Sound Shaker - Great Design, Cutest Ever

Sound Shaker by Tickle Tap Apps is a great app for the small toddler set.  The design is amazing and the functionality is straight forward.  The recommended ages is 3-5 but i would decrease that to 2-4,  I don't know any Pre-K kids that would like this for more than a few minutes - like when they pick up an old baby toy.

That said... once you choose your sound, which is manageable for the older users it is easy to use and encourages discovery.  When you press the screen it creates a ball, and the noise you picked in the set up screen, accompanies the ball.  If the user continues to press the screen the ball grows and then hatches into a cute little chick that flies away.  There is a motion control aspect that if you create multiple balls you can tile the iPhone or Touch and send them flying and bouncing all over the screen.

I love this app, I think the functionality was simple, easy to use, and the design and sound were fantastic.  Sadly, it never seemed to capture my kids attention very well.  Wormie was a little too old, 4+ and Oso, was just a little to young still at 1.5 years.  Oso is starting to show some more interest so I'm holding out that well designed apps like this will win his attention.

Age Range: 2-4
Difficulty: 4/5 (5 being easy)
Look & Feel : 5/5 (5 being cool)
Parent Helper: 2/5 (5 being helpful)
Price $1.99

Netflix App - Rad for Kids if You Got Connection

I spent this summer getting my daughter ready for Spanish Immersion Kindergarten by watching videos on Netflix's "Watch Instantly" service.  I realize that sounds way too California/Silicon Valley but the way I saw it, the more she could hear Spanish in a format she was used too (cartoons and movies) the more comfortable she would be when she started school.  Watching the cable channels seemed too complicated and show's like Dora are just way too thin on content.   The streaming online service that Netflix offers is a great streaming video service and there is no extra cost attached, which was great since this was pretty experimental.   There are a lot of spanish language shows/films to choose from but only a handful were appropriate for kids.  My favorite was Elpidio Valdes, a Cuban cartoon from 1980, about one of the failed or successful revolutions against the Spanish.  It was probably a little too violent and political for my five year old, but what would life be without some inappropriate TV?

I was excited when the Netflix App came out and had such good reviews.  As an active user of their streaming service it seemed like a good fit.  I use the iPhone a lot when we travel to watch TV shows I download, and sometimes review, from iTunes.  This theoretically would cut down my iTunes bill substantially.

The App is not designed for kids so if you want to set you child up with a show you'll have to do all the work.   The easiest method is to set up your watch instantly queue online.  Once that is completed navigating to your queue and watching a show is literally two clicks.  You can still search by name and genre but I found that flow too cumbersome.  The actual video quality was quite impressive and as long as my connectivity was decent the experience was exponentially better than any other streaming video's i have tried to watch on my phone.

The app is really targeted at using the streaming service, and given that the library is substantial and growing every day this is a great feature for Netflix families.

Age Range: 3-6
Difficulty: 2/5 (5 being easy)
Look & Feel : 3/5 (5 being cool)
Parent Helper: 5/5 (5 being helpful) 
Price: Free if you have Netflix

Toddler Time! Spanish - There has to be something better

As part of my work to make my Kindergartner fully bilingual I downloaded a bunch of apps aimed at teaching spanish.  Toddler Time was one of the higher ranked apps in the store so I dove in head first and paid the $1.99.

I can't say i was impressed with most of the spanish language education apps aimed at young kids.  Toddler Time functionality was fine.  The app is geared at some simple vocabulary related to colors, numbers, shapes, and animals.  Without headphones I found the sound hard to hear.  My daughter Wormie liked scrolling through the different shapes but there wasn't anything to prompt her to repeat or get involved other than whipping through each screen.

Another issue I had with the functionality was that the primary vocabulary word had two different call out points.  If you clicked on a work like "Azul" which means blue, a voice would say the word.  If you clicked on the picture of a blue ballon on the page it would read off  a translation of the picture ie."globo azul. "  It didn't resonate with me and my daughter was completely missing both the key word and the noun it was describing.

I will add in another odd behavior.  On the menu page there are some characters you can choose to follow you and jump onto pages through the app when you press the screen in non-vocabulary word areas.  This seemed completely gratuitous as these characters did not add a thing to the experience.

I wasn't super happy with the quality of the app as i felt the art was second rate, and the education component was lacking.  Overall not happy with the $1.99 i spent.

Age Range: 3-5
Difficulty: 3/5 (5 being easy)
Look & Feel : 1/5 (5 being cool)
Parent Helper: 2/5 (5 being helpful)
Price $1.99