kids

As a parent, I'll admit to handing my smartphone over to one of my kids to keep them entertained from time to time. Who hasn't? But, it's impossible to trust your toddler to stay within a designated app and not explore.

In the past I covered a way to prevent kids from pressing the home button on iOS devices, which continues to work great. As I started carrying an Android device, a solution for the same problem was nowhere to be found.

Play Safe is an Android app that allows you to set a predefined list of … Read more

There was something about the Mama Bear family tech conference a week ago that creeped me out. I am the father of a 5-year-old boy, and perhaps a third of the people at this conference were trying to build apps for him. All the apps were well-intentioned. All were, at some level, educational.

Still, all the apps felt wrong to me. I wanted my son to have nothing to do with any of them.

I've been trying to understand why these educational apps were getting under my skin to this extent. It's not like I'm anti-technology when … Read more

The move to the smaller, app-centric iPads makes sense for kids as much as it makes for Apple. While the applications that were available on the iMacs were educational and kid-friendly, there is just something about Apple's iPad that kids simply "get."

Since getting my iPad, it has become a favorite request when visiting my nephews (2 and 4). Of course it makes my job as babysitter easier, but watching them handle iOS has been fascinating. My brother and his wife do not have any Apple products, yet my nephews seem to automatically understand the concept of … Read more

As every parent knows, kids say the funniest things.

Like my daughter, who used to call hamburgers "hangabers." And loves to say, "You're very sweeticle, dad."

Take it from someone who knows: it's all too easy to forget these little bon mots. That's why I'm delighted by Posterity: The Family Quote Book for iOS, a simple but clever app that lets you capture all the funny things your kids say.

Posterity creates individual "books" for each kid, then lets you fill them with quotes. For each quote you can assign … Read more

As we approach the year anniversary of the 3DS, only a handful of titles jump to mind as must-haves. When Nintendo announced that the Kid Icarus franchise was being resurrected for the 3DS, we immediately thought of what the updated side-scroller would evolve into, but Kid Icarus Uprising takes the game we remember from long ago, and throws it in a completely new direction.

Jeff:You might as well forget everything you remember about the original Kid Icarus game that first debuted on the NES. In addition to making me feel old, the new Kid Icarus is an absolute deviation from its quarter-century-old predecessor, maintaining nothing more than the same main character, Pit, and few recognizable enemies and weapons. … Read more

For me a great hi-fi doesn't necessarily have to be the best-sounding one.

It's more about a sound that draws me in. One CD or LP leads to the next, and I don't want to stop to eat, read, go to bed, or watch TV. A great hi-fi is one that lets the music cut loose. Even cheap gear might have what it takes to get my juices flowing. Take the Velodyne vPulse in-ear headphones; they make too much bass and are far from the most refined headphones in my collection, but I keep using them. I … Read more

Ever tried teaching your child how to draw an animal, but just didn't know where to start? Next time, try starting with a butt. That's right.

Everything Butt Art, a freemium iPad app, wants to teach your child how to draw, a learning process that relies on repetition and familiarity. One where every drawing starts with a butt. It may sound kind of strange, or perhaps even offensive at first, but once you begin using the app and go through the steps of each drawing, your apprehension quickly turns into admiration.

Let's take a look at how … Read more

What is a "book" on an iPad? It's a question that bears some consideration, because the very nature of a tablet redefines the book experience.

According to Apple, iBooks 2 is the answer. However, plenty of booklike apps on the iPad also redefine the territory; the newly released Bats!: Furry Fliers of the Night doesn't live in iBooks, but this app feels as next-gen as Apple's iBooks offerings, or more so.… Read more

The Internet is a place where innocence goes to die.

Yes, it's also mankind's greatest repository of collected knowledge--but some of the Internet's knowledge might be a little inappropriate for young minds.

In spite of this, Web browsers have quickly blanketed my home over the past few years. They're on my phone, my TV, my computer, my tablet, and apparently coming soon to my refrigerator. As the father of a 4-year-old, I run our house like digital-era Holden Caulfield, disabling or password-protecting the browser on every gadget I can own.

It's not even the Web'… Read more