This could be good! Whiteboard Pro

I wanted a drawing application, any drawing application, so i went to the iTunes app store and this was the top rated one in the list. I was thinking of going with the Free/Lite version but that experiment did not work so well with the Faries Fly Lite.

This application comes with a collaboration feature so if your toddler wants to whiteboard an escape out of their daycare they can silently share the plans amongst themselves. Other than that somewhat overboard feature this is a pretty cool tool. The big problem is its not really toddler friendly. The ability to adjust the "pen" size and color is easy for an adult, but not a toddler feature.

That said...once i got the little drawing board set up Wormie was enthralled. She cranked out six different drawings over a period of 20 minutes. As we refined the the pen size and played with colors she became more and more excited. While it wasn't the best parent helper in my tool kit but it was one of the most gratifying since we were able to play with it together. Currently its the application she most wants to use, making it great for restaurants, but not so good for car usage.

A week after playing with the App I discovered a cool feature. I was scrolling through my photo library and all the drawings Wormie had made were saved. It was kinda cool to go through and check out all of the odd little butterflies and stick people she had made when we were playing with it.

Age Range: 3+
Difficulty: 2.0/5 (5 being easy)
Look & Feel :3/5 (5 being cool)
Parent Helper: 4.0/5 (5 being helpful)

Price $1.99

Faries Fly Lite: Not Enough Disney Magic

I was skeptical but hopeful when i saw the Faries Fly Lite app by Disney Interactive Studio. The rating was 4+ and i figured it was worth a shot since a free version , hence the "Lite" moniker, was being offered.

If you happen to have a small child, specifically a girl, chances are you are in the midst of Fairy/Princess obsession that appears to have a lot of legs.

We took Wormie to Disney in April, which was a lot of fun, and while she was shy of the real life avatars - she has continued to gush about all the Princesses and Faries she met at Pixie Hollow and Ariels Grotto attractions we took her too. So... enter iPhone - Faries Fly Lite - stage left.

The real game enables you to choose from one of several faries, where Faries Fly Lite you can only pick Tinker Bell - which is fine - and you can only play the game located at the "Beach Cove" world. The production value is amazing... it has a great video intro, good music and fantastic art.

The game itself is pretty simple. You tilt the iPhone to control TinkerBells vertical postion. I found it easy, it was a more difficult concept to teach Wormie. Tinker then has to avoid obstacles, birds and tree stumps, and pick up what look like screws, coins, and magic bubbles for points. You can only get through one level before getting an upsell message but the restart path was easy enough that Wormie could get the game going again.

Wormie lost interest pretty quickly and wanted to go back to scoops. I think the game play and avoiding the cute little birds was pretty lame. She had no interest in the points, of course, and once the video portion had concluded her interest was gone.

Overall i could see this being popular with slightly older girls who are still in a Fairy phase of their childhood. I imagine that is a somewhat limited group but who can tell. It's a total bummer because the subject matter is perfect for her age group. To me this looks like a recycled game with first class music an art. With a modicum of effort on the game play and targeting for the little girl market this would be great - especially for our next trip to Disney!

Age Range: 5+
Difficulty: 2.5/5 (5 being easy)
Look & Feel :4.5/5 (5 being cool)
Parent Helper: 2/5 (5 being helpful

Price: Free

iToddler Tamer - Not sure I want to give my phone to a kid that likes this!

Both my kids have been perpetually obsessed with my iPhone, well... all my phones, in fact. At one point i even glued on print out of Palm menu glued it to an old Palm 650 and told Wormie that i fixed it. When i got a Blackberry i started letting Wormie play the Brick game that came with the ATT factory install. Now "Deadly", all of 10 months, wants in on the action and Wormies refinement about games is getting more complex, much like her taste in television - she has a complex low brow/high brow mix of "Care Bears/Nausicca Valey of the Wind" thing going.

Anyway...i was extremely excited by the title of iToddler Tamer -I mean, come on... it speaks to my whole desire of what a iPhone can do for me while waiting for Pancakes at Stacks! I downloaded iToddler Tamer and passed off to Wormie - tester, age 4.5. When i playedthe game i thought it was super lame - of course, i am not toddler and therefore not a adequate judge of how well this pupper works.

It is simple - and a little boring. Of course, i say this about an age group that has equal amount of fun splashing in puddles and popping bubble wrap. It does not have much functionality yet it avoids the "Mail To", game points, general confusion, and restart issues I have found with other applications. The general concept is that you can pick a Scene/Level- Babies, Ocean, etc - then different pictures (shell, baby bottle, etc) scroll through. You can move the pic and make it multiply before it darts off the screen and a new image shows up. BAM - that's it. That's all there is to it. Not good for 38 year old dad or mom... in fact the wife was super adamant that this was a stinker.

All that said Wormie was able to figure it out on her own so I liked it for that component. So many games i have to walk her through the functionality before she gets the hang of it. I'd say she actually spent 10 minutes with the game before getting bored which was not too bad. Still... not the best investment ever made. I think it will be good for slightly younger childern but I'm not sure i want to give the phone to a one year old so I will have to wait a bit before trying it out. on a younger set.

Age Range: 2+
Difficulty: 5/5 (5 being easy)
Look & Feel :3.5/5 (5 being cool)
Parent Helper: 3/5 (5 being helpful

Price .99

Sneezies Chain Reaction - It could have been so great!

Well, i downloaded Sneezies a few months ago. I think when i originally got it it was ranked pretty high in the children's section of the app store. The art, cute furry animals in bubbles, and description "Sneezies is an overload of cuteness" made it sound perfect. However...its actually a pretty standard linking game. You pop one bubble and then it goes and pops a whole bunch more. The art and game play are totally professional but they don't really go well together.

I gave the game to "Wormie", thats the 4 year old's nick name of choice, I'm going to call the 1 year old Deadly...pretty cool names i think, and she really loved it. For like 5 minutes...then she hit some button and i had to restart the game. After a few tries she was able to move from screen to screen but the bubbles that the cute little guys float in get progressively smaller and after a point it was too annoying and she gave up. In face it wasn't just the size of the bubbles she was getting annoyed with it was the fact that you only get to hit one bubble and then you watch the chain reaction as the bubbles pop each other. I think the general concept was within her grasp but the strategic component, and level of patience required, were not ideal for a four year old girl.

I think this game looks good for kids but is more suited to adults. I think i would be embarrassed to be caught playing this on the train. Ultimately it is more suited to cat lady in 11a who gives us cute styrofoam ornaments of her pets every year. I liked the game but my kid would NOT pay .99

Age Range: 6+
Difficulty: 3/5
Look & Feel :4.5/5
Parent Helper: 1/5

Price .99

Dora The Explorer: I get int on the iPhone so i don't have to watch it in real life!

This isn't necessarily iPhone specific, in face I originally downloaded Dora for my iPod but the larger has given Dora episodes i downloaded a year ago new live. My girl (going on 4.5 years old) does not get to watch cable at our house because we believe in the good old hippie way of life. Wool socks, sweatty homemade peanut butter, and no cable. I lie, we skipped getting cable after moving to Califorina because we found that Netflix did a better job of getting us timely TV episodes, and enabled us to truly feed our addictive tendencies by watching a whole season of 24 in two nights. The by product has been our kids don't get access to a lot of the normal shows. This has an upside... my daughter can sit through a two hour movie because thats all she ever watched (for some reason we had a lot of Disney/Sudio Gibli DVDs) and that when we do get 20 minute cartoons she watches them like they are Child Approved Narcotic.

My first experiment was downloading Dora the Explorer. We were going to Canada for several weeks and I wanted to get a some shows for the plane ride. I ended up downloading Season 1,2, & 3 of Dora to keep the kid occupied. I would say from a value perspective i got at least 3-4 viewings per episode making the $1.99 or 19$ per season worth my while. My daughter liked it for a solid 3-4 months before nixing Dora all together. I even occassionaly would let her watch it on the Mac at home...which actually is not preferable to the iPhone. On the iPhone i don't have to listen to the repetitive and interactive components like when Dora repeats the mission objectives with her sly hypnotic chanting.... "Bridge, Chocolate Mountain, Ice Castle!" in an attempt to brain wash my girl. I don't mind the brain washing Dora... i just don't want to hear it. I reccomend whole seasons of Dora...the shows go by quick and the kids get engaged. If I'm lucky my daugther will be fully bilingual by the time season 10 roles around.

Age Range: 3-5
Difficulty: 1/5
Look & Feel :4/5
Parent Helper: 4/5

Prices
Per Episode
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3

Scoops: The first iPhone ap I downloaded for my toddler

I was telling a friend of mine about this great iPhone application i had for my kid. He told me in a not so subtle way that it was a stupid idea, and that he just had his kids play with "Scoops." (I'm still working on my genius idea and will let you know when i get it going but until then i have to content myself with what ever i can jerry-rig for my 4.5 year old.) My friend, Chris, who i think is going through a "downer" period described the functionality that his two daughters liked and it did sound good for the age i was looking at.

The look of Scoops is perfect for the pre-school set. Its bright, has great colors and the general game play is appropriate. The objective is to get as many scoops of ice cream, and other falling objects onto your cone by tilting your phone. When you tilt your cone veers in the direction you want it to go (left of right) all be it a little fast. The speed of the moving cone was the biggest issue I had with the game as it worked well for me but was a little too "slippery" for my daughter. I think the game would work better for slightly older kids who are not jaded by the loss of Santa Claus or questioning a world in which ice cream scoops are randomly falling from the sky. Overall the game nature seemed to be a little overkill, since what adult, or self respecting teenage is going to want to save their "Scoops" high score.

The biggest drawback was a mail button that could be found after i entered my name in the high score. I had given this game to "The Girl" and she was able to get through all the screens, despite not being of reading age, except for this one. She kept hitting the mail button which is assumedly for "viral marketing" purposes and would end up in my Gmail account trying to send her high score to the CEO of some start up we are working with. That said "The Girl" liked it enough to request it, though i did have to intervene when she would hit the mail to button.

I'd buy it for 5-7 year olds, its okay for slightly younger but functionality requires some parentaly involvement.

Age Range: 5.5-7
Difficulty: 3/5
Look & Feel :4.5/5
Parent Helper: 2.5/5

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