Recovering from the Christmas holidays has been hard. Going back to work and managing Deadly and Wormie after multiple present offerings and grandparent visits basically wrecked my side projects like GabbaPhone. To get back on the horse i decided to give Deadly, 14 month old boy, a whirl on the hot seat. Deadly treats the iPhone like the golden prize of items he can get his hands on. It is cute because he will pretend to hit phone numbers with his finger, then try to talk to it under his chin, before turning it into a hammer. Making the phone a hammer has not bothered me since I am using an Agent 18 Hard Case for my first generation phone and the combination appears to be bullet proof. Seriously...totally impressed with this case, I can't believe I don't have a cracked screen yet!
Deadly's first app was a free download I found called Dial-A-Phone. I was thinking I would have Wormie run through it but after Deadly has taken a run at my phone so many times I thought i should make it worth my while. The Dial-A-Phone is just a replica of the iPhone Keypad with colored numbers and reads off the numbers when you hit them. Pressing "Call" gets you a ringing sound and the reverse button enables you to erase numbers that you hit. It functions just like the real phone keypad and given Deadly's rock solid mimicking of adult usage, I thought it would be perfect for him.
Deadly started off well, punching in numbers, making calls, and doing pretend baby deals with Gordon Gecko or who ever occupies his little head. I turned my back for a second and when check in on him he was navigating a weird menu that subsequently launched him to the App Store. The "Info" button in the lower right corner of the app brings up a list menu of the publishers, Blue Onion Soft, other applications like All-in-1, Flash Cards, Letter-board, etc. He was actively hitting the screen which launched one of the menu items to the App store effectively killing the session.
The general idea of this app was great but to use a toddler app as a lead generator for other apps didn't work so well for me, or Deadly. I was disappointed since I felt it was hitting a good niche for very young toddlers that are ready to do nothing more than poke some buttons. Given the fact that I couldn't let him use the phone for a minute without hitting the wrong button made this app all but useless.
Age Range: 1-3
Difficulty: 5/5 (5 being easy)
Look & Feel : 3/5 (5 being cool)
Parent Helper: 1/5 (5 being helpful)
