Books
I have to admit, when I first looked at Patchy the Patch Doll, I was very sceptical that it would hold my twins attention. I didn't think that it would interest them for more than a few minutes. It is such a simple App, which looking back may be the reason that it does such a good job of making them come back over and over. Patchy is an interactive book App that tells the story of a Patch Doll and his friendship with a little girl.
What Holds Their Attention
My kids are just like most 5 year old's. They have the attention span of a gnat. Keeping them entertained is a full time job for me. This App has an appeal that really keeps them coming back over and over again. The largest (and most important) draw of this App is the story itself. The story is that of Patchy a patch doll and his journey through building a friendship with a little girl. It's warm, inspiring, and a great lesson for children. The graphics are rather basic, but what it lacks in detailed graphics, it makes up for in character. That's not to say that there aren't a few little things other than the story for the kids to do. There are little activities that pop up on certain pages for the kids to do. When a page offers an activity a small pale and shovel show up in the corner. These activities are simple, yet fun for children to perform and all of them relate to the story. The book is narrated for the children, each word being highlighted as it is read.
The Bottom Line
While the App as a whole is simple, the story is solid, fun to read, and a great life lesson for children. It has become a favorite of my 5 year old's and I'd recommend it to any parent with children around that age.
You can get Patchy the Patch Doll for the iPad from the iTunes store for $1.99 here: 
There is a plethora of Book Apps, Read along Apps, and interactive Apps available in the iTunes store. I have a soft spot for these for no other reason than I want to give my twins every advantage possible in school and life. When I came upon Bobo Explores light the father in me said "This is a good book App to help the twins"… The photographer in me said "This is awesome! This will help me teach my kids all about light and how it works making them better photographers!" Photography aside, this App teaches all about light; it has info about everything from the Sun to Lasers, so it's a great learning tool for children.
Lots of Content
The thing I love most about Bobo Explores Light is the amount of content packed into this easy to use App. The reader's journey through the world of light begins with the addition of a new friend, Bobo the robot. Bobo is a robot that guides you along through the App teaching you all there is to know about light. Each topic is described on the main page, such as glowing in the dark above. At the top of the page there are "pull downs" providing much more information about specific topics that relate to the main subject. For example, the Glow in the Dark section had a "Did you know?" pull down that gives helpful and interesting trivia about glowing in the dark. There is also a "Lucky You" pull down that provides interesting facts. The "How it Works" pull down is probably the most information packed section of each topic however. Pulling down this window provides information on how that particular light works, as well as (sometimes) video on the subject. What's truly amazing about this App is that each topic has this much info or more! Bobo Explores light covers everything from the Sun to Lasers to telescopes is covered in over 100 pages of content.
Who It's Designed For
Admittedly this App is a little advanced for my 5 year old twins. This App is designed for children who are able to read, and who are able to grasp some of the more advanced concepts such as Chemiluminescence. This isn't to say that children as young as mine can't gain anything from this App. I sit and read through some of the pages with them and they find the information about the Sun and other topics that they are familiar with, interesting.
The Bottom Line
If you have a child and you want an easy way to teach them all about light, this is the App for you. The range of topics, the quality of the content, and the appeal of the graphics make this an App worth getting. I can't recommend it enough.
You can get Bobo Explores Light for your iPad from the iTunes store for $6.99 here:
Everyone knows that I'm a sucker for read along book Apps for the iPad. I love them so much because they really help my twins learn to read in a fun and interactive way. But, as much as I love read along books sometimes I like to sit down and read to my twins. When I found Rick Sammon's Underwater Wonders I knew immediately that this would be a book that I would enjoy as well. Rick Sammon is one of "The Godfathers" of Photography. If you'd like to know more about him you can see his work here. This book shows some of his best underwater work as well as includes some really cool touches that put it over the top!
Reading Along
This isn't a read it to your kids App. Underwater Wonders requires you to sit down with them and flip through reading each page. That's ok though! Reading along with this book as you explore some of the coolest parts of the ocean is educational, exciting, and most of all FUN! As you turn the pages past the dedication you are met with vibrant, sharp images of underwater life, and life underwater for photographic divers. As you progress through the book you meet new and exciting species, all with captions and expandable information to tell you all about what you're looking at as well as interesting facts provided in a way only Rick can. Getting towards the end of the book we arrive upon my favorite species, the great white shark. For my kids the image of the great white was so detailed and life like on the iPad screen that it seems as though the shark was heading right for them! Needless to say the images are great and the information is wonderful!
Some special touches
There are a few special touches that really makes this App stand out for me. First is the full screen mode. As you're reading along the information about each fish etc. is located in a caption box at the bottom of the page. This box can be expanded by pressing the star fish located on the corner of each caption box. You can however view either the image or the information in full screen mode. To achieve this my pressing the small grey icon in the top right corner. This will toggle you between full screen picture, or full screen information. Great feature!
The next special touch that really made this an awesome App for me is the coloring page option. In the top right corner there is an icon that looks like a box of crayons. This will bring up a coloring sheet that looks just like the image you see on your screen only devoid of color. My twins absolutely loved this! We were able to print the picture, the twins were able to color it in while looking at the original as a reference. Anything that makes the twins happy while providing them with valuable knowledge is great in my book.
Conclusion
With the beautiful images, insightful information, and extra features, this App is up there with my top favorite books for my kids. Rick has done a wonderful job developing this App, and producing the content found within. I would (and do) recommend it to everyone that I know.
You can get Rick Sammon's Underwater Wonders for the iPad for $1.99 from the iTunes store here:
A few weeks ago I told you about Grover’s Monster At The End Of This Book from Calloway Digital Arts. That App is an iPad version of a classic kids book. Since I’m all about my twins having quality learning Apps I started looking into Calloway’s other Apps and I found another modern version of a classic bed time story; Miss Spider’s Tea Party. Calloway did another great job with this App, not only making it a read along but also adding in games and puzzles to really keep the kids attention.
The Book
Just like with the Grover App, Miss Spider’s Tea Party has a read along story that does a wonderful job of reading along through the story while adding small interactive animations to help keep the kids interested. There are two options while in the “Read” section. There is a full screen option that does not show the text of the story but rather just shows the images and reads the story aloud. Then there is my preferred view for my kids, the non-full screen view. This view allows the kids to see the text as well as hear the narrator. The only thing that I would like to see in this view is highlighting of the text as it is narrated.
Watch
Not content to create just a book, Calloway digital Arts has created a completely animated version of the story found under the “Watch” button on the home screen. In this view, the children watch a cartoon of the story with text at the bottom of the screen that IS highlighted as the narration occurs. My twins love this option. They love seeing a fully animated version while still seeing the Text.
Match
The “Match” section is the first of three additions to the App besides the story. In this section the children are presented with a classic matching game. Players are presented with 16 blocks, each with a different image below it. To play you tap on a square and try to remember what image is below it. You then select another square to try to match the images. If you don’t match two images, the blocks flip back over and you start the selection process again trying to remember what images were under which blocks.
Paint
Just as the name suggests, this section is all about painting. You are presented with an image, colors, and different sized paintbrushes. You are able to change the images to one of multiple images, all of which showing scenes or images from the story. This section is well made and fun for the kids.
Puzzle
Again, just as the name suggests this section is all about puzzles. With 6 different scene options, and the ability to choose between 6 or 12 pieces, this part of the App is a favorite of my kids.
Conclusion
Just like the Grover App, Calloway has really done a wonderful job with Miss Spider’s Tea Party. All of the sections of the App are really well laid out, the story is well done, and the games are a great addition. I can’t say enough about the value of an App like this. Not only does it keep kids entertained, but it keeps them engaged.
You can get Miss Spider’s Tea Party for the iPad for $4.99 here from the
You guys all know that I’m a sucker for a good learning App on the iPad. My twins’ education is on top of my priority list, so when I find an App that helps teach them as well as keeps their attention, I take notice. Grover’s The Monster at the End of This Book is one of those Apps.
More than just an epub
Based on the popular children’s book from my childhood, this App is not just the book converted for the iPad. The developer has done a wonderful job of animating this App and making it fun and interactive for kids. The basic plot of the story is that there is a monster at the end of the book. Grover does his best to keep you from turning the pages to get to the end (and thus keeping you from getting to the monster). Grover does everything from asking you nicely, tying the pages, building a brick wall in front of the pages, and more. All of which of course doesn’t prevent you from turning the pages.
No frills
This App does one thing, but does it well. There aren’t any settings to change, nothing to customize or do. Just launch the App and your kids will be off and running. Of course like any good reading App/book App designed for toddlers, the words are highlighted as they are being read. The animations are well done combining smooth movements, and well placed interactive points.
The most important thing
I buy almost every reading App I find for my twins, but this App is hands down the best we’ve tried so far. My son has never laughed so hard, followed the text so close, or went back over and over again to a reading App. This App has kept their attention like no other education App has. I would buy this App 100 times over for my kids because I feel it has done, and will continue to do a great job of teaching them to read.
You can buy The Monster at the End of This Book for the iPad for $3.99 from the
I’ve always been a fan of the Disney “book” applications for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. I wrote a little about them in my 5 Apps that make my toddlers happy, but this particular App is different from the ones up to this point. The Lighting Was here App adds some interactive elements that really take it over the top.
Right to the point of why I love these Disney book Apps; my kids love them. My kids love to read, or to read along rather. They are just at the beginning of their reading lives and it is very important for them to read along and to know what words are being spoken. This is where the Disney books for the iPad shine. As they read along, they are highlighting each word as it’s being said unlike some other read along Apps that I have found that highlight the entire sentence. This is important because at their age (4). They need to see each word highlighted individually as they hear it in order to grasp what is being said. Also I find that they really enjoy turning the pages themselves so the ability to disable “auto turn” is a nice feature.
Usually the Disney books include some sort of light animation to coincide with the text, which this App delivers on as well, but Disney also added a few more elements to make this App a lot more interactive and fun for the kids. First they added a picture hunt throughout the game. Along your trip through Radiator Springs with Lightning McQueen there are semi hidden “decals” for you to collect. To collect them all you have to do is tap on the picture (which is usually out of place enough for the kids to realize that it is different and must be a decal) sending it flying off of the page presumably to your decal wallet which you will tap into later in the story. Midway through the book you come to one of two interactive jigsaw puzzles. Tapping the screen will scatter the pieces leaving you to reassemble them to form the picture. This was a nice touch on Disney’s part. It breaks up the reading time and my twins loved figuring out where all of the pieces went to continue with the story. This happens once more throughout the book which again was a nice break in the reading. At the end you are presented with a picture of Lighting McQueen with dark shadowy shapes on his hood and fenders. You have to dig into your collected decals and place them in the correct spots to complete the story.
There are a couple of things that I would like to see changed with this App. First has to do with the highlighting of the words. For whatever reason they didn’t turn this feature on default like the rest of the Disney read along books. I had to dig into the settings to find it. Not a huge problem but still annoying in my opinion. Secondly I would like to see more options for the puzzles. They chose two of the non-main characters for the puzzles. While I thought they were fine, my kids really wanted a picture of Lightning himself, or Sally (Lightning’s Girlfriend) to have broken into a puzzle. If they gave the option of rotating the images in or out, that would be great!
All in all this is a wonderful App that is worth downloading if you have kids that are learning to read. I can’t say enough about Disney read along books, and the positive effect reading Apps like this have had on my toddlers.
You can get the Lightning Was here App for $0.99 for your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch here from the
One of the pleasant surprises of the iOS 4 launch was that Apple decided to build in Adobe PDF support into the iBooks App to provide PDF viewing outside of Mail attachments and without having to use a 3rd Party App. I had already pretty much settled in on ReaddleDocs and GoodReader as being the two BEST PDF viewers for the iPad, so I was curious to see how iBooks would stack up? After all iBooks is FREE and I do believe in having less Apps if one can do the work of two. Since iBooks is going to be there for viewing ePUBs and iBookstore downloads, why not use it for PDF viewing too if it will do the job?
Just the basics here folks
I wasn't expecting any miracles. However, I guess I was expecting a little more than what's there in this version. First off the PDF support in the iDevices (iPod touch, iPhone and iPad) is limited compared to what's possible in the PDF spec. For example, things like form fields in a PDF are ignored in the iOS itself. So I wasn't expecting to see anything that I hadn't seen before, but I guess I was expecting a few more bells and whistles. You can add PDFs to iBooks either via an iTunes sync or directly from other Apps like Mail. If you receive a PDF in Mail on your iDevice you can tap the "Open In" iBooks button. Visually Apple did a great job providing a thumbnail of the first page and putting it right on the bookshelf. However, once I view the PDF it seems that all you can do is "view it!" You can swipe to change pages. You can pinch to zoom in and out and you can bookmark pages. You can also do keyword searches (a must have for me) and it displays the page thumbnails at the bottom of the screen (nice touch). However, there is not much else. You can't share the PDF outside of iBooks once it's in there. There doesn't appear to be any way to select/highlight text for copying. All of these features and more are in the dedicated Apps like ReadleDocs and GoodReader.
The Bottom Line
iBooks is FREE and therefore hard to knock! It does give you basic storing and viewing of PDFs outside of Mail. This is good because it means that you can keep all of your PDFs in one spot on your iDevice. If you need more than the basics, then I'm still going to recommend that you check out ReaddleDocs (my favorite choice) and GoodReader.
You can get iBooks 1.1 as a FREE download here from the App Store:
Although I'm not an avid book reader, it's hard to ignore the significance of having an iPhone (iPod touch) version of the Amazon Kindle Book Reader. I never really paid much attention to the Kindle because I knew I would never buy one. If I read books a lot, I could definitely see the advantage of having a single device with a nice big crisp display that you could download your favorite books to and read on the go. I figured this would be a natural for the iPhone. Also it would mean having one less device to have to worry about. When Amazon announced that the Kindle App for the iPhone was available, I couldn't resist the opportunity to play with it. Although the app was a FREE download, I didn't have any books in Kindle format. Although there are free sample chapters you can download to test, I wanted something real! Since I didn't have any novels in mind that I wanted to purchase, I looked around my own book collection and it hit me! There was a book that I would LOVE to have with me on my iPhone. It was Scott Kelby's Digital Photography Book. This was the perfect book for me to buy in this format. Although I've already read the book from cover to cover, there's no way that I'm going to remember everything and every setting that Scott mentions. So I figured it would be great to have this book on my iPhone for reference when I'm out in the field at a photo shoot or headed to one.
So I logged on to my Amazon.com on my computer and bought the book ($9.99). Then I went back to my iPhone and launched the Kindle App. The Kindle App started the download process. For some reason it took longer than I expected and at times acted as if it wasn't even connected. I had to work on other things, so I quit out of the app. When I tried it again later it downloaded the book quickly. There it was on my Kindle home screen, Scott's complete book. I tapped on it and there it was, the first page of the book.
