September 2011
The Archives
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09.29.11AlphabetSmart iPhone app has hand-drawn flashcardsWe don't write about flashcard apps very often. There are hundreds available on the App Store, but most are cheap and unappealing: a collection of images whacked together with a dodgy font into an app that won't hold your children's attention for more than a minute or two. Sometimes, though, one pops up that's more interesting. AlphabetSmart is a good example. It's apparently the work of a two-person team: a fine artist with a background teaching English to younger kids, and a computer engineer. The iPhone app costs 69p on the App Store. Why did it stand out from the herd? The ...
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09.29.11Lingo Zoo app teaches your children animal namesWe're big fans of kid-apps developer Mindshapes here at Apps Playground, particularly of the company's book-app take on Jack and the Beanstalk. Now it's released a new app for iPhone and iPad that mixes animals and jigsaws. Lingo Zoo costs £1.49 and is a Universal app, so will run across all your iOS devices without you having to pay for it multiple times. The idea: your kids complete animal jigsaws while learning the names of the animals in English and Spanish (hence 'Lingo' in the title). Animal noises are included too: always a hit with my children, who need little excuse to ...
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09.27.11Disney Princess app has a Royal Party on iPadIt's Disney day today in apps-land, what with the company's announcement of its Appmates toy+app range, and also the release of Disney Princess: Royal Party for the iPad. The latter is Disney's latest book-app, starring Princess Rapunzel as she organises a party. That means that the core storyline has interactivity and mini-games wrapped around it, including crown-creation, cupcake-baking and invitation-writing. There are pictures to colour in, and simple jigsaw puzzles to solve. Without being a great big sexist, I'm guessing that most of the children using the app will be girls. That said, my two boys still love Nosy Crow's Cinderella app, ...
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09.27.11Disney’s next Cars app for iPad will come with… cars!Disney has been releasing a stream of iOS apps in recent months aimed at children, but today it revealed a new, ambitious iPad app based on the Cars films. It's not out until October, but will have its own physical accessories: little cars. The new toys will be called Appmates, and you'll move them around on top of your iPad screen to drive round a virtual Radiator Springs. They have little metal bits on the bottom which, when the car is gripped between finger and thumb, create a 'capacitive connection' with the iPad's touchscreen to control it. You drive around the world ...
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09.27.11The latest Dr. Seuss app includes seven lost classicsThere are a couple of dozen Dr. Seuss book-apps available already from publisher Oceanhouse Media, but the latest - The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories - is rather special. It's not based on a Seuss book, but rather on seven stories published in US magazines in the 1950s. They have all the hallmarks of the more famous books, with characters including Gustav the Goldfish, identical twins Tadd and Todd, and daydreaming boy Henry McBride. As with other 'omBooks' in the series, you get voice narration, word-highlighting to help young readers, and a choice of three ways to read: Read To Me, ...
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09.26.11Sid The Science Kid gets an iPhone education appApps Playground is based in the UK, so it can be frustrating writing about apps that look great, but are based on kids' TV shows we've never seen - usually American ones. So, we can't vouch for Sid The Science Kid, but it airs on the well-respected PBS Kids channel, with the Jim Henson Company involved. That sounds good to us. Just as importantly the iPhone app - Sid's Science Fair - looks good too. It's for 3-6 year-olds, and focuses on 'core science and maths concepts' in three mini-games. One has you using a virtual magnifying glass to look at 14 ...
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09.26.11My Little Pony gets a sparkly book-app for iPhone and iPadMy Little Pony was a big brand back in my schooldays, although being a boy, I was more interested in He-Man. Unsurprisingly, though, My Little Pony has proved the more enduring of the two, with new apps for iPhone and iPad fresh out. My Little Pony: Twilight Sparkle, Teacher for a Day is an unwieldy title, but the app itself looks good. It's being pitched as an 'interactive storybook' for 3-11 year-olds, which is an ambitiously wide age range to target. We're also a bit unsure about whoever let its App Store listing's writer loose in the capital letters factory: "MY LITTLE ...
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09.16.11Hickory Dickory Dock wants to teach your kids the time (Review)We're big fans of developer Mindshapes' Jack And The Beanstalk book-app, so our ears pricked up when the company released its newest iOS app this week: Hickory Dickory Dock. It's based on the nursery rhyme of the same name, which forms the soundtrack to the app. And yes, it's based around a mouse and a clock, with 12 simple but characterful mini-games to play, one per hour. Turning the clock forward an hour triggers a new game, as well as a new verse from the song. One sees you dragging weights onto a scale to lift a lid to let the mouse ...
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09.16.11Fancy exploring light on iPad with a robot named Bobo?Most of the apps we cover on Apps Playground are for children under five - partly because that includes our two sons - but that doesn't mean we'll be ignoring those aimed at older kids. Here's one that looks top-notch: Bobo Explores Light. Released this week by Game Collage, it's a marvellous-looking iPad science app for 8-12 year-olds, focused on all things light. That means everything from lasers, reflection, refraction, photosynthesis, the Northern Lights and the human eye itself. Using a book metaphor, Bobo Explores Light has more than 100 pages, divided between 21 topics in total. There are articles, videos, animation ...
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09.16.11New Ladybird book-app teaches your toddler First WordsWe've been enjoying playing with the Ladybird Classic Me Books this week, which serves up digitised versions of the much-loved hardback books. However, Penguin Books' Ladybird brand has another app live for iPhone and iPad this week aimed at bigger babies and toddlers. It's called First Words: Toddler Touch and Say, is a Universal application and costs £1.49 on the App Store. The content: 48 words to learn, spread across four categories - Animals, Home, Toys and Vehicles - and each with a colourful picture. Your child can touch the picture to see an animation and hear a suitable sound, or touch the ...
recent posts
- Jörgits is an iPad sci-fi storybook for kids about global warming
- Dot-to-Dot Adventure on iPad lets kids of all ages get puzzly
- Symmetry School iPad app teaches geometry to kids
- Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom brings Magic School to iOS
- Disney’s Perry gets new Where’s My Summer? mobile game
- Five iPad apps trying to teach programming skills to kids
- Wubbzy’s ABC Learn & Play app gets alphabetical
