The iPhone Mom

After you’ve used Contraction Master and you’ve had your baby you might find yourself in need of Nursing Master to help you manage the feedings that will soon become a blur. Sleep deprivation is not to be messed with. The app lets you track when you start nursing your baby and the length of the feeding. You can also record which side you left off on. (Sorry menfolk readers for the inevitable TMI.) I like the fact that this app lets you record information for more than one baby. I know that if I had twins I’d seriously need help keeping track of who I fed when and what and how and maybe even why.

You’ll have the option of adding in your baby’s photo, name and gender. I was pleased to see that Nursing Master also lets you keep track of bottle feedings. You’ll be able to record what’s in the bottle (breast milk, formula, even soy formula, etc.) and how large the bottle is.  My baby was put on elemental formula when she was around two months old. For awhile I had no idea if I was feeding her too much or not often enough. Keeping track of those details probably would have saved me some trial and error. I’m not a statistics person but if you’re interested in looking at the overall feeding statistics you can do that too. You can even compare two babies. I almost forgot, you can also manually enter in feedings that you didn’t time with the app.

Nursing Master was just updated yesterday and not allows you to continue timing a feeding after you shut down the app. I think this is a great addition. There are times when I’m feeding my daughter with the bottle in one hand and my phone in the other checking email. So being able to continue to use the app while I’m doing other things is important to me. The other new addition is a number badge for the app’s home screen icon. The number shows how many babies have a feeding timer running.

I’m all for anything that makes managing newborn details easier. I haven’t tested it for weeks on end but Nursing Master seems easy to use and it kept track of all the details that I’d personally be interested in. I don’t need a ton of fluff. Just a record of how we’re all doing and whether my baby’s on track to becoming a nice, healthy chunk.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Bill Snebold Design

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

Contraction Master is for expectant mothers out there who are preparing for the big Due Date. This app can help you time your contractions and figure out when it’s time to head for the hospital. Literally, all you need to do is tap a button. When you feel a contraction beginning you tap the start button and when it stops you tap the button again. The app tracks the start and end time of your contraction and tells you how long it lasted. When you have another one you tap the button again. Now the app will tell you how frequently your contractions are coming. The history section of Contraction Master will lay out all the information for the contractions that you’ve recorded. This way you can see if they are coming closer together, or (let’s hope not) farther apart.

Contraction Master was very easy to use which is key in an app that you’re expected to use when you’re having contractions. Who wants to try and figure out a complicated system when they’re in labor? Unless it’s some new fangled distraction technique aimed to help you forget you are in labor but I highly doubt there’s an app that can make you forget that. Personally, I think Contraction Master beats having to watch the clock and record times on paper. I also liked the fact that all the information is on your phone, a phone which will probably come with you to the hospital. So when you get there and your contractions magically stop the minute they hook you up to the monitors you’ve got proof for the nurses that it wasn’t just gas.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Bill Snebold Design

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

Last week I was given a heads up about new PBS Kids Photo Factory app. The app is free and it lets you jazz up your photos with favorite PBS Kids characters. I was impressed with how easy it was to use and some of the editing features that had been included. Here are some of the highlights.

*The app lets you use a photo from your camera roll or you can take a new one with the iPhone’s camera.

*The photo can be resized and rotated. You can also add a fancy frame.

*Our favorite part of the app was decorating our photo.  You’ll choose a PBS Kids show and be given “stickers” of characters from that show. Stickers can be resized, rotated and layered on each other.

*When your picture is complete you can save it, email it to a friend or share it on Twitter or Facebook.

There were also a few things I noticed that will hopefully be addressed in updates.

*Some shows have more stickers than others. For example, Sesame Street only features Grover and Elmo but Word Girl has main characters and the show’s villains.

*You’re able to switch shows while you are working on a photo but when you make the change the previous show’s stickers are removed. It would be nice if you could combine shows.

It won’t take long for preschoolers and older children to get the hang of the PBS Kids Photo Factory. The app has definitely been designed with the kiddos in mind. I’m anticipating finding plenty of photos featuring Captain Huggy Face on my camera roll.

Price when Reviewed: FREE

Seller: PBS Kids

Coloring By Pattern gives you a coloring page and then an example to copy. The app awards points for correctly following this example. It also keeps track of the number of taps and time it takes you to finish your coloring. To fill in the picture you tap on a crayon at the bottom of the screen and then tap on a section of the picture. If you make a mistake you can tap on the correct color and then tap on the section again. When you’re all done you can shake your iPhone to erase what you’ve done. To choose a new picture you’ll need to tap on the open book icon. Right now there are ten pictures to choose from, all with a beach theme. The colored example is shown in a small square at the top left of the screen. If you’d like to see it enlarged then double tap on the square. I found myself having to enlarge the example several times but my son didn’t have to do it once.

There are a few things that I think would be nice additions to the app. The first is a scoreboard. The app gives you points and keeps track of your time but older children might like to record that score and see how they improve. To be honest they’d probably also want to compete against siblings. Or is that just my house?? I also think the example square could be a smidge bigger and it would be nice if you could swipe the screen to switch to a new picture instead of having to back out to the coloring book pages. Lastly, the app could use more coloring pages. But overall, I like the idea behind Coloring By Pattern. The combination of memory, matching skills and coloring is fun and something different.

*There is a Lite version of the app available. It features two coloring pages.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Alis App

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

I bought Gello Doodle last week based on the sheer absurdity of it’s concept. How could I not be intrigued by an app that’s built around Jell-O? Actually the app is called Gello and I’m sure that’s because there would be legal trouble if they called it Jell-O. But Gello is like Jell-O and it all wiggles and jiggles, which is part of the fun of this quirky app.

Gello Doodle is for everyone who’s ever wanted to play with their food. Seriously. That includes me. You begin by choosing a Gello mold. Right now there are 22 molds to choose from. Molds include a monkey, a basic oval and even a kangaroo. Now you make your Gello by tapping on the Gello box at the top of the screen. The app gives you color levels that you slide and adjust until your Gello is the perfect color. The next step is to pour it into the mold. I’ll admit that it took me a few tries to figure out how to do this. You have to pick up your iPhone and pretend to pour in the Gello. When your phone goes through the pouring motion it will slide out of the beaker, off the screen and into your mold. Make sure you pour it all in so your mold fills completely. You can also fill it part of the way, then change the Gello color and finish off the mold with a new color. When your mold is full  you can add in some doodads. That is the actual Gello Doodle word for it. Doodads are the things that you add into your Gello. In real life it’d be things like pineapple, pears or marshmallows. Here you have fruits, nuts, gummy things (frogs, worms, bears), cookies, candies and crackers. Then you’ve also got wacky things like flowers, bolts and shoes. You can even take a picture from your camera roll, select part of the image and add that to your Gello. Choose which doodad you like and then tap on the Gello mold to add it. You can add as many different doodads as you like.

When you’ve made your Gello you’ll tap on “Demold” and set that Gello free. Your Gello will wiggle around the screen as you move your iPhone. The next step is to play with your food. You can pump the Gello full of air until it explodes or slurp it up with a straw. You can also adjust the gravity and elasticity of the Gello.  If you put your finger on the Gello and move it around the screen it will twist and turn and follow your finger.  What’s included now is fun but I’d like to see a few more things included for playing with the Gello.

Gello Doodle is pure, mindless fun. My kids are getting a big kick out of their molds. As for me, I quite enjoy slurping the Gello off the screen. I’m not sure if it’s the noise or the fact that I get a clean screen when I’m done. Clean counts for a lot right now because thanks to my sweet refluxing baby nothing in my house is clean for long. Whatever the reason, I’m finding Gello Doodle pretty darn  entertaining.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Shoe the Goose

Shop Healthy! lets you look up nutritional information for foods you’ll find in the grocery store. The idea is to use the app to help you make healthy, informed choices about your groceries. At the time that I’m writing this review there are over 100,000 products included in the app’s information.

It’s a good idea to read through all of the information on the “Info” screen when you first use Shop Healthy! When it comes to searching for foods you can look for them by name or see them sorted by grocery store aisle. To look up a specific food tap the “Products” button and then type in the name of what you’re looking for. The app pulls up everything it’s got that fits your search. Next to each name on the list are three apples. The apples are colored green depending on how healthy the food is. Three green apples is the best rating. You can tap on the product’s name to see more information including serving size and calories per serving. There is a button that shows you nutrition facts like those seen on a product’s package. Another button says “view factoid info” and this tells you some basic information about the type of food product you’re viewing. Back on the product’s detail page you are given a list of other products to consider as an alternative to the one you searched for.  So if what you searched for had a dismal 1/2 green apple rating you could browse through the list of suggestions and make a better choice.

You can also view foods based on their aisle in a store. To do this tap on the “aisle” button at the bottom of the screen. Now you’ll see four columns – Fruits & Veggies, Breads & Grains, Beverages and Canned Foods. In each column are different types of foods, represented by a picture. Tap on the picture and you’ll get a list of foods, each with a green apple rating next to it. Tap on the food to see the same detail information that I mentioned above for the products button. I really liked the detailed pages for the fruits and veggies. You pick a fruit or vegetable to look at and the app tells you how to select the best one, how to store it and some fun facts about it. I find that information very useful myself. The only change that I’d suggest here is to add a way to navigate back to the fruits or vegetables list after looking at a detail screen. There’s no arrow to get back to the list, you have to tap “Aisle” and begin again. There are arrows for the other foods, but not for fruits and veggies.

As you’re browsing through foods (and probably learning more about what’s in them than you might like to know) you can mark them as a “favorite”. These items will show up on a list that can be found via the “Favorites” button. The app is easy to move through and the layout is clean and makes the information easy to follow.

I thought that Shop Healthy! was a nice tool for comparing different foods that fall into the same category. It’s not going to do you much good if you want to compare fruit juice to ice cream, but if you’re trying to decide between different types of juice (or in my case, ice cream) it can help you make an informed decision before you load up your grocery cart.  Personally, I always set out for the store determined to make healthy choices and especially to avoid the sweets. But by the time I survive shopping with my kids the sweets have become a mental health necessity. Perhaps Shop Healthy! can help me choose between the lesser of my sweet evils.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: SmartNow.com

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

TaskAttention is an app for keeping track of your to do list, including tasks and projects. My life has been all about Task Inattention lately. It seems the longer my to do list grows the more I avoid it and so it grows even longer. It’s an understatement to say that my tasks need attention and I wondered if this app could help me get my act together.

You create projects and then add tasks within the projects. You name them and mark your progress, the task’s priority and due date. Assign the task to a project and add tags if you want. It’s easy to input all of the  details and only takes a few taps here and there. The only thing that felt awkward to me was setting up the due date. By default the due date is turned off and you have to tap that button, then turn the due date on and set it up. For me it would make more sense to have the due date already turned on so all you had to do was set the date.

Once you’ve entered in a few tasks and projects you can sort them by project name or due date. You can perform a search for words found in the task or project titles. You can also add filters, name them and set the keywords that will apply to the filter. My understanding of the filter feature is that you apply one and then everything that fits within that filter is separated out into a list of it’s own.

TaskAttention was very easy to set up and begin using. There’s not a lot of extra garbage to sort through within the app and no learning curve before you’re actually able to use it. It’s a straightforward, clean looking, organized to do list. I didn’t have any trouble putting my to do list together within the app but I found myself forgetting it was there. I think it would help if there was a number badge that showed up on the app’s icon. Maybe seeing a bright red number telling me how many things I was ignoring would help me wake up and get my act together.

Price when Reviewed: $3.99

Seller: Himalaya Computing Corporation

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

I think that Tap & Learn Animals is best suited for older babies and toddlers. It’s divided into two sections, “Tap and Learn” and “Choose and Learn”. In “Tap and Learn” you tap on a picture of an animal and then hear it’s name and sound. There are twelve animals to choose from. Six on the first screen and then swipe left with your finger to see another six. In “Choose and Learn” the app asks “where is the…” or “do you see the…” and you have to tap on the animal it asks for.  Tap & Learn is a simple app but it’s well done with cute animals and realistic animal sounds.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Anna Islamova

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

I saw the Wee Mee Avatar Creator in the “What’s Hot” section of the App Store this week and had to give it a trial run. I use the Wee Mee creator to create my Windows Live Messenger avatar. Alright, actually my kids are the ones doing the creating. They love to get on and change up my Mee’s hair and clothes. Not to mention all the accessories that can be added on. Right now she’s wearing a pink cowgirl hat, sparkly shoes and standing by a windmill and daschund.  Random, I know but somehow it works. There is a website for the Wee Mees called Wee World but we don’t use it. It’s more of a social networking type site  so we stick with the Messenger Wee Mees and everyone is happy.

I got off on a bit of a tangent didn’t I?  Back to the Wee Mee iPhone app. You choose a body (and yes, they do wear undies, albeit skimpyish ones) and head shape. You can customize your skin color and then it’s on to facial expressions and hair. That is my daughter’s favorite thing to choose for me. My own brown locks are so boring that having the endless possibilities of long, colorful, beautiful hair is irresistible to her. The app lets you pick clothes, accessories and backgrounds. There aren’t as many choices as you’ve got online but I’m hopeful more will come in updates. (Online there are oodles of choices, so just because I say there aren’t as many in the app doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty. Make sense?) Go through all the avatar options and it’s just a matter of tapping and swiping until you get THE perfect look.

So having the Wee Mee Avatar Creator can be fun, like elaborate paper dolls on your iPhone, but what can you DO with them? Well, once you’ve finished an avatar you can save it to a Wee Mee gallery. And then you can email it out or save it as a photo for one of your contacts. The next time my kids tell me that they are bored I’m going to let them loose with this app and have them create a Wee Mee for every one of my contacts that needs a photo. Can’t wait to see what they come up with!

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: WeeWorld

Any app that has “a-ma-jig” in it’s name is worth a look, isn’t it? Slide-a-ma-jig is an app that gives you creatures and then lets you mix and match their parts. It currently features 30 different characters, each divided up into five body sections. (Hat section, head, mid-section, legs and feet.) Pick a character, touch on one of it’s sections and then swipe to the left or right to switch to a new body part. Each time you swipe you’ll hear a cartoony sound effect. Zoinks! The original Slide-a-ma-jig creatures are something else all on their own but things get pretty wild when you start combining their bits and pieces. You can make some disturbingly wacky combinations if you put your mind to it. And if you’re in more of a random mood you can also shake your iPhone to get a creature that the app creates out of various creature parts. There are also 20 different backgrounds that you can use to really mix things up. My thoughts on Slide-a-ma-jig?  I think it’s silly, icky totally irresistible. My kids agree.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Lucky Radish Amusements

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.