English or the Pinyin produces the appropriate audio, while touching the animal image gives you a sound effect and selecting the character shows you how to correctly write the character. Simple and straightforward — but a great way to learn.

Learning to say and write Tiger in Mandarin

The learning mode could easily keep a kid (or an adult, for that matter..) occupied for quite some time — mastering all of them is no simple task. But there’s more to this app — once the kids are confident that they have some of the content mastered, they can then transition into game mode, which features three different games to test your knowledge. The first game, Dot-To-Dot, challenges you to match the image of an animal to the appropriate Chinese character.

Dot-to-Dot Game

Quick Pick is a bit easier — it asks you to select the correct Pinyin transliteration for the image of the animal. The game gives you 10 rapid-fire questions and then gives you a grade and a score based upon your performance.

Quick Pick Game

The final game is Flip Card which is a classic memory matching game that challenges you to demonstrate mastery of the correct English, Pinyin, and character for an image — and match them to each other by flipping cards. It’s a pretty standard memory game – but one that requires a solid knowledge base to succeed at.

And that’s why I love this app – it takes a challenging topic and reinvents the way the material can be learned so that it is both fun and educational. Kids may think they’re playing a game, but I guarantee that to succeed they will learn quite a bit along the way.

On a more personal note, this app is still a bit too much for my toddler right now. For slightly older kids, however, this app is a clear winner. My only real complaint is the music — it’s rather irritating and would almost be better without it. That said, I really do think this app is fantastic. Any parent looking to help their child get a jump start on learning a language that is sure to be critical over the next century has a great tool on their hands here. If that sounds like you, and you’ve got $0.99 to invest in your child’s future, you can get the app here.

App Review: Teach Me Toddler

digitalchristopherrobin — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:20:02 +0000

Teach Me Toddler is definitely one of my daughter’s current favorite apps. The app is pretty straightforward – there’s a talking mouse that asks kids to identify a letter, number, shape, or color from among a few options. After the initial set-up (parental supervision required ) you get a screen like this when you open the app:

Pick A Letter

Pick A Number

The interface is easy and intuitive for a two-year old to grasp and the talking mouse is always at the ready in case the kiddies need a bit of help remembering what they’re supposed to be looking for. For kids, it’s a fun game to find the right answer. Moreover, the app provides immediate audio and visual feedback that lets them know if they found the right choice. Emma typically punctuates her successes by showing me the phone and exclaiming, “YAY!!”, when she gets a correct answer. Like I said, she loves it.

For my part, I love the fact that the app keeps track of her performance over time, allowing me to to view at a glance what she’s doing well with and what she might need more help on.

Maybe we need to work on colors?

Pretty good with numbers...

The stats are pretty detailed — providing letter-by-letter, number-by-number, and shape-by-shape results on her performance.

Another cool part about the app is that it has a fun little interlude that rewards kids with stickers for correct answers.

Great Job! Pick a sticker....

Stickers On The Beach

After answering three questions correctly, the mouse awards a sticker of the child’s choice, which can be dragged around and placed on a rather pleasant looking beach scene.

The combination of great learning activities, fun rewards, and performance tracking make this app a great choice for any parent looking to add another kid-friendly app to their phone. You can get it here.