Oceanhouse Media

Giving your child an iPad or iPod Touch as a gift this year? Preload it with some quality apps before you wrap it. That way you’ll increase your chances for a positive first impression. Here’s a fresh batch of suggestions, arranged from young to old. Bizzy Bear on the Farm ($4) is full of clever talking animals and barnyard jobs that include gathering eggs, herding sheep and riding a horse. Every page has hidden surprises that support the story. Ages 2-4. DoodleCast for Kids ($2) captures your child’s doodles and voice at the same time, for instant playback. The process is automated and the products make wonderful digital snapshots of your child’s development. Keep the file for a dozen years and you’ll have an excellent mechanism for embarrassing your high school graduate. An active YouTube account is needed for the sharing. Ages 2-8. Nighty Night! HD ($1, shown above). If there ever was such a thing as a nap app, this is it. Seven bucolic barnyard scenes have a hidden light switch. Once touched, the scene darkens and the animals settle into bed. The sheep snuggles into a bed of straw, the chicks huddle under their mother’s soft wing. Once in bed the animals stir when touched, but they stay in bed. Clearly this app was designed by an experienced parent. Ages 1-3. Noodle Words ($3) turns 18 action words like spin and sparkle into action-related toys. Touch the word “pump” and it grows fatter. Touch again (what child wouldn’t) and the word grows some more, until it can’t take any more pressure and it starts zipping around the screen, giving children fun way to experiment with word meanings. For ages 4-7. Puzzle Pop ($1) is a set of 27 timed jigsaw puzzles that start easy and get harder. The animated pieces offer visual clues for helping you figure out where the correct order. Ages 3-up. Toca Kitchen ($2) turns your iPad into a griddle, with four hungry customers to feed. To make them happy, you drag, drop and chop various food items, using the microwave or frying pan. The fun starts when the customers get picky, and you have to figure out what they like. Ages 3-up. Another Monster at the End of This Book ($1). This second Monster at the End of This Book app has 12 more pages that document Grover’s creative attempts to keep Elmo (and your Read More

By Chris Kirby on December 17th, 2011 This week at 148Apps, Flurry showed a chart, GiggleApps made us smart, and the Hipstamatic series got a new start. There's still some shopping days left till Christmas, so give the gift of apps and read on... This week at 148Apps.com we delved into the latest from the developers of Hipstamatic, the “disposable” Hipstamatic D-Series app. 148Apps founder Jeff Scott says, “I got a chance to try out the new app and can report that Hipstamatic D-Series does indeed bring back the nostalgic memories of sharing a disposable camera and swapping double prints into the digital age. It’s a great idea and well executed. There’s even the anxious need to burn the last shot by taking a picture of your foot, just to get the roll developed quicker. It’s indeed very fun. FREE! iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad Released: 2011-12-15 :: Category: Photography $1.99 Released: 2009-12-10 :: Category: Photography At GiggleApps.com, reviewer Amy Solomon took a close look at the first interactive book from The Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library, There’s No Place Like Space. Solomon says, “There’s No Place Like Space, although a creative, fun and educational book, is not written by Seuss himself, although it is written in a Seuss-like style. I enjoy this book, as does my son, but my husband and I did comment to ourselves that the text is not as well-written as the classic books by Seuss.” $5.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad Released: 2011-11-16 :: Category: Education Finally, 148Apps.biz site editor Rob LeFebvre reported on a new report from mobile analytics company Flurry. LeFebvre writes, “Flurry shows the fact that developers are making more money on iOS than on Android, even as the numbers of Android OS enabled smartphones continues to increase, commanding as much as 53% of the market, according to an NPD Group study released yesterday as well.” Intrigued? Read more on 148Apps.biz. As your advent calendar continues to count towards December 25th, don’t forget to vote for our 2011 Best App Ever, and keep track of the latest news, reviews and contests via our Facebook and Twitter streams. Read More

I love Halloween. As kids we anticipated the night we'd canvas the neighborhood in plastic costumes, visiting house after house. Especially that one crazy lady who dressed as a witch and tried her best to scare us. We had fun, but we didn't have iPhones. Today a slew of digital treats lurk inside the App Store. Here's a selection of our favorites. There are prerequisites to Halloween fun. You've got to choose a costume, carve a pumpkin and set a creepy mood. Here are some apps to get you started (all prices are USD). Costume Decider (Free) Can't decide on a costume? Let your iPhone help. This app from GS Design features two "wheels" for you to spin; one features adjectives such as "super" and "Vulcan" while the other offers nouns like "nurse" or "granny." Flip through the 625 possible combinations to find a winner. We'd like to see a Vulcan nurse, actually. Haunt Finder ($2.99) Trick-or-treating not your thing? Check out Haunt Finder, a mobile database of haunted houses and and other frightening attractions across the US. Powered by HauntedHouse.com, Haunt Finder will list all the spooky goings-on within 200 miles of your current location. Listings include a description, distance and URL. Halloween Soundlab ($0.99) If you intend to host a Halloween party, you'll need an eerie soundtrack. Halloween Soundlab offers 13 spooky loops that can be played solo or in combination to produce a horrifying soundtrack. Like many other holidays, Halloween is mostly about the kids. Help them channel that sugar-fueled energy with a bit of iOS fun. Carve It ($0.99) Carve a virtual jack-o-lantern with Carve It from ABCya. There's no sharp knife, fistfulls of goo or burning candle to worry about. Plus, if Jr. makes a mistake, he can just start over. Choose from 8 characters and enjoy the mini-game (it's kind of like Plinko) once the novelty of carving virtual pumpkins wears off. The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin ($0.99, universal) This app is based on one of my kids' favorite Halloween books. Poor Spookely isn't like the other pumpkins in the patch, he's a cube! A not-so-spooky soundtrack enhances the charm of Susan Banta's illustrations. Halloween Postage ($1.99) If your kids are like mine, they adore looking at themselves. Embrace that tendency with Halloween Postage from RogueSheep. Take a photo of your costumed children and then add a postcard theme, creepy effects, titles and Read More

While experts debate about whether or not tablets and smartphones are appropriate for young children, the fingerprints all over your iPad are an indicator that children — some as young as 12 months of age — have taken the issue into their own hands. Not to mention the 700+ apps aimed at toddlers in iTunes. Here are some apps with simple cause-and-effect relationships that curious toddlers crave. Keep in mind that you can get similar results with a tube sock full of beans, an old piano or a good-natured puppy. Start with Moo, Baa La La La! ($2.99 for the iPad, $1.99 iPhone), which just might be the world’s first eBoard Book. Created by the children’s author Sandra Boynton, the app duplicates her printed book page by page, but adds self-narrating words, touch-animated animals and story-related skits, like a trio of pigs that sing in harmony. Pat the Bunny ($4.99) offers more to do. It was inspired by the 1940’s children’s book by Dorothy Kunhardt, an author who glued things like sandpaper or fake bunny fur to the thick pages. This iPad edition has Velcro strips to fasten or unfasten, pages to fingerpaint and — if you have an iPad 2 with front-facing camera — the ability to see your own face in a mirror. You can also replace the narrator’s voice with your own. When I asked parents for their tried-and-true toddler-app recommendations, ShapeBuilder ($.99 for iPhone) kept coming up. Despite being ancient (made in 2009 for iPhone), it works well on iPad’s larger screen, offering a set of self-correcting jigsaw puzzles with pieces that pop into place to make animals or letters. Every baby likes to bang on piano keys, and app-equivalent experiences are easy to find. For example, both PianoBall ($2) and Sound Shaker ($2) turn your screen into child-friendly keys or buttons, creating a musical busy box good for exploring pitch, rhythms and harmony. Finally, there’s now an app for the two words every young parent comes to know — potty training. Once Upon a Potty ($3), based on the Alona Frankel books have touch-and-hear labeling throughout, so your child can touch the diaper, you hear the word, and become more familiar with concepts like “a pee-pee for making wee-wee.” A potty song is thrown into the mix. There are boy and girl versions. Read More

Once upon a time (five years ago), e-books for children came on shiny CD-ROMs that cost $40, plus a few dollars for sales tax. Today’s children’s e-books cost just that sales tax. All you need is a $500 iPad. Just a fad, you say? Perhaps, but recent e-books for Apple’s iPad indicate that the professionals have arrived in the app stores. These e-books can sound out difficult words and move you with illustrations that change based on the tilt of the screen. Today’s children can actually blow the little pig’s house down, by way of the iPad’s microphone. As in any emerging medium, quality varies — in this case, widely. There are thousands of e-books to wade through, and some are not much more than scanned pages. Here are 10 noteworthy exceptions, ranked by age, with some honorable mentions. Go, Clifford, Go! ($5) is one of Scholastic’s first e-books, which, along with I Love You Through and Through (also $5) lets you tilt the screen to make cars move, trees sway, waves roll. Ages 2-up. Finding Nemo: My Puzzle Book ($1) is one of a series of movie-inspired e-books that mix jigsaw puzzles with a scavenger hunt, plus the ability to record your own narration. 3-up. PopOut! The Tale of Peter Rabbit ($5) respectfully presents Beatrix Potter’s classic illustrations on the multi-touch screen, with touch-and-hear text, and pull-tabs that pull you into the action elements of the story. 3-up. Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed ($3) Eileen Christelow’s color pencil illustrations help a child learn to read, by connecting the words with the pictures, at the touch of a finger. The same technique has been used in other Oceanhouse Media Dr. Seuss titles. 3-up. Goosed Up Rhymes ($1) six funny, noisy versions of nursery rhymes guaranteed to make you smile. 3-up. The Three Little Pigs ($8) is one of the best renditions of the classic story in the app store. Besides excellent graphics and sounds, you get to help the wolf blow down the houses by way of the iPad’s microphone. 4-up. Nash Smasher! ($2) pulls you into the world of Nash, a 7-year old mischief-maker who likes to break things. You “pull” on tabs to do the smashing, or if you like, the un-smashing, on the way to a happy ending. 5-up. Ultimate Dinopedia: The Most Complete Dinosaur Reference, ($6) puts the embellished details of 600 dinosaurs at your Read More

Like most parents, I'm concerned that my kids get too much "screen time," what with the TV, computer, Wii, iPod/iPad, and so on. But if that time is spent reading, or at least flipping the pages of a book, I don't mind it one bit. "Horton Hears a Who" That's why I continue to be a relentless fan of children's e-books, which are increasingly abundant for iOS devices. Indeed, in the last couple of weeks alone, nearly a dozen new and noteworthy titles have arrived in the App Store. Here are the ones I think make for worthwhile screen time. "Horton Hears a Who" and "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back": Two of my favorite Dr. Seuss titles just arrived in Oceanhouse Media's ever-growing catalog. Both on sale for $2.99, and in fact all the Seuss apps have been discounted from 25-75 percent off (this week only) in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday. "Jeremy Fisher: Buddy Edition": "The Tale of Jeremy Fisher" comes from Beatrix Potter, who, of course, is best known for "Peter Rabbit." I won't say this story has the same appeal, but it does offer an interesting gimmick: Buddy Reading, which leverages Game Center to allow a parent or other relative to read the story on one device while the child listens on another. Setup is a one-time hassle, but this could be great for the parent who travels a lot. The app costs $1.99; you'll need to buy it twice, once for each device. "The Magic School Bus: Oceans" "The Magic School Bus: Oceans": I've often found the "Magic School Bus" books a bit tricky to read aloud to kids, if only because of the heavy use of comic book-style word balloons. The app version ($7.99) solves that handily by highlighting each word as it's read aloud--and using different voices for each character. It also has photos, videos, a learning game, and interactive science lessons. Alas, it's for iPad only. "The Penelope Rose": This decidedly girl-centric title ($6.99), also for iPad only, has a gimmick of its own: 3D artwork that doesn't require special glasses. Instead, you just tilt the iPad back and forth, which creates a very cool illusion of 3D. Beyond that, it's a beautifully illustrated fairytale about, well, fairies. And roses. "Violet and the Mystery Next Door" "Violet and the Mystery Next Door": Given the title, you might mistake this for another girls-only Read More

Dr. Seuss apps have been hitting us time and time again for iOS. The developers at Oceanhouse Media have been doing a fantastic job bringing many of these classic children’s books to life on our iOS-powered devices. Adding one more to this growing list of classics, Oceanhouse has just released Fox in Socks. The Fox in Socks app is available for your iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Michel Kripalani, Founder and President of Oceanhouse Media commented on the release: “Fox in Socks is a classic read-aloud beginner book and our digital version is a title that has been highly anticipated…We’re proud that our apps continue to feature eye-catching graphics, easy-to-follow narratives and promote Dr. Seuss’s love of words and reading. Our next Dr. Seuss release will be I Can Read With My Eyes Shut! in early February.” As Michel touched on, the app delivers crisp and colorful graphics, and is built in an easy-to-follow way for the youngsters. Inside, the e-book has three options to proceed. There’s an ‘Auto Play’ feature that allows your kiddies to sit and follow along with the book, just like watching a movie. A ‘Read to Me’ option allows you to listen to the story with words highlighted as you go. Finally, a ‘Read it Yourself’ option lets you, well, it lets you read the book all on your own. Another big *thumbs up* to Oceanhouse for releasing another Dr. Seuss classic. While I doubt I’ll be downloading this anytime soon… the moment I have a few kiddies running around, this type of app would certainly peak my interest. Fox in Socks ($3.99) [iTunes link] It’s worth noting that Oceanhouse has designs on releasing ALL 44 Dr. Seuss titles. So, no matter if you grab ‘em for nostalgic purposes, or if you download to read and share with that little one in your family… there’s going to be much more goodness to come. James was born and raised in Winnipeg, Canada. Almost 15 years ago he started out in the 'real world' as a web and graphic designer. Through the years he has finely tuned his skills in SEO, internet marketing, conversion strategy, and project management. To date, he runs his own successful consulting business where he advises companies all over the globe. A co-founder of www.crackberry.com, and sole proprietor of www.mactropolis.com, James in recent years has become very active in the tech blogosphere. Online community Read More

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Realizing there’s no chance of getting your traditional paper-based holiday card out this year, your only recourse is to explore electronic options. You may find just what you are looking for in one of the following three iOS app-based solutions. A word of caution: Some of the e-card solutions utilize a server-side service to send the cards. I’ve noticed some of these solutions ended up in recipients’ spam folders, so if you’re not sure whether the message will get through, use the solutions that let you do the sending.For the Truly Lazy Among Us What you’re looking for is the quickest and easiest way to let your friends and family know that you’re ready for the holiday season this year. If this is what you want, then ISBX’s Build-a-Card Holiday Edition for $0.99 is just the app for you. Simply snap a photo, choose one of the design patterns, add some props, and tweet the results to all of your followers. From app store to instant online gratification in less than five minutes. For the Slightly More Creative Perhaps you’ve been more than a little busy this year, and you’re still looking to add the personal touch to a holiday card. But you still want to get it out to everyone before the holidays are over. Then I’d recommend Vivid Apps Christmas Lifecards for $0.99. The workflow is very closely related to that of Build-a-Card, but you have a much greater degree of control as the templates are much more involved. Where the goal of Build-a-Card is quick and easy, Lifecards provides a much deeper and more customizable result. The sharing options are a lot more involved, too, including the ability to email a PDF version of your Lifecard. You can also save your results in high or low resolution, post to Facebook, and even upload to Flickr or Twitpic.  With more than fifty customizable templates to choose from, you should be able to get exactly what you wanted out of this holiday card app. For the Kid at Heart There are several holiday entertainment apps for kids that will let you email an image of the artwork they create.  But sticking to the theme of holiday card photo apps, Oceanhouse Media’s Dr. Seuss Camera – The Grinch Edition on sale for $0.99 is a great outlet for the kid in each of us. While not quite as extensible as the Read More

  Guest Post by Jennifer Dorman From helpful to just plain fun, there’s an iPhone app to fulfill almost any need and Christmas is no exception. Here are the 12 essential iPhone apps of Christmas that bring me holiday cheer. Read More