Its summertime! Vacations and family outings, nearly guaranteeing you’ll be on the road, or another space that you will cringe at because you know, sooner or later, your baby, your joy, will become a screaming, kicking bundle of rage. In the age of the iPhone baby, we as parents do have a tool to help ease the pain, one that is changing the landscape of the next generation in terms of tech-savvy, hand/eye coordination, and methods of education. Below are a few of the personally tested and approved apps, all for the iPhone, that get the job done for this Daddy and his iPhone baby.
Peekaboo Barn/Peekaboo Wild
The first successful app to calm my daughter was the wonderful Peekaboo Barn. Both Barn and the sequel app Peekaboo Wild offer an entertaining, colorful experience that can be completely controlled by your child. Unlike similar apps that offer animal names and sounds, what Barn and Wild offer is a simplified interface that opens a wild world of fun for your child. One touch of the screen will reveal the hidden animal, allowing your child to hear the sound the animal makes, then says its name. A second touch takes that animal away and resets to play peek-a-boo with the next animal. The simplified navigation and function make this an easy app to just load and hand over while driving because once they figure it out, they love playing with it themselves.
Price: $1.99 for each (Peekaboo Barn Lite – Free) Developer: Night & Day Studios Link
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Preschool Storybook Piano
Don’t let the size of the name of this app scare you, in a very short time this has become a tried and true app that my daughter loves! Its another one of those apps that you can just go to and let them loose with, letting them play the piano as the song plays, or mix and match. The app comes with four separate modes play; Play Sing Along, Learn The Song, Karaoke Mode, and Freestyle Mode. Each mode offers its own method to allow kids to learn this great classic song, giving this app the unique gift of having a renewing interest, even with kids that get bored quickly, allowing for separate methods of integration.
Price: $0.99 Developer: KIBOOMU Link
BabyFirstTV’s Peek-a-boo, I See You! Lite
This one I accidentally ran across as I was searching for Peekaboo Wild in the app store to get the link for above and had to try it, I mean it has the BabyFirstTV’s name on it! The app is a fun colorful little game where this character basically plays hide and seek with your child. Limited to only 2 tries, the lite version gives you a chance to see how your child responds, and after showing my little girl once or twice what she needed to do, she caught on and started loving it! The basis of the app is you have a character that comes out and says hi to your kid and then disappears! The next thing you know you see a hand waving behind one of 3 objects on the screen, and once your child touches the appropriate object, our little cute character pops out and yells “Peek-a-boo!” The only drawback I have with this compared to the others listed is it’s more of an app you let your child sit in your lap and play rather than just hand over, but that’s definitely not bad because its so much fun seeing how excited they get when they realize where the little character is hiding and they take their little finger to the screen. This is just one of many apps under the BabyFirstTV’s name, and I will be checking out the others shortly, hoping they all match up to the level of this app.
Price: Free or 1.99 for paid version Developer: BFTV, LLC Link
Sound Touch Lite
What makes Sound Touch Lite (and the paid version) unique is the vast amount of sounds it offers your child. Boasting 120 pictures and sounds for the free version, and 240 in the paid version, Sound Touch gives your child 5 separate categories of pictures and sounds to go through. Farm Animals, Cars, Zoo Animals, Music Instruments, and Household sounds are the options available and give a fresh approach to a category of flashcard games that is growing for the younger ages. Once your child figures out the concept of it, it’s another one of those you can just hand over to them and let them play and listen to their favorite sounds.
Price: Free or $1.99 for paid version Developer: Sound Touch Link
Dr. Seuss Classics
This might be more of a favorite of mine right now than my girls, but I can’t help but put these on the list. Oceanhouse Media has been rolling out what are basically interactive audio e-books of everyone’s favorite Dr. Seuss classic books. Already offering a handful of books including The Cat in the Hat, with more on the way, there is no doubt your favorite will show up if it hasn’t already, and what better way to introduce the iPhone Baby generation to the greatness that is Dr Seuss? Offering you the control of reading and turning page by page, or just sitting back and watching as the book reads itself, these are great updated adaptions of everyone’s favorite classics.
Price: $0.99 – $3.99 Developer: Oceanhouse Media Link
As always, if you feel I’ve missed an app that worthy of being looked out for and tested, feel free to leave a comment. All the above apps have been tested and entertained my 14-month-old daughter, and thus are Geek Father Approved