The iPhone Mom

This is another app from the folks behind the Little White Bunny stories and the Bunny Rattle app. In Bunny Count bunnies show up on the screen along with three different numbers. Your child counts the bunnies and then touches the number that matches. They’ll see anywhere between one and ten bunnies on the screen. I think this is a great idea for helping little ones learn to count AND identify the written number. It’s a very simple app but the kids will enjoy watching the bunnies hop around on the screen while learning something at the same time. Overall I like this app but the price seems a bit high to me.

Price when Reviewed: $3.99

Available at iTunes

Seller: Silver Bunny Books/Edward Povazan

Looks like Nintendo is trying to tap into the mom market. They’ve released a Nintendo DS bundle that comes with a DS, a snazzy carrying case and the Personal Trainer Cooking game. I know exactly what’d happen if this was gifted to me on Mother’s Day. After day one I’d be asking the four year old if I could borrow my DS from him. Pretty much exactly what’s happened with my iPhone.

See this link for more info. on the new bundle.

Nintendo DS Mom Bundle

Mom’s Perfect Baby is a really, really neat app. The idea behind it is to take your photos and turn them into quirky themes for your iPhone or unique  E-cards. For all that it does it’s surprisingly easy to use as well.

When the app opens up you choose either “Themes for Mom” or “E-cards”. If you choose the themes option you can browse through different scenes. Tap on one you like to get started. Now you need to add faces to the bodies in the scenes. Do this by tapping “New Face” at the bottom of the screen. You can either take a photo with your iPhone or choose one that’s already on your camera roll. When you’ve chosen your photo the app guides you through cropping everything out except for the person’s head. If you’ve used Jib Jab on the internet, this is the same idea. Pick your head shape, position your photo and then touch the “Fine Tune” button. Now you drag the different points around the head until it’s cropped the way you want it. When you’re done touch “Preview” and then “Done”. Your head shape will be saved and show up at the bottom of your scene screen. Now it’s just a matter of dragging the head onto one of the bodies in the scene. When all your heads are in place tap “Done” and the image is saved to your gallery. You’ll be able to see your finished theme by touching “My Gallery” on the main screen. When you’re viewing it you can touch the floppy disc icon at the bottom of the screen. This will save the image to your iPhone’s Camera Roll. Now you can email the image, use it as wallpaper for your phone or turn it into a contact’s photo.

The E-card feature works in a similar way. If you tap that button you’ll see a nice selection of E-card templates. Touch the one you like and you’ll get a chance to personalize the card by tapping either “Add Photo” or “Add Message”. You can choose a photo that’s already on your iPhone or take a new one. Once you’ve got the E-Card just right tap “Done” and it’s saved to your gallery. Again, from here you can save the image to your Camera Roll. When you open it up you’ll be able to email it out to friends and family.

I can definitely see my older kids using the themes part of Mom’s Perfect Baby. Cropping photos and putting heads on silly bodies sounds right up their alley. I really like the E-Card feature. Instead of hunting around on the internet for a decent (and free) E-card this app lets me do my own thing. Even if I use the same template over and over I can change it up with different pictures and text. Plus there’s only the one time fee for the app. After that sending the E-Cards is free.

I think the usability of this app makes it well worth it’s price. If you want to create silly and unique themes for your iPhone’s wallpaper or contact photos, this is a fun app to play with. If you want to be able to easily send out personalized E-cards, I’d absolutely put Mom’s Perfect Baby on your iPhone.

Price when Reviewed: $2.99

Available at iTunes

Seller: AirGini Inc.

*A Side Note – Dad’s Perfect Baby is also available – same app idea with Dad themes.

The DirecTV app lets you program your DVR to record shows from your iPhone. You can start by searching for shows, browsing by channel or browsing by date and time. If you find a show that looks interesting, tap on it and the app gives you a description of the show, what time it’s on, how long it lasts and what it’s rating is. At the bottom of the screen you’ll now see buttons that say “Record This Episode” and “Record This Series”. If you tap these buttons you’ll be asked to enter in the email on your DirecTV account and your password. After you’ve done this you choose which receiver you want to use to record, the priority of the recording and how long you want to keep it. Then tap the “Record This Episode” button again. You’ll get a message telling you that your program has been scheduled to record. Next time you check your DVR you’ll see the program on the schedule.

A couple of notes – On some of my searches I was unable to find my local channels on the app. Also, the DirecTV app can’t show you what you already have scheduled to record. This means you can’t use the iPhone to make sure you’re not going to be recording over another scheduled program.

This would be a helpful app if you often forget to set your DVR while you’re at home. I don’t think I’ll be using it much but that’s only because I can’t use it to see what’s scheduled to record. My kids, husband and I all schedule shows and if we’re using the iPhone app to schedule even more then it’s only a matter of time before we mess someone up. I for one don’t want to be responsible for scheduling over a hockey game or an episode of Phineas and Ferb. I’ll be interested to see if it’s possible for the developers to add schedule viewing to future updates. But if you’re recording needs are simpler then mine, this could be a great app for you.

Price when Reviewed: Free

Available at iTunes

Seller: DirecTV, Inc.

This is a great app to have on your iPhone if your kids are readers and are constantly asking you to define words. Mine will come to me with a question about a word they’ve come across in a book. My mind is not as sharp as it once was so it usually takes me a minute to come up with an appropriate definition. I know we have a dictionary around the house somewhere but I can’t tell you where that somewhere is. In the past if the kids have got me stumped I’ll have them turn on the computer and go to the Dictionary.com website. Needless to say I was excited to see this app and give it a trial run.

The Dictionary.com app lets you look up words, right on your iPhone. It’s extremely easy to use. Tap the dictionary button at the bottom of the screen and then type in the word you’re searching for.  You’ll get a list of words and then you touch the one you’re looking for. The app will then pull up a dictionary definition for you. There’s also a thesaurus search feature. Great if you’re trying to explain to a child why you can’t use the word happy thirty times in a paper. To access that you touch the thesaurus button and type in the word you want. The “Recent” button will show you all the words you’ve recently searched for. I like this feature because my kids will generally ask me several times for a definition. Depending on what’s going on at the time there’s a very good chance I’ll have forgotten. The recent feature makes it easy to pull the words back up again.  The last button on the bottom of the screen is for “Word of the Day”. Tap this and you’ll see the selected word of the day along with it’s definition. I probably ought to be checking this out frequently in an attempt to sharpen the mind back up.

I like how simple and straightforward this app is. If you find yourself needing to frequently provide definitions more accurate than “That word has too many syllables, go ask your father” this is the app for you.

Price when Reviewed: Free

Available at iTunes

Seller: Dictionary.com

This app is currently on sale for $1.99. It had my favorite calendar feature of all the “period” apps I’ve looked at it. It’s now $2.00 less then it was when I reviewed it originally. To see my original review search iPeriod.

Available at iTunes

I noticed that Illness Tracker now lets you keep track of multiple temperature readings per day, instead of limiting you to just one number. Also the price has gone down to $2.99.

Available at iTunes

I stumbled upon these apps and couldn’t believe what they’re used for. They play various sounds of running water to help you, well you can probably figure it out from their names. The idea of these apps seemed completely ridiculous to me, at first. Then my mom brain got working and I thought that these apps might actually come in handy with potty training. I know that I’ve turned the water faucet on many times in an attempt to “encourage” my kids. Who knew that there’d be an iPhone app that could do the same thing?

* A side note – I did not actually download these apps and give them a test run at my house. I figured that if this app found itself in the hands of my four year old boy we might all be in big trouble.*

*Another side note – you’ll see that I put this post under the category “Entertainment”. Not because I think they’re entertaining apps but because that is the actual category for iNeedaWee at iTunes. ShyBladder takes itself more seriously and can be found in the “Medical” category.”

ShyBladder

Seller: Ben Gracewood

Price when “Reviewed”: Free

Click here to see ShyBladder at the iTunes store

 iNeedaWee

Seller: David Marsland

Price when “Reviewed”: $.99

Click here to see iNeedaWee at the iTunes store

Last night I made a quick run into JoAnn’s Fabric Store during dance hour. I loaded the basket and then pulled out the regular JoAnn’s coupons I’ve been saving up. I also opened up the JoAnn’s coupon on Coupon Sherpa – a great 40% of a regular item. Now my local JoAnn’s has been finicky about coupons in the past so I wasn’t quite sure how the iPhone coupon would go over. But not only did they take the regular coupons – they took the Coupon Sherpa one – no questions asked. I was thrilled to save that $1.79 on my ribbon! I’m a true believer now, you need to check this app out.

For my original review type “Coupon Sherpa” into the iPhone mom’s search or find it in the categories “Apps I Love” and “Lifestyle”.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99   FREE

Seller: Coupon Sherpa, LLC

Available at the iTunes store

Another recipe app, this one brought to you by the folks at McCormick. The recipes featured in this app use McCormick products. It’s a decent enough app but I think I’ve been spoiled by the Betty Crocker Mobile Cookbook. The McCormick Recipe Finder lets you browse through recipes – sorted by categories. You choose a category then choose the recipe you’d like to view. When it pulls up you get a picture, list of ingredients and directions. You can also search the recipes. This feature lets you type in a key word and then the Recipe Finder pulls up recipes that fit your search.

Like I said, it’s a decent enough app but doesn’t come close to the Betty Crocker app. You can’t save recipes to a favorites list, or email them out. There’s no nutritional information and you can’t search by what you’ve got on hand. Still, it’s free, so if you decide to check it out you lose nothing.

Price when Reviewed: Free

Seller: Studiocom

Available on iTunes