The iPhone Mom

Wow!! That was my reaction when I checked out “The Moon Followed Me Home” from Moving Picture Books.The animation was unlike anything I’ve seen in a storybook app so far. The illustrations are beautifully done and they move. There are also great sound effects and music to go along with the story. You can hear the book read in English or Spanish. You can also hear it read while seeing the story’s text. Once you start the app the story will play on it’s own. It can be paused (and then restarted) by tapping the screen. Moving Picture Books has twenty-nine apps in the App Store right now. Each one is only $.99 which seems like a steal to me for the quality you’re going to get with these apps. I highly recommend checking out an app from Moving Picture Books.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

See the app at iTunes – you can also do a search for “Moving Picture Books” and see all of their available titles.

Seller: Moving Pictures Books

I haven’t noticed any trouble with my iPhone since installing the new OS 3.0 but my husband has. He’s mentioned a few times that his battery was draining faster than usual. He forwarded this link to me tonight and I gave it a try as a preventative measure. I just followed the steps outlined in this article and it seemed to work fine. The only thing I noticed was that after my iPhone had been reset my icons were all in different places. Guess what I’ll be rearranging during the kids’ swim lessons tomorrow…

Fix iPhone OS 3.0 Battery Charging Problems

*Update- as I’ve been using my phone today I’m discovering more things that “reset” that I’ve now got to change back. Voicemail greeting, sound settings for texts, etc. So be prepared to do some updating if you go ahead and try out the above fix.

I was hopeful about the UP app because I love Pixar movies. We look forward to a new one each summer and it’s always great to go to a family movie without worrying about what kind of explaining we’ll have to do on the car ride home. My husband and son have seen UP and loved it and I’m planning on taking my girls in the next couple of weeks. But I was really disappointed in the Up app. It just seemed so pointless to me, as if someone decided the movie needed an app for promotional reasons and they just threw it together.

The whole point of the game is to pop as many balloons as you can in forty-five seconds. You do this by tapping on the balloons with your finger. This gets old quickly and your finger gets tired. That’s it, no levels to pass, nothing but a high score to earn and then attempt to beat over and over. Now I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I don’t know if popping balloons is a key plot element, but it seems silly to me that a game about popping balloons goes with a movie where balloons are needed to make a house fly. I’d think that popping balloons would be a catastrophe in this case.

More entertaining than the game are some of the extras that come with the app. You can watch the movie trailer and additional videos or read character biographies. You can also save wallpapers from the movie to your photo album and then put them on your iPhone. But all of that isn’t enough to make me recommend the UP app.

Price when Reviewed: Free

See the app at iTunes

Seller: Disney

I wasn’t too sure about the gFlowers app the first time I tried it out but it has definitely grown on me and my four year old really likes it. The premise is extremely simple but very appealing to little kids. The app begins with a screen of green grass. Tap the screen and a flower will appear. Hold your finger on the flower and watch it grow bigger and bigger. Drag your finger around the iPhone screen and the flower moves with it. Add as many flowers as you want – you can always go back later and tap them to make them grow and move. These aren’t just ordinary flowers either. They have faces that change expressions.

If you’ve got someone in your house who’s around the ages of two or three and you’re looking for an app to keep them entertained I’d suggest giving gFlowers a try. Especially if that someone happens to be a little girl.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

See the app at iTunes

Seller: Jason Booth

The mAdvNote app is for note takers and list makers. It allows you to write notes with the added bonus of being able to add on photos, sketches and voice recordings. As a bonus added to that bonus….it’s a straightforward and easy to use app.

Begin by tapping the “Notes” button at the bottom of the screen and then the plus sign at the top right corner. Now you can create a new note – give it a title and tag. Tap on the gray rectangle on the notepad and you’ll get a keyboard so you can begin making that list. Along the right side of the screen you’ll see some additional icons. The E-mail icon lets you email out the text of your note. Tap the small camera icon and you can add a picture from your camera or photo library. The microphone lets you record a voice note to yourself and the icon with the picture and pencil takes you to a screen where you can sketch. When you’re sketching you can change the color and size of your lines by tapping on the pencil button that appears at the bottom of the screen.

When your note is complete it’ll show up in the list on the main “Notes” screen. Once you’ve written a few notes you can tap the “Search” button at the bottom of the screen. Here you’ll want to enter in a search term. I typed in laundry and the app pulled up a list of all my notes that had that dirty word in them. If you tap the “History” button in the top right corner of the search page you’ll see a list of all your previous searches. Finally, the “Settings” button on the bottom of the screen allows you to sort your notes in different ways.

I like how mAdvNote provides you with different options for your note taking. Are you a visual person? Throw in a picture or sketch. Do you like seeing items neatly listed? Stick to text. Want to hear that grocery list one more time? Record and replay “loaf of bread, stick of butter, carton of milk” to your heart’s content. All for $1.99 – which is a steal if you’ve seen the prices of other note taking apps.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

See the app at iTunes

Seller: MCleaner Team

*A lite version of mAdvNote is available for free but it only allows you to store three notes. Click here to see it at iTunes.

Toddler Match is a simple matching game aimed at kids ages one to four. Six pictures are shown on your screen and your child touches the pictures that match. There are no cards to flip over, the pictures show up from the get go. Pictures could be of food, animals, numbers, letters, etc. When your child touches a picture they’ll hear the name said aloud. When they touch the matching picture the two pictures disappear. Once they’ve made their way through all six pictures a new set of six automatically appears.

This game is very simple and there’s no menu so the kids can start playing the minute the app opens. The pictures are bright and colorful, perfect for keeping a toddler entertained. You can tell the developer behind this one has tested this one out on some kiddos.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

See the app at iTunes

Seller: Jason Booth

Family Car Games is a unique app that is a resource for a hundred different games that you can play on a LONG family car ride. You don’t actually use your iPhone to play the games. Instead you use the app to find a game, read the rules and you’re off without electronics. Refreshing!

The “Shake” button gives you a spinner showing all of the different games. You can shake your phone to choose a game or swipe your finger to get the spinner going. Tap on the name of the app that’s chosen and you’ll see more information about the game including the difficulty rating, number of players needed and instructions on how to play the game. The “Search” button lets you select a difficulty level and then select a game category. Choose the category you want and then tap the blue search button at the top right of the screen. You’ll get a list of games within that particular category. I liked seeing the categories “Keeping the Peace” and “Under 5” for younger players. Again, tap the game you want and you’ll see the general information about the it. “Browse” will give you an alphabetical list of all the games within the app. Here you can also search for them by name. As you’re going through and reading about different games you can bookmark them. Then they’ll show up when you tap the “Bookmarks” button at the bottom of the screen.

I was familiar with a few of the games featured in the Family Car Games but was seriously impressed with the list the Greenwood Family has created. If you’re headed out for a lengthy drive anytime soon and would like to keep your kids entertained with something besides DVDs then check this app out.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

See the app at iTunes

Seller: Todd Greenwood

Thanks to everyone for their comments and entries into the giveaway. Also, a big thanks again to iStoryTime for the giveaway codes. Be sure to check out their apps – (http://cli.gs/4a3SYs)

Here are the winners of our giveaway. Congratulations and thanks for playing!

Kristine – enjoys Urban Spoon

Brett – enjoys Relax

Ashley – enjoys Wheels on the Bus 

Michelle  – enjoys Moxie

There are times when I’m acutely aware that my control over my little kingdom is merely an illusion. So when something comes along that gives me true power over my little people I get a little excited. And I’m absolutely excited about the new restrictions feature in the iPhone OS 3. The good people at Apple have given moms the power to shut down certain content on their iPhones and it feels so good!

To play around with the restrictions tap your “Settings” button and then tap “General”. Now tap “Restrictions”, it should be towards the bottom of your screen. The first time you visit this section you’ll be asked to enter and re-enter a passcode. You’ll need to enter the passcode every time you monkey around with the restrictions. Now for the power. You, my fellow moms, can allow (or not allow) Safari, You Tube, iTunes, the App Store, the camera or the location feature on your iPhone. Just slide the button next to each of these from on to off and they will literally disappear from your iPhone screens. I got rid of You Tube and iTunes. I know I’ll hear from my kids when they try to watch the silly video of the cat fighting with the copy machine but such is life.

Farther down on the screen you can set what type of content you allow. I tapped “Music & Podcasts” and turned off the explicit ones. They will not show up on my phone. You can set ratings for movies, TV shows and apps. Once you’ve set a rating anything that’s rated higher than that won’t show up on your iPhone. No worries though, you don’t have to download all your movies again. Just change the rating and they’ll be right back where they were before. A note- videos that you’ve converted yourself aren’t subject to the ratings restrictions. It appears to only work on content you’ve downloaded from iTunes.

No illusion of power here, iPhone moms have got it now.

The Hazel Mail app lets you create a personalized postcard from your iPhone. You create it and the folks at Hazel Mail will print, stamp and mail it for you. The app is easy to use. Just take a photo with your phone or choose one from your camera library. Then choose a background and shrink or stretch your photo. Type in your recipient’s address and a message then tap the button to pay and mail your postcard. It takes a few minutes to upload your postcard but then you’re good to go. The postcard should arrive within four to seven days.

The Hazel Mail app is free but the cost to send a postcard is $1.50. You can purchase Hazel Bucks on the website for only $1.00 though. When I downloaded the app I received a Hazel Buck which I was able to use for my first postcard. I like the idea behind this app. It’d be neat to be able to send out a unique postcard from whatever exotic location you found yourself in.

Price when Reviewed: Free

See the app at iTunes

Seller: ThinkAmerica, LLC