Sites

Here are links to what I think are the better sites relevant to young children I have found so far.  Feel free to suggest extra ones!

• A Touch of Learning – I have moved my personal reviews to this new dedicated site.
• Doodaddy – a short list of suggested games.
• Travel Savy Mom – Top Ten iPhone Apps for Kids.
• Babble – Ten Best iPhone Apps For Distracting Young Children. Not games, but possibly also interesting: Making Parenting Easier, Baby Monitor, iPhone for kids.
• Lilsugar – 10 iPhone apps for Toddlers.
• Macenstein – 32 Excellent iPhone Games for Kids.
• iphone.blogvasion.com – 8 iPhone Apps to Get when Traveling with Preschool Age Kids.
• Mommy poppins – Top 10 iPhone Apps for Moms and Dads.
• Creativetypedad.blogspot.com – Top iPhone applications for preschoolers.
• Ramogames – iPhone kids games.
• Ultrasound technician schools (!!?!!) – 99 iPhone Apps for the Best, Brightest, and Brainiest Kids.
• Geekdad – iPhone apps for kids.

It is worth noting that games change.  Some reviews I found said the application was free – but when you go to download it, you find it now has a price attached.

Background

I have an almost 3 year old boy who loves my iPhone.  Its amazing at times to see how well he can master different iPhone games and the iPhone itself.  The flicking gesture to move between photos he mastered in seconds.  He can navigate through the 5 pages or so of applications I have and remembers where the games he likes are.  I generally get him to sit down on the carpet before giving him the phone, but he has not dropped it yet.  (I don’t let him shake the phone as some games require to reset them however!)  He has even been pretty good about giving it back when the time is up for playing on it.

I started out with a number of free games (typically ‘lite’ versions), then started to buy a few.  The Apple store is useful, but not perfect.  I always feel like I am looking through the keyhole of the front door in order to see what is inside a whole department store.  If its not in the top 25 of any category, its almost impossible to find an app. You can search, but what words to search on?  What if the words you picked were not the same as the application developer?  How do you know you found the best application matching your needs?  And the store is frequently so slow!

Furthermore, not all applications have a ‘try before you buy’ (lite) version.  It amazes me that no trial period support is built into the store.  I would love a ‘1 week free trial’ for many of the games.  I would gladly give many more a go if that was possible.  (I do note however that the upcoming iPhone OS 3.0 release does have more within application purchase options, so maybe it might be possible in the future.)  I mean paying $1 to $2 for a game is not much if you compare it to a Nintendo WII game for example, but when there are so many to look through, it can get pretty expensive pretty quickly – especially if my boy does not like the game.

So I am writing up my personal reviews on the games I have seen my 3yo have a go at in case this is of some use to anyone else in their attempts to find good games for young children.

As I am a programmer, I also plan comment on UI design and other such issues.  Some of the games have strange inconsistencies, and such inconsistencies usually trip up my 3yo.