Welcome to App Friday, our weekly link exchange of family-friendly apps. We continue to build momentum for the back-to-school season with more apps to arm your iDevices. This week, in addition to App Friday, there is a “Back-To-School App Specials” campaign being hosted by several educational app sites. Bottom line: this is a great weekend to download apps! We’ll do our best to provide details in the bulleted list down below.
What are your apps about?
Speech With Milo (Apps for Verbs and Prepositions, in English & Spanish) Speech with Milo was created by a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist to build language skills in children. Children will love the adorable Milo as he demonstrates 100 different verbs in this very entertaining app. This app focuses on action words, and was nominated for the Mobile Premier Awards as the best app in Education. The Speech With Milo Prepositions app is used in therapy and in the classroom to help children develop basic language skills. An energetic mouse named Milo demonstrates several Prepositions. As with all of Speech with Milo apps, there are detailed instructions on how for use. The Spanish versions are used to build basic language skills in native Spanish speakers, and are also used quite extensively to introduce children to Spanish.
Pocket PlayHome has just launched for iPhone 4 & iPod Touch 4G! All the fun of the wildly popular My PlayHome for iPad but now you can take it anywhere! Pocket PlayHome brings traditional creative and imaginative play to the 21st century. Your young kids will love playing house in the beautiful, hand drawn world. Prepare breakfast, take a shower, change the CD in the stereo, put the kids to sleep or just play around in the bedroom. Pocket PlayHome is designed to be easy enough for a 2 year old to play yet detailed enough to captivate an 8 year old. Big fun for tiny fingers!
iLearn Solar System is a 3D interactive educational application which teaches the Solar System. A talking tutor Astronaut Ashley introduces the Solar System with the aid of stunning 3D models of the entire Solar System, each of the planets in the Solar System, the Sun & our Moon. Children can interact with these 3D models: scale & rotate while listening to Astronaut Ashley. They can drop informational pins to study the Geological surface characteristics of each planet, the Sun & the Moon, tapping a pin reveals more information. This application is filled with scientific information, which is progressively revealed to a child instead of inundating him/her with all of it at the same time as in an encyclopedia. This application also has a quiz, which is more like a game in which Astronaut Ashely asks questions with her side kick, ZooBy the cute alien and the user has to select the right answer. ZooBy encourages if you get the answer wrong and is happy to hear the right answer. There is a reward for getting several right answers in a row — stickers. This application is focused on teaching the Solar System to young growing minds and leave an impression of a lifetime, what better way to learn about the Solar System than to have a live model to play with!
Playtime Theater was created by two co-developer dads, David Katz and Seth Levine. We both are Television editors with over 25 years experience between us. So, storytelling is something we have always enjoyed. Both of us are parents now and have noticed that most entertainment for kids is very passive, like watching TV; or very structured, like playing video games. This doesn’t give children the free form play that they need to develop. We wanted to create a Free form, free play experience that harnesses the fun and creativity kids naturally have inside them. So we created PlayTime Theater, the worlds first ever AppToy© that combines the Free Play of play-sets, dolls and action figures with the story telling of puppet shows. We put our extensive post production experience to use and added sound design elements, music and customization tools that make PlayTime Theater truly revolutionary.
Staraoke Kids love to sing and with Staraoke they get to play a game while they sing. Staraoke is an iPhone and iPad game where a player controls a character on the screen with their voice. The Staraoke software recognizes the singer’s pitch. If you sing correctly, the character stays on the path and you ramp up points. Targeted at 4 to 9 year old children, Staraoke lets children control a cartoon character on their screen by singing along to various songs. Children will quickly develop their singing ability to win as many points as possible. Included with this Staraoke kids’ singing game are four popular kids’ songs: “Brother John”, “Itsy Bitsy Spider”, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and “Old MacDonald had a Farm” – an In App Purchase option to add more songs is now included as well. Supported Languages: US English, French, German and Swedish.
What’s in it for me this App Friday, August 12th?
- Speech With Milo: Verbs – $.99 (from $2.99)
- Speech With Milo: Prepositions – $.99 (from $2.99)
- Speech With Milo: Verbs (Spanish) – $.99 (from $2.99)
- Speech With Milo: Prepositions (Spanish) – $.99 (from $2.99)
- Pocket PlayHome – $.99 introductory price
- My PlayHome for iPad -$.99 (from $2.99)
- iLearn Solar System HD for iPad – $.99 (from $1.99)
- iLearn Solar System – $.99 (from $1.99)
- Playtime Theater for iPad – $.99 (from $2.99)
- Staraoke – FREE this week (In App Purchase option for more songs)
- Back To School Promotions All Weekend! Follow the #B2SAppSpecials hashtag on Twitter for developer specials throughout the weekend. If you are not the tweeting type, Carisa from Digital Storytime will be keeping her DEAL PAGE updated with the latest: http://digital-storytime.com/sale.php. For teachers, you may want to check out Technology in Education who lists by IEP Goals/Skill. The website dedicated to the promotion is here: http://b2sappspecials.
blogspot.com . - Pitch Competition for App Developers – $100,000 for the winners – open to all of those with exciting initiatives for mobile!
Some Notes
- PROMOTIONAL PRICING: Most prices are applicable on Friday August 12th until 8pm US Pacific Time. After the promotion is over, apps revert back to regular pricing on the iTunes App Store, unless the developers choose to extend the promotion beyond Friday.
- THE IMPORTANCE OF iTUNES REVIEWS: If you are enjoying the apps featured here at App Friday, please consider leaving a review for the developer on the iTunes Store. Reviews mean a lot to the success of an app, and the more independent developers we have, the more content choices parents have for their kids. Thanks for keeping this in mind.
- CONGRATULATIONS to Pierre Abel, whose Word Wizard app is making a great difference to families, and receiving notable (i.e., “New & Noteworthy) recognition at Apple – yay!
App Friday Link Exchange
Our goal at Moms With Apps is to spread the word about family-friendly apps. We also like to know about great deals. Do YOU have some app news to share? If so, please participate in our link exchange and post it down below. Include the app name (& details) in the Link Title, your email, and a URL to the app. Thanks for your participation.
